“I am being divorced” or “She won’t give me custody, or visitation” or “She took all the money out of our bank account” or “I am locked out and can’t go back to my own house. I need a place to stay, and a lawyer that will work for free” or “She’s taking the kids to Mexico, can I stop her?” or “I’ve just been served with papers at work, I can’t go home!”

We usually get the call shortly after the initial shock hits a man. It’s the surprise in the caller’s voice when I speak with them that always gets me. “How can she do this to me?” “I never believed she’d do this!”

Here’s what it comes to. ‘The risk was real, great, and undeniable. I ignored it completely, and I got caught. Now I need someone to work like heck to bail me out, and to do it for free.” It sometimes seems the delusions never end. “Lawyers that work for free!” I love that one. Yes, there really are such things, but they are not waiting around for you to need them. They’re buried already. Let’s face it, how hard would you work to bail out that guy whose home burned down in that neighborhood we described above? How hard would you work for that, and for free?

Day after day, these calls come in, and I take some when Randy’s away. I want to fix it for you, but only the two of you can do that. Once it comes to a battle, it’s gory!

As the story unfolds, I learn some of the background ideas that have brought the caller to this moment. Here is what some have told me.

• I can stay out late, and not call.
• I can come in drunk or high, and smelling of another person.
• I can shout at the kids and punish them for little to no reason, or outright abuse them.
• I never had to pay any consequences for all this!
• I am actually a candidate for sainthood!
• I still don’t believe they would ever do this to me.

No, they didn’t use those words, but that is what they told me. So, of course, they are totally unprepared. Well, here is the sad, hard truth that my year at the Men’s Center has taught me.

• Free lawyers are about as available as free Cadillacs. It happens, but seldom!
• Getting full custody, if you are a male, is about as likely, or maybe less so.
• The truth is, you are heading into a long, expensive, ugly, difficult, and losing battle.
• Battles that will likely continue till all the children are emancipated.
• Yes, sometimes it doesn’t work that way. But that’s not because you have a better lawyer, or more money.
• In fact, the more net worth you have now, the more it will cost you to separate.
• The only easy way out is not to make her angry.
• I don’t think there is a cheap way out.

I have never thought much of prenuptial agreements, because I see them as planning the divorce. Frankly, with divorce so ubiquitous, they are starting to make good sense to me. There is a group doing amicable divorces, Collaborative Divorce, that stay clear of the courts, and oh yes, you want that! But we don’t plan it, instead we lie to ourselves that we can do as we please indefinitely, and they’ll just take it!

I sometimes think it might be a great idea if the back of the marriage license included the divorce agreement, and the license wouldn’t be issued without it. Now, that wouldn’t stop them all. There are men who think they can live with a partner, possibly have children, and walk away totally free any time they want to. Those days are long gone, and the long arm of the county can even reach out of the country. “Uncoupling”, apart from the high emotional cost, is rapidly becoming a huge monetary obligation as well. I guess our society is tired of paying for the wreckage we leave behind. You need “fire” insurance!

As far as I know, you can’t inexpensively buy divorce insurance, but you can plan. It sounds awful, doesn’t it? Still, there goes another house, right next door. It never will be yours, will it?

For the majority of us, it is not going to work out as we plan while we hold our person of choice in our arms. For this large group of us, prudence at least would suggest that some planning for the afterward is in order. For instance, you will need at least $10,000 for a relatively simple divorce. And no matter how carefully you squirrel it away, half of it belongs to your partner, so maybe you need twenty grand. And if they can get their hands on it before you do, you can kiss it all goodbye. It’s the beauty of a joint account, you see. I know there are exceptions, and that same-sex marriages are treated differently NOW, but that is not what you are pushing for, is it?!

I suppose this sounds very cynical. And yes, I am divorced. In my own case I lost it all, but I had it coming! I got just what I deserved. Even so, I don’t think it hurt any less for that. And I know it cost more! Along the way I have found three “laws of living” in my time on this earth. And this article is not about the afterlife, just the aftermath.

1. There is no happily ever after!
2. Nothing is forever!
3. We are NOT condemned to repeat the past; and still we do!

I am not going to tell you how to plan. I am not saying your union will fail. I do know I don’t want to be talking to you next. But, if I were to take any union at random and bet on it surviving even another ten years, I would want four to one odds. What odds would you want? Think about it!

Ray Clare is a volunteer working in the Men's Center Office.