I made this comment on Hmmm That’s Interesting, but it also works here. Thank you so much for pointing this out, I’m so scared of the ripple effects.
I work with SA and IPV survivors. Whenever something like this happens, my friends invariably say, “thank God I live in a blue state!” and I scream, “family court is THE SAME in both you do not understand what is coming”. They say I’m being dramatic, but they aren’t (yet?) trapped in a pregnancy with an abuser who can now limit their movements, the jobs they take, their ability to make money- things abusers in blue states do regularly. One client of mine couldn’t take her kids to their grandmother’s funeral 10 miles away because she needs written permission to take her kids out of state and the dad refuses to provide it. Another client hasn’t kept a steady job in years because she has no family here, can’t afford a nanny and her ex dicks her around on dropping off and picking up the kids so she has to leave work early so often it’s crushed her career prospects. I can give SO many examples in Colorado alone that it isn’t funny. The movement to reform family court isn’t getting the attention it needs from feminists right now (or ever, honestly?); with Roe gone, unless we have personal experience with family court we don’t understand just how bad things can get. Let me tell you- this timeline is SO much bleaker than anyone understands right now. We still otherize abused women rather than see that it absolutely could happen to any of us.
I love this comment with my whole heart even though I know it comes with a background of witnessing pain.....thank you for it! Would you mind if I emailed you about it? I'd love to find a way to highlight this in the newsletter.
I would love to know more about this even though it will be scary and horrifying. Thank you Lyz for working on a way to highlight this in the newsletter. And congratulations on the second printing, that’s well-deserved awesome sauce.
One thing I didn’t know until I started working in a child support agency is that all of the federal regulations stem from the “welfare reform” of 1996. The government decided it would not be responsible for taking care of kids and families, so it beefed up the authority to collect money from noncustodial parents (including both parents when a child is in foster care).
What utterly INFURIATES me is that these awful, thoughtless, cruel, discriminatory laws are promoted and passed by stuffy, hidebound, ignorant, ill-educated old white MEN. Alas, I'm a few months shy of my 90th birthday, but if I was 30 I'd become a politician and fight these fat old bastards with every ounce of strength I'd have. Meanwhile, the battle has to be waged by younger, smarter people — and thank YOU fo going into war against these foolish, foolish people...
I would love to talk more about state laws that require onerous waiting periods for divorce. I am waiting on my Virginia divorce to be finalized. But, since my husband and I have a minor child, Virginia requires us to be physically separated for at least a year before we could file for divorce. Luckily, I live in Northern Virginia, where judges allow couples to “start the clock” on the one year while still living under the same roof, as long as they can have separate bedrooms and bathrooms. In practice, this is what it has meant for me:
Late 2021: I tell my husband I am miserable and I can’t “do this” for the rest of my life. He goes into denial.
Mid-2022: I finally say “divorce” out loud. I agree to try couples counseling.
Late-2022: the couples counselor is like “yeah, this can’t be fixed” and I meet with a divorce attorney
Late-late-2022: we physically separate while living in the same house: the one-year clock begins!
Mid-2023: he (finally) moves out. We sign a separation agreement that outlines shared custody and how we will split finances. We separate our finances.
January 2024: my attorney files the paperwork with the courts. SIX WEEKS LATER the courts still haven’t acted on the papers so we are still, today, legally married.
So, almost TWO YEARS after telling my husband that I wanted a divorce, I AM STILL MARRIED. Part of that is because I wanted to try to make the separation/divorce as amicable as possible, so I played along with couples counseling (even though I had already made up my mind) and also because I wanted to avoid going scorched earth on splitting our finances and assets (he graciously agreed to NOT make me refinance our current 3% rate on the mortgage, which was nice of him!). But a lot of it was because of the dumb VA requirement that parents of minor children separate for ONE YEAR before they can even FILE THE PAPERWORK to process the divorce.
You don’t go to sleep one night in a happy marriage and wake up the next day asking for a divorce. If I’ve learned anything (and I realize I am preaching to the choir here) it’s that it’s like that quote about bankruptcy: it happens very slowly and then all at once. By the time a couple has articulated their need for a divorce, there is no need for an additional waiting period.
Also: we married in the same locality in Virginia in which we filed for divorce. No waiting period and the marriage license cost $25. The divorce came with a 1 year+ waiting period and has cost over $4,000 (and counting!) in legal fees.
Also, Lyz, I should say: your writing was such a gift when I was struggling to admit to myself that what I needed to do was ask for a divorce. It was so scary. Growing up I only knew a handful of people who were divorced, and it was all BAD. Now, I can count on one hand the number of my peers who are divorced (and one of them, her ex fathered a child with his mistress while she was pregnant so everyone is like “of course she got a divorce!”). In short: getting divorced was NOT something that “people like me” (liberal, overeducated, upper-middle class/wealthy white women) did. So thank you for your work and helping me articulate what I was missing and realizing I was never going to get it and that maybe divorce wouldn’t be so bad. And you know what? YOU ARE 100% RIGHT that it is easier for me to be a 50/50 parent now! The weeks that I have my son? I am focused on him. The weeks he is with his dad? I am focused on me. It has definitely made me a better mom.
