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The Forum > Article Comments > We haven’t come a long way baby at all > Comments

We haven’t come a long way baby at all : Comments

By Melinda Tankard Reist, published 16/3/2007

We have to acknowledge the tragic truth: the movement for women’s equality, in many ways, appears to have failed.

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ronnie, "marriage we must never "walk away" without exploring every way of staying together" - I have mixed feelings about that.

Many people do seem to walk away too easily. Any relationship breakdown comes at a cost especially where kids are involved.

From the other side I've known people who would not walk away when a partner left, who have managed to make a bad situation worse by refusing to accept what had occurred.

I'm not sure of this but my impression is that a significant proportion of muder suicides where a former partner is killed are situations where someone won't let go.

Likewise too much pressure to stay can be harmful to people in abusive relatinships.

I don't know the answers to how society can get that balance right. People need to be able to get out if their partner is abusive, they need to let go if their partner leaves but a committment also needs to mean more than convenience.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Thursday, 26 April 2007 7:38:16 PM
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The reason I posted the link and the comments above was to show you that your words have influenced me. I come to OLO and usually write off the top of my head. Analysis doesn’t need a text book response if you can deconstruct the argument or opinion presented. However, I do endeavour to present an argument of my own when needed.

Often like you I have mixed feelings and am ignorant of the troubles others have endured. So I’ll state how I feel to see if someone can inform me better. It is an opinion forum –isn’t it? Sometimes my ego gets in the way and it's hard to admit reconsidering. But I do.

I still am probably at odds with you on certain things. Nevertheless, the reason I posted is to show that you have influenced me somewhat. I am a bit pressed for time and that makes it difficult to get too heavily involved.

If you think I’m ignorant about the lot of divorcees, the opinions in most men is naff. But then maybe there is a bit of bravado there to hide the fear of such a life-changing situation.
Walk Away
Written by Dropkick Murphys

So you say you fell in love and you're gonna get married
Raise yourself a family, how simple life can be
Somewhere it all went wrong and your plans just fell apart
And you ain't got the heart to finish what you started

(chorus)
The ones that you loved
The ones that you left behind
The ones you said you'd try to find
Are they trying to find you

You walked out that door to find out where you belong
To fulfill your own selfish dreams, I think you might have forgotten
The ones that you loved.

I actually posted a poem which was the “distraught dad’s” version of this (similar chorus). A mate of mine, who is mentally ill, just nearly killed himself after a breakup. He got into amphs and grog which he knew would react with his medication and shoot him down. It must hell to face divorce.
Posted by ronnie peters, Friday, 27 April 2007 2:23:35 PM
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RObert I meant to post this first. The song is about “deadbeat dad’s” who do walk away “too easily” to “follow their own selfish dreams”. Nothing to do with physically abusive situations. Pay attention please.

Since I’ve read your posts I come to realise that this also applies to “deadbeat mums”. So, for instance, when I watch that video, the context is reframed and, for me, a de-gendered interpretation is considered.

However, no matter how much it bothers you, divorcees, or “masculinists” who figure excuses for the male gender - men do “walk away” more often than women. This seems to be because men are more mobile and less committed to child raring and/or more responsible for creating income and hence more susceptible to opting out. For instance: a male can up and leave when things get tough like if his wife gets pregnant or he didn’t realise the commitment involved, whereas, the woman is usually bound to stay. Even, if the male stays, he can follow his dreams and not consider the wife’s aspirations. Present - but absent. Alone together. It happens.

As far as abuse goes, once a man raises his hand to a woman or visa versa it is time to get out, break the cycle, do the marriage guidance and all that.

I think cultural change (education) is an important part of the process. For instance: I read somewhere (anti-feminist discourse) that taking the kids to a park is seen as this heroic task. For God’s sake it is but part of normal fatherly behaviour. We need to reclaim fatherhood from the macho boofheads.

If I have my head around this correctly, men like yourself and other divorcees feel aggrieved that they a lumped in with the “deadbeat dad” group who “haven’t the heart” to follow through with their responsibilities. These are the kind of men that I think give all us other males a bad name amongst women and are the kind that feminists rightly rile against. Men need to honour parenting as the normal and wonderful experience that it truly is for a father.
Posted by ronnie peters, Friday, 27 April 2007 2:30:47 PM
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Dr Kubler Ross studied the process of grief, and for Ronnie I learnt about this long before the internet became available for information. I think I still have her book somewhere.

