Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 February 2006 06:43:24
Today's snapshot is one in which I illustrate how our (patriarchal) system goes out of its way to try and make people victims, but another way is possible.
We are now moving into the later half of the 90's and as has been explained to Third Party my ex happened to stop loving me and start loving somebody else, (or as I would now possibly put it moved from a relationship where any concepts of love (on both sides) were probably based more strongly on the agape concept than the eros concept to one which involved far more of the eros concept).
The above is what actually happened, but the language and thinking of our culture does not allow for such things, when talking to adults rather than children. We use the language of the following type: "I was the victim of adultary", "He left me for another woman", "I was dumped/ deserted". All of this sets us up for a culture of blame and recrimination which is not helpful and has a negative psychological effect upon people.
I know the laws on divorce have changed over intervening time, but as it was then the legal system perpetuated this. When I was on a low income I had to get the divorce (i) because I could get legal aid and other wise it would have been too expensive, (ii) I could get a divorce on the grounds of adultary - as the victim. I had to state that yes I knew the name of the other person involved but no I didn't want to name her. The fact I had to make this choice is something which just acts to encourage us to stigmatise others and encourages the notion of victimhood and blame, it should always be an unnamed third party. As I understand it whilst no means all but certainly the majority of divorces of this sort involve women as the third party it is just another example of something which has grown up through patriarchy seeking to shame and victimise women.
The next issue is the fact the state seeks to bring division and cause hardship through looking to undermine reasonable agreements that have been made between people. I had to actively fight the system to make sure that the CSA did not get involved. Yes the CSA is required in some cases, but not all. I strongly believe that had I not been bloody minded enough to argue the toss, and educated enough to do it successfully their involvement would have destroyed alot of the goodwill which exists on both sides to ensure Third Party always comes first, and we can communicate in a reasonable way without the need to resort to the legal system.
Talking of which there is an anomally in the whole family court system (which we never used) which wound me up; you can go to court to try and prevent access, you can go to court to try and obtain access, but you have no system to actively encourage access. Third Party sees her dad on a regular basis, and so this is no longer an issue, but there was a time when I would have been quite happy to go to court to try and make sure he saw more of her.
Anyway there you go. In terms of the religion side of things, divorce is now so common inside aswell as outside the church that they are good at it, this is where you find out you get the teaching on the compassionate God. This is v.good, but often again feeds into the victim mentality, through the way it is put forward.
So todays problem, how do we acknowledge these things happen, give people support but not feed into our victim/blame culture which feeds disputes rather than reconciliation (in the South African sense rather than the staying together sense)?