As an update, just heard from my lawyer: I AM OFFICIALLY DIVORCED. Of course, there was a ONE WEEK delay in the motion being posted (??) so I am just finding out about it now. Classic.
As soon as I saw your timeline, I knew it was Virginia lol. Same same same. I would love to write more but this post is public and I've learned my lesson on that one.
My husband started reading my copy before I did last week! I'm not a fast reader anymore so I'm only about 4 or 5 chapters in, but my recurring thought as I'm reading both this and the book: my individual, specific marriage only works because my individual, specific husband truly believes I am a whole, full person and treats me accordingly. All evidence points to this being a rarity. (And yep, if/when this marriage ends I wouldn't chance it again.)
As another of those individual, specific husbands, I 100% agree with your comment. One of the reasons that Lyz's book (and Substack, and columns, and podcast) speaks to me is that it crystallizes many discussions my wife and I have had about making our shared responsibilities more equitable. I've stepped up tremendously from where we were eight years ago when our first child was born, but I am aware that my wife still carries more than her fair share of the mental load - appointments, reminders, etc.
Something that has always rankled my wife is when people comment on our arrangement on how lucky she is to have found someone like me, or that I'm "one of the good ones." It's not that she does not appreciate what I do, but that bar is *so low* for me to be receive this praise.
You can lose your rights even if you aren’t married. See my comment below about family court…the ripple effects are gonna be so batsh*t in ways we arent thinking about yet.
I feel like Lyz could just copy/paste this post as an automatic response the next time she gets a angry email from man-children on her audacity to recommend divorce.
It seems so telling that the majority of the comments on the WaPo article (at least the ones I read before I was sick of reading them) are men defending themselves. Like no one was asking you to prove you're a great partner? And without hearing from your actual partner how are we to know anyway? Men tell on themselves so much it's embarrassing but not surprising.
Lyz! So excited, just saw your article in the Washington Post! Going to go in tonight and read ALL the comments, very happy for you. You tapped the motherlode.
Well Lyz I’m here to tell you there are a few men who have nothing better to do all day than to respond negatively to each and every woman praising your book. Two were Rockmebaby and pro science who must have spent the whole frickin day in the comments. No worries though, the women were all like “Hold my beer” Lots of love and I feel seen.
I shared with a friend that no-fault divorce is also a bodily autonomy thing, like abortion access and trans affirming care access. At first they didn't really get it and then I pointed out that no-fault divorce means a person (a woman) can end a contract she doesn't want to be in that keeps her in proximity to the person who is abusing her without having to state or prove that there is abuse. She is free to walk away.
Their mind was blown.
Anyway - it's all always about bodily autonomy! Once the line is crossed that some people get to decide how to live their lives and where to live their lives, all manner of human rights abuses open up!
If the supremes of Alabama really cared about personhood they would recognize that all persons, especially children need the medicaid denied to them by the government of Alabama and other states governed by the gop.
Louisiana, always in a race to the bottom with Alabama and Arky, does not require pregnant women to stay married. It does require a separation period of 6 months if there are no children, and a year if there are any minor children. Am betting someone will argue that being pregnant requires the year wait, due to fetal personhood.
Yes, though you can file immediately upon separation to seek child support or individual use of a home or car, etc. Then you have to wait a year from the filing date, not the separation date.
I promised myself to come back at the end of the day and read all the comments. I had to scan because there were so many and there were a couple of guys who must have spent the whole day on here responding negatively to women supporting what Lyz said thereby making most of her points. I see you Rockmebaby and pro science. There were many men who said they were in perfectly blissful marriages of many years. I’d like you to put your wife on the phone please.
I am going through a divorce in Missouri. When I saw "are you pregnant" question on the divorce form I about vomited in my mouth. Luckily I am not pregnant. And if I were, I would travel to end it. It has never been about babies and families with these republican ghouls. It's about putting women back in caves and keeping us tied to a stove. Fuck these people. Vote BLUE no matter who.
I made this comment on Hmmm That’s Interesting, but it also works here. Thank you so much for pointing this out, I’m so scared of the ripple effects.
