Post by Jim on Feb 28, 2009 9:27:48 GMT -5
Book Excerpt: 'A Promise to Ourselves'
I never wanted to write this book. Although my experiences with judges, lawyers and court ordered therapists during my own high conflict divorce proceedings left me outraged over the injustices I believe are endemic to the family law system in our society, I had no desire to revisit them.
The pain I suffered, the fear of and anger I felt toward nearly all of the principals involved and the inescapable sense of helplessness and isolation exhausted me. However, to live inside of the divorce matrix, to be engaged in that battle, ultimately means to be poised to tell your story, to make your point, to argue your side at a moment's notice. It is a fire that is constantly burning.
These feelings moved me to share my own experiences with nearly any kindred spirit who broached the subject. In restaurants, ticket lines, airplanes, men's locker rooms, wherever I might be, when that particular conversation started, the facts of my own case would spill out in a torrent. Other times I would sit and listen for hours, grateful for the opportunity to allow someone else to unburden themselves. I could never tell my story urgently enough, and I never tired of the subject of divorce's iniquities. I believed that a book on the subject would write itself.
Eventually, that would change. The passion I had for this issue dried up. The ideas and stories, once so fresh in my mind that I thought they would pour out of me and onto the page like a Pollock painting, began to fade. For three years I had told my story, each recitation as fresh as the first.
But, any normal human being has a limited capacity for ongoing conflict, and I believed I had reached mine. I have heard people use words like "spent" and "hollowed out" to describe the ultimate result of protracted divorce litigation. Sadly, I have learned that little of this is hyperbole. Divorce litigation becomes like the island of Dr. Moreau in H.G. Wells' novel. The abused and horrified litigants want to row their boat away from that island at any cost. I was no different.
I wanted nothing more than to put this entire experience behind me and get on with my life. I had grown weary of writing this book, until I would meet another man who had suffered the same way I had. Suddenly, the old passion to address these issues would return.
Divorce litigation is a unique phenomenon in our culture. When someone is sick, our society usually offers some means of care. Often, that care extends to their families, as well. The sick individual reaches out to professionals who arrive with their skills and training at the ready, prepared to solve the problem.
When illness afflicts a marriage however, the professionals who arrive on the scene often are there to prolong the bleeding, not stop it. To be pulled into the American family law system in most states is like being tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged down a gravel road late at night. No one can hear your cries and complaints, and it is not over until they say it is over.
Early in my own divorce proceedings I came upon men who told me that the corrosiveness and complexity of their divorces had forced them to give up. They "wrote off" not only their first marriages, but their children as well. Many went on to remarry. The chance to "make things right" meant starting another family. I could never, ever comprehend how a man could abandon his child in this way. However, as my own proceedings went on, and the recriminations became more severe, I began to appreciate these men, and some women as well, better than I imagined possible.
I have sat with men whose hearts are filled with love for their children. Before their divorce there had never been any doubt of that love or their abilities as parents. Then divorce lawyers entered the picture to do what many of them do best; to destroy an innocent parent's reputation and their bond with their children. Therefore, lawyers, along with ineffectual judges who do little to curb such destructive forces in American family law, are a principal focus of this book.
Family law in most states has become its own preserve, one in which litigants come and go, while the principal players remain the same. Those players, not the families whose fates are determined by this system, are the ones who profit from protecting the status quo. We have, I believe, a system designed to line the pockets of these principals.
READ MORE:abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=5814332
I never wanted to write this book. Although my experiences with judges, lawyers and court ordered therapists during my own high conflict divorce proceedings left me outraged over the injustices I believe are endemic to the family law system in our society, I had no desire to revisit them.
The pain I suffered, the fear of and anger I felt toward nearly all of the principals involved and the inescapable sense of helplessness and isolation exhausted me. However, to live inside of the divorce matrix, to be engaged in that battle, ultimately means to be poised to tell your story, to make your point, to argue your side at a moment's notice. It is a fire that is constantly burning.
These feelings moved me to share my own experiences with nearly any kindred spirit who broached the subject. In restaurants, ticket lines, airplanes, men's locker rooms, wherever I might be, when that particular conversation started, the facts of my own case would spill out in a torrent. Other times I would sit and listen for hours, grateful for the opportunity to allow someone else to unburden themselves. I could never tell my story urgently enough, and I never tired of the subject of divorce's iniquities. I believed that a book on the subject would write itself.
Eventually, that would change. The passion I had for this issue dried up. The ideas and stories, once so fresh in my mind that I thought they would pour out of me and onto the page like a Pollock painting, began to fade. For three years I had told my story, each recitation as fresh as the first.
But, any normal human being has a limited capacity for ongoing conflict, and I believed I had reached mine. I have heard people use words like "spent" and "hollowed out" to describe the ultimate result of protracted divorce litigation. Sadly, I have learned that little of this is hyperbole. Divorce litigation becomes like the island of Dr. Moreau in H.G. Wells' novel. The abused and horrified litigants want to row their boat away from that island at any cost. I was no different.
I wanted nothing more than to put this entire experience behind me and get on with my life. I had grown weary of writing this book, until I would meet another man who had suffered the same way I had. Suddenly, the old passion to address these issues would return.
Divorce litigation is a unique phenomenon in our culture. When someone is sick, our society usually offers some means of care. Often, that care extends to their families, as well. The sick individual reaches out to professionals who arrive with their skills and training at the ready, prepared to solve the problem.
When illness afflicts a marriage however, the professionals who arrive on the scene often are there to prolong the bleeding, not stop it. To be pulled into the American family law system in most states is like being tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged down a gravel road late at night. No one can hear your cries and complaints, and it is not over until they say it is over.
Early in my own divorce proceedings I came upon men who told me that the corrosiveness and complexity of their divorces had forced them to give up. They "wrote off" not only their first marriages, but their children as well. Many went on to remarry. The chance to "make things right" meant starting another family. I could never, ever comprehend how a man could abandon his child in this way. However, as my own proceedings went on, and the recriminations became more severe, I began to appreciate these men, and some women as well, better than I imagined possible.
I have sat with men whose hearts are filled with love for their children. Before their divorce there had never been any doubt of that love or their abilities as parents. Then divorce lawyers entered the picture to do what many of them do best; to destroy an innocent parent's reputation and their bond with their children. Therefore, lawyers, along with ineffectual judges who do little to curb such destructive forces in American family law, are a principal focus of this book.
Family law in most states has become its own preserve, one in which litigants come and go, while the principal players remain the same. Those players, not the families whose fates are determined by this system, are the ones who profit from protecting the status quo. We have, I believe, a system designed to line the pockets of these principals.
READ MORE:abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=5814332
How to get the book:
www.amazon.com/Promise-Ourselves-Journey-Through-Fatherhood/dp/0312363362/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235831575&sr=1-1
