Good article, this is vital to the future of society.
There are many reasons a marriage breaks up, but a reason I have seen many times is sheer selfishness. A woman (not a man) is able to initiate a break-up, then be awarded the house, the children, and a large enough maintenance payment to prevent the former husband ever being able to support another family.
This amounts to the state bribing women to divorce.
A woman of weak character whose marriage is not as happy as she imagines it could be can be easily tempted by this.
The children are automatically given to the mother, but what message does it send to the children seeing betrayal and disloyalty rewarded like this? Are the children really better off?

The article makes much sense and it is yet another call to limit the damage being done by those who have a take it or leave attitude to marriage.

Mirko, I liked your article very much. The concept of loyalty is to seldom talked about. I did have concerns about differentiating between the garden variety things and the big stuff.

"The “garden variety” betrayal (such as where one partner has a deficit in terms of their contribution to house work or the bank balance) should be left in the garden."

Before I proceed further I would like to make it clear that I am very strongly opposed to infidelity within relationships where that infidelity is not mutually agreed so I am not supporting people cheating on partners.

I do suspect that often the garden variety betrayals can add up to something far worse than the big ones. A willingness to use another person for your own ends, demanding loyalty whilst returning none can be extroardinarliy destructive of the other person. What proportion of indifelity is the result of people seeking intimacy that they are not getting in a dysfunctional relationship?

Likewise during my own marriage breakup I would have little confidence in my ability to be more convincing than my ex to strangers regarding our respective contributions to the breakup/failure of the marriage.

In my view my ex is an expert at playing the suffering victim. Given the level of gender bias I have seen in the implementation of family law (and surrounding services such as Relationships Australia, C$A etc) the thought of an external party trying to determine fault could have been even more damaging than the process already was.

On the DV front, never excusable but should we differentiate between those who were hit because they tormented a partner until he or she cracked and those who suffered abuse at the hands of someone who hits because they think it is OK?

I have no easy answers to either. I would be concerned if we start seperating out particular behaviours from the context of the marriage.

R0bert

I've been taking anti-depressive tablets for years, especially after, the 'part time waitress' de-facto Ex, employed a Lawyer to get what she could, after starting another relationship.
I have worked permanently since 15yo and weekends to earn an 'average wage’, her and my female lawyer agreed to her demands of;
Her maintaining Custody of our children, only 1 night p.w. at my place. Half my large Superannuation in CASH {no tax or waiting till 65}.More than half of Assets {the house valued at over inflated 2004 prices},all regardless of my mortgage repayments and contributions.
The Govt's relationship's centre's will not fix anything when ;
"No-Fault" separations teaches No Accountability to women, it provides Judges with a "easy norm" to be bias in favour of women and makes Lawyer's very rich by escalating conflict,who of these 'professionals' cared or asked about honesty or loyality;
NO-ONE !

Mirko

Thank you for a very timely and balanced article. Loyalty is such a precious concept, and a precious life principle which is rarely talked about these days. Good on you.

Thank you to all previous posters.

Cheers
Kay

neither marriage, nor pre-marriage classes will teach people 'loyalty'. we need a much more conprehensive change in culture, not just things written on paper.

loyalty had long been admired by many cultures. sometimes to extremes. no-fault divorce was introduced because the requirement to prove fault was leading to some people either being trapped in abusive relationships or finding their partner manipulating a fault cause to allow them to get out - and take a large slab of the marriage property with them.

the issue of people bouncing from bad relationship to bad relationship is not solved by trapping them in the first bad relationship. that was the reason for no fault divorce in the first place. we need to actually put some time and effort into learning relationship skills. as a culture and a society. that can only be achieved by making it a social norm that every person who expects to be considered and treated like and adult actually *is* an adult.

too many people move from their teens into their twenties and on without growing up. marriage and divorce is not the place for us to be enforcing behavioural standards that are not expected anywhere else. it is too late to hope that couples will have mature relationships by putitng them through a couple of tedious sessions on stuff they probably assume they already know.

blaming lawyers is unfair. we don't cause your relationships to fail. it is not our fault if your ex got a lawyer and you didn't. blame is easy. *doing something* to resolve *your own* problems is *your* responsibility. once it's left to us, all we can do is apply the law, in light of what you give us to work with.

loyalty, like any other social value, is socially constructed. people are not lacking in loyalty. they're just not loyal tothe things and in the way you might like them to be loyal. we're loyal to our client's interests. that's our job, and out ethical responsibility.