I work with SA and IPV survivors. Whenever something like this happens, my friends invariably say, “thank God I live in a blue state!” and I scream, “family court is THE SAME in both you do not understand what is coming”. They say I’m being dramatic, but they aren’t (yet?) trapped in a pregnancy with an abuser who can now limit their movements, the jobs they take, their ability to make money- things abusers in blue states do regularly. One client of mine couldn’t take her kids to their grandmother’s funeral 10 miles away because she needs written permission to take her kids out of state and the dad refuses to provide it. Another client hasn’t kept a steady job in years because she has no family here, can’t afford a nanny and her ex dicks her around on dropping off and picking up the kids so she has to leave work early so often it’s crushed her career prospects. I can give SO many examples in Colorado alone that it isn’t funny. The movement to reform family court isn’t getting the attention it needs from feminists right now (or ever, honestly?); with Roe gone, unless we have personal experience with family court we don’t understand just how bad things can get. Let me tell you- this timeline is SO much bleaker than anyone understands right now. We still otherize abused women rather than see that it absolutely could happen to any of us.
I love this comment with my whole heart even though I know it comes with a background of witnessing pain.....thank you for it! Would you mind if I emailed you about it? I'd love to find a way to highlight this in the newsletter.
Absolutely! Happy to help any way I can.
Btw I’m at mk@fitnessprotection.com
I would love to know more about this even though it will be scary and horrifying. Thank you Lyz for working on a way to highlight this in the newsletter. And congratulations on the second printing, that’s well-deserved awesome sauce.
Ditto. And even if Ms Fleming isn't an American Ex-Wife, get her on the podcast. This is a story that needs to be heard far and wide.
One thing I didn’t know until I started working in a child support agency is that all of the federal regulations stem from the “welfare reform” of 1996. The government decided it would not be responsible for taking care of kids and families, so it beefed up the authority to collect money from noncustodial parents (including both parents when a child is in foster care).
SA and IPV? Sorry to be so dim.
Sexual Assault and Interpersonal Violence (an updated term for “Domestic Violence”.
What utterly INFURIATES me is that these awful, thoughtless, cruel, discriminatory laws are promoted and passed by stuffy, hidebound, ignorant, ill-educated old white MEN. Alas, I'm a few months shy of my 90th birthday, but if I was 30 I'd become a politician and fight these fat old bastards with every ounce of strength I'd have. Meanwhile, the battle has to be waged by younger, smarter people — and thank YOU fo going into war against these foolish, foolish people...
I would love to talk more about state laws that require onerous waiting periods for divorce. I am waiting on my Virginia divorce to be finalized. But, since my husband and I have a minor child, Virginia requires us to be physically separated for at least a year before we could file for divorce. Luckily, I live in Northern Virginia, where judges allow couples to “start the clock” on the one year while still living under the same roof, as long as they can have separate bedrooms and bathrooms. In practice, this is what it has meant for me:
Late 2021: I tell my husband I am miserable and I can’t “do this” for the rest of my life. He goes into denial.
Mid-2022: I finally say “divorce” out loud. I agree to try couples counseling.
Late-2022: the couples counselor is like “yeah, this can’t be fixed” and I meet with a divorce attorney
Late-late-2022: we physically separate while living in the same house: the one-year clock begins!
Mid-2023: he (finally) moves out. We sign a separation agreement that outlines shared custody and how we will split finances. We separate our finances.
January 2024: my attorney files the paperwork with the courts. SIX WEEKS LATER the courts still haven’t acted on the papers so we are still, today, legally married.
So, almost TWO YEARS after telling my husband that I wanted a divorce, I AM STILL MARRIED. Part of that is because I wanted to try to make the separation/divorce as amicable as possible, so I played along with couples counseling (even though I had already made up my mind) and also because I wanted to avoid going scorched earth on splitting our finances and assets (he graciously agreed to NOT make me refinance our current 3% rate on the mortgage, which was nice of him!). But a lot of it was because of the dumb VA requirement that parents of minor children separate for ONE YEAR before they can even FILE THE PAPERWORK to process the divorce.
You don’t go to sleep one night in a happy marriage and wake up the next day asking for a divorce. If I’ve learned anything (and I realize I am preaching to the choir here) it’s that it’s like that quote about bankruptcy: it happens very slowly and then all at once. By the time a couple has articulated their need for a divorce, there is no need for an additional waiting period.
Also: we married in the same locality in Virginia in which we filed for divorce. No waiting period and the marriage license cost $25. The divorce came with a 1 year+ waiting period and has cost over $4,000 (and counting!) in legal fees.
Okay I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Also, Lyz, I should say: your writing was such a gift when I was struggling to admit to myself that what I needed to do was ask for a divorce. It was so scary. Growing up I only knew a handful of people who were divorced, and it was all BAD. Now, I can count on one hand the number of my peers who are divorced (and one of them, her ex fathered a child with his mistress while she was pregnant so everyone is like “of course she got a divorce!”). In short: getting divorced was NOT something that “people like me” (liberal, overeducated, upper-middle class/wealthy white women) did. So thank you for your work and helping me articulate what I was missing and realizing I was never going to get it and that maybe divorce wouldn’t be so bad. And you know what? YOU ARE 100% RIGHT that it is easier for me to be a 50/50 parent now! The weeks that I have my son? I am focused on him. The weeks he is with his dad? I am focused on me. It has definitely made me a better mom.
