Is Divorce in Europe That Different?

Over at Adventures In Keeping House a few days ago, Sanne put up a post Men vs Women where the original post got diverted in the comments, as often happens on the internet. It became a discussion on the Mens Rights Movement and sites like Return of Kings. Then a commenter calling himself "theexpertdeveloper" wrote this:

"Read some of the stories on the Community of the Wrongly Accused web site and weep. Too many men have had their lives ruined by divorce-rape. They have lost access to their children, the homes, cars and incomes were taken away. Many men now live in flop houses with winos after a particularily nasty divorce settlement."

Sanne replied:

"The expert I live in Europe and I have yet to meet one man ruined by "divorce rape". In fact, they all seem to do relatively well and quickly embark upon new relationships. It can be different in America, I won't argue that point since I don't live there."

When I read that I was shocked, was divorce in Europe really so clean and clinical? Was it really so very different to divorce in the English speaking world?

I would really love to hear from European men, it doesn't matter what country your from, regarding your experience of divorce.  

In the English speaking world law is adversarial, with lawyers appearing for both sides before a judge and arguing or presenting their clients case. In Family law there are no juries unlike in other law courts.

I would like to tell you about divorce in Australia, while I have never been married I do however have some stories to tell all of which happened to men I personally know.

If a women wants to keep the house all she has to do is accuse the man of domestic violence, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. Because the Police will remove him from the premises straight away. He will be served with a restraining order which forbids him going near the women, any children, the house and all of his belongings. She is now in physical possession of the house and he must find new accommodation, all of which will work in her favour when it all goes to court.

A former boss of mine wasn't even married but he was living with the women in question. He purchased a block of vacant land with the idea of building on it and selling the built property. He was required to upkeep the block and while that wasn't expensive it was time consuming. The women decided to leave him, but it doesn't end there. She engaged a lawyer to take him to court, she wanted half of the property. Now she had never put any money into the block and she very rarely went to the block, but when it went to court she was awarded half of the block and he had to sell it and hand over half of the money.

In a custody dispute the ex-wife accuses the ex-husband of sexually abusing their daughter. He was never charged let alone convicted because it was rubbish. But it did destroy whatever civility had existed before that point, so now the ex-wife could tell the court how aggressive and angry he was at her and that it would be too dangerous for their daughter to be in his custody. It worked, she got sole custody.

I know a women who worked as a Police officer and at one point she worked in a sex crimes unit. She told me that most of her work was investigating Fathers accused of sexually abusing their children by, yes you guessed it their ex-wives. She said to me that nearly all of it was wrong and that there was rarely anything criminal let alone any sex crimes. It was all very demoralizing for her, as like many people who go into that line of work she wanted to help people and instead, she was interviewing what seemed like an endless line of men who had been wrongly accused. Why were all these men being accused? It was all about custody battles, not just the law but a tactic designed to demoralise the men so they give up fighting in the courts.

I know another man who's wife left him for another man, she took their two children and moved far away so it was physically hard for him to see his children. She also tried to demoralize him but this time it was a little different. He mentioned in passing that he had visited a lake by himself. An anonymous caller contacted Social Services and told them that he had visited this lake, that he had visitation rights this weekend and that they feared that he might harm his children, in other words that he might murder his children in the lake. He received a visit from the Police and he had to go to court to prove that he was not a danger to his own children. The court said, he was never charged let along convicted, but the court still said he had to be supervised when he saw his children just to be certain. After six months Social Services said that they were no longer interested in his case as everything seemed alright. Thats a pretty high price to pay for mentioning that you'd visited a local beauty spot.

So when I hear that divorce in Europe is different I am extremely suspicious. Are there no vindictive women in Europe? Are there no biased Judges? Does Feminism have no sway in Europe courts? Are property rights so finely balanced that no man has to fear? Is every ex-wife happy to share custody?

As I said earlier I would love for European men to tell me what their experience of divorce was like. Is it so very different?

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