There are 5 stages, denial, anger, bargining, depression and final acceptance. The process of dealing with grief is individually different and the time frame varies from individual to individual.

Now Ronnie, you say that is easier for men to walk away.

Have you ever asked these men and really listened to what they are or are not saying?

In the past I have known guys who were alcoholics and they left their families because of the destructiveness of their drinking. The one's that I meet, later would say that they regretted the decisions that they made.

My own brother's wife told him that she didn't love him anymore and asked him to leave.

He has attempted suicide, he even mistakenly believes that if he was to move across the otherside of the country, life would be better and he could get on with his life and it would make the pain easier to deal with.

He is so angry and in so much pain, he thinks that by cutting off the source of that pain it will make the pain go away. The only trouble is that it just doesn't work like that.

He finds even having contact with his son extremely painful and being around my brother is like waiting for a bomb to go off. Added to this is that our parents died relatively close together about two years before his marriage ended.

Yes I think I doing well especially as someone once put it "that I am not normal and have aspergers."
Posted by JamesH, Saturday, 28 April 2007 10:06:42 AM
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JamesH said: “ Yes I think I doing well especially as someone once put it ‘that I am not normal and have aspergers.’"

You’re clearly implying I said that. It is a direct and malicious deception.

I said: “ You got personal with me once that was outside the bounds of normal behaviour. I even considered whether or not you were an aspergers sufferer.” I also said : “Use your intellect wisely.” So it is clear that I was referring to your apparent inability to recognise the normal social cues (a problem that aspergers sufferers must deal with). They have a reason because their behaviour is mostly beyond their control - you don’t.

I also said: ” Any man (that’s you JamesH) who attacks another’s family and then hasn't the decency to apologise like a real man must be so dysfunctional and bitter he doesn't even realise it.” (My parentheses added). Now you conjured some insult-loaded theory to attack a seventy-five year grandmother who you’ve never met because you disagree with her son’s qualified support for feminism. That’s dysfunctional behaviour.

Also, you irrationally tried to lay blame (and guilt trip) for a suicide of a distraught dad on me. This person proved to be unstable. That you couldn’t see that had the unstable person been given family contact it may have been a multiple suicide suggests to me that you aren't thinking clearly. You need to realise that some things are earned - good logical and sensible behaviour is how you earn parenting privilege. You refuse to apologise for your attacks on a pensioner,for God's sake, so I’d have to say that your behaviour is not well intentioned nor honourable.

The OLO moderators also thought your personal attacks on this wonderful pensioner were wrong and deleted your post. Not only that, there is the way you supported and encouraged the deplorable behaviour of Happy Bullet et al. HB was also deleted for offensive behaviour. Now it takes a lot to get deleted on OLO so you were way outside the bounds of sensible normal discussion. Do the right thing.
Posted by ronnie peters, Saturday, 28 April 2007 3:04:03 PM
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A note to Christ and everyone else.

A long time ago an old digger showed how a real man behaves. I disagree with a lot of numbat’s opinions but respect til my dying days numbat. What a true fella. What a great example of honourable and decent behaviour. I just love this man's character.

rancitus:Whatever I meant to say you perceived that I insulted and demeaned you for that I apologise. Furthermore I had no right to call you what I did again please accept my deepest apologies.
The above has not changed my views on boxing and I think lesser men fight and even lesser enjoy seeing a bloke being bloodied, beaten and humiliated.
Yes I did box when I was a boy, it was at the local Police boys club. Yes I did win and even then for me to "win?" I had to beat and humiliate another boy. So since then I have eschewed boxing yet again I was an army Sergeant and learned un-armed combat and bayonet fighting. That seemed different as I was training to kill my countries enemies. Yet I now see it was perhaps not at all different, yet if I were young enough I would be a part of our nation's armed forces. Maybe I am a poor twisted wrinkly, but I am what I am for better or for worse. numbat
Posted by numbat, Sunday, 28 May 2006 3:44:26

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4497#42523
Posted by ronnie peters, Saturday, 28 April 2007 3:21:33 PM
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