Also, completely agree here.
As an update, just heard from my lawyer: I AM OFFICIALLY DIVORCED. Of course, there was a ONE WEEK delay in the motion being posted (??) so I am just finding out about it now. Classic.
As soon as I saw your timeline, I knew it was Virginia lol. Same same same. I would love to write more but this post is public and I've learned my lesson on that one.
My husband started reading my copy before I did last week! I'm not a fast reader anymore so I'm only about 4 or 5 chapters in, but my recurring thought as I'm reading both this and the book: my individual, specific marriage only works because my individual, specific husband truly believes I am a whole, full person and treats me accordingly. All evidence points to this being a rarity. (And yep, if/when this marriage ends I wouldn't chance it again.)
As another of those individual, specific husbands, I 100% agree with your comment. One of the reasons that Lyz's book (and Substack, and columns, and podcast) speaks to me is that it crystallizes many discussions my wife and I have had about making our shared responsibilities more equitable. I've stepped up tremendously from where we were eight years ago when our first child was born, but I am aware that my wife still carries more than her fair share of the mental load - appointments, reminders, etc.
Something that has always rankled my wife is when people comment on our arrangement on how lucky she is to have found someone like me, or that I'm "one of the good ones." It's not that she does not appreciate what I do, but that bar is *so low* for me to be receive this praise.
Just ordered your new book for our college library ( librarian here) 💫📚
I had no idea, add this to the pile of ways a woman loses her rights. I wonder why women are so reluctant to marry these days?
You can lose your rights even if you aren’t married. See my comment below about family court…the ripple effects are gonna be so batsh*t in ways we arent thinking about yet.
I feel like Lyz could just copy/paste this post as an automatic response the next time she gets a angry email from man-children on her audacity to recommend divorce.
It seems so telling that the majority of the comments on the WaPo article (at least the ones I read before I was sick of reading them) are men defending themselves. Like no one was asking you to prove you're a great partner? And without hearing from your actual partner how are we to know anyway? Men tell on themselves so much it's embarrassing but not surprising.
Lyz! So excited, just saw your article in the Washington Post! Going to go in tonight and read ALL the comments, very happy for you. You tapped the motherlode.
Tell me ONLY about the good ones.
Well Lyz I’m here to tell you there are a few men who have nothing better to do all day than to respond negatively to each and every woman praising your book. Two were Rockmebaby and pro science who must have spent the whole frickin day in the comments. No worries though, the women were all like “Hold my beer” Lots of love and I feel seen.
I only read through a few of them, and it's an .... experience.
I shared with a friend that no-fault divorce is also a bodily autonomy thing, like abortion access and trans affirming care access. At first they didn't really get it and then I pointed out that no-fault divorce means a person (a woman) can end a contract she doesn't want to be in that keeps her in proximity to the person who is abusing her without having to state or prove that there is abuse. She is free to walk away.
Their mind was blown.
Anyway - it's all always about bodily autonomy! Once the line is crossed that some people get to decide how to live their lives and where to live their lives, all manner of human rights abuses open up!
That's what trans right are about, too.
Right, as you said!
Sounds a lot like your talk last night at CSPS. :)
Well, I did write it RIGHT before I went there.
I'm reading your book and it is amazing, Lyz. Congratulations and well done!
If the supremes of Alabama really cared about personhood they would recognize that all persons, especially children need the medicaid denied to them by the government of Alabama and other states governed by the gop.
Louisiana, always in a race to the bottom with Alabama and Arky, does not require pregnant women to stay married. It does require a separation period of 6 months if there are no children, and a year if there are any minor children. Am betting someone will argue that being pregnant requires the year wait, due to fetal personhood.
Same in Virginia: see my comment above. If you have minor children? One year physical separation before you can file papers.
Yes, though you can file immediately upon separation to seek child support or individual use of a home or car, etc. Then you have to wait a year from the filing date, not the separation date.
5000 comments Lyz, here’s mine
I promised myself to come back at the end of the day and read all the comments. I had to scan because there were so many and there were a couple of guys who must have spent the whole day on here responding negatively to women supporting what Lyz said thereby making most of her points. I see you Rockmebaby and pro science. There were many men who said they were in perfectly blissful marriages of many years. I’d like you to put your wife on the phone please.
Shout out to your book in The Atlantic Monthly.
all press is good press!
That what I say!
I am going through a divorce in Missouri. When I saw "are you pregnant" question on the divorce form I about vomited in my mouth. Luckily I am not pregnant. And if I were, I would travel to end it. It has never been about babies and families with these republican ghouls. It's about putting women back in caves and keeping us tied to a stove. Fuck these people. Vote BLUE no matter who.