All about perspective

This is our family blog and you know our typical blog posts focus on Ryanna and Q with the occasional opinion based post like the last one. I am posting this comment from my last post because some people were interested in this topic and I would guess would be interested in the following perspective.

I want to preface my comment by saying that I don't want to take away from Maralee's plight and the terrible injustice that has been served to her. It is truly a terrible situation and, because of my personal situation, I don't understand how it happened. But I would like to try to adjust the attention a bit from "mother vs. father" to "justice vs injustice" by describing my situation, which I believe is, unfortunately, very common.

I was married for 20 years and during that time until the last 3 years, I was able to provide for my family financially, primarily with my income. Eight years before my divorce, my ex-wife decided that, because our children were older, she would start working part-time to bring in a little extra income. In short, she was put in a situation by her employer that lead her and her "boss" to commence having an affair. When I found out about this, her summer job was just ending, so I thought it possible we could overcome her "infidelity." When the following summer rolled around, she informed me she was, again, going to work for the same employer working, again, alone with the same "boss." Because of her strong will, I felt I was unable to do anything about the situation. She had this same summer job for 5 years. God only knows what else occurred during this time.

After this time, I was laid-off from my job, so it was necessary for my ex-wife to find full-time work. So as not to drag this on, during the 9 months it took for our divorce to become final, I found out she was "dating" her "boss" of this new job for nearly the 3 years she worked there. During the last year of our marriage, she spent every Sunday with him, without (at the time) my knowledge. They also went on several "business" trips together, by themselves.

My point of this is that, even though she was unfaithful for the last 8 years of our marriage, admittedly committing adultery, and doing everything in our divorce settlement to make me look like the "bad guy," she was awarded custody of our 2 minor daughters. Why? Because in Utah, a father has practically no chance in he?? to get custody of his children, regardless of the situation. Ok--I still get my visitation--right? No. N-o.


I totally agree that the mother has the most loving and nurturing influence with the family's children. As it should be. But the mother can also have the most damaging and unjust influence. In 3 years and 4 months, I received NO legal visitation and paid 100% of my child support, even while unemployed for 1 1/2 years.


I admit my comments here are quite brief, and don't explain the full scope of my situation, but I would like to say that I feel I did everything I could for my family, financially, temporally, and spiritually. I also did what I thought I should, to keep our marriage together. But because of selfishness, this wasn't to be.


My biggest regret is the time I missed with my daughters, particularly through their teenage years. And I also regret the relationship I should have had, had my son not become estranged from me for over ten years because of his mother's and grandmother's negative influence.
 
I want to say, again, that Maralee's situation should never have occurred. I am still just baffled by it. But I have learned from my own situation that the justice system often fails those who have been faithful, true, and responsible in their actions. I have learned that those that sit in power over us are just as human and just as susceptible to the same evil temptations and selfishness as everyone else. (BTW, the judge that oversaw my divorce was disbarred 2 years later for years of illegal drug use and having several adulterous affairs.)

I just want to point out that injustice in marriage and divorce is rampant and happens to the best of us--mother or father.

I wish Maralee the best and would do anything I could to help her and her family with her situation. My (new, sweet) wife has known her family for many years and has the utmost respect for them. Thanks to anyone that read this.
 
Back to me, Kristin. It is obvious that the moral compass of many leaders, judges, and average Joe's in the world is far from "moral". The injustice described above as well as the injustice of the mother losing her children based on income is a direct result of our society replacing morality(choosing right over wrong, good over evil) with entitlement. Like in the case above the mother gained custody of the children simply by being the mother. Her adultery and consequential divorce holding no consequence in access to the children whose lives she has eternally disrupted and in some cases destroyed at least temporarily. So no consequence for the parent whose actions caused the most harm to the children's security but the ultimate price to pay for the spouse who had no desire to break up the family. In the one case the mother gaining custody based solely on her status as "mother" and the other case a father gaining custody based solely on his 6 figure income. The reason this issue deeply disturbs me is because cases like this have the potential to set the precedence for future cases of a similar nature. What could that mean for stay-at-home mothers and their financially uncompensated full-time gig?