Complications of delaying divorce

My divorce becomes final on May 14th.  It should have happened a few years ago, but nothing can change what's done; it's simply important that we move forward.   However, I would like to point out one complication that may arise from delaying a divorce too long.   Reasons exist, and I don't want to go into them; the important thing to learn from my experience is whatever you do, don't delay.  Get it done.

After we decided to break up, my ex-wife ended up getting together with another man.  She had two sons by him.  Because the way states write family law, courts tend to consider them a "product of the marriage", even though there's no way I could have fathered them, and their mother freely admits they're not mine.  The separation agreement says they aren't mine, and my ex is not asking for support for her sons.  However, the court is now asking for DNA evidence that the sons aren't mine.

Say what?

Let me repeat it, because it bears repeating: my ex is not asking for any support, and the separation agreement clearly states that the boys are not mine, but the court wants DNA evidence to prove it. 

So...who pays for the test?  It's going to be up to me.  I had no part in the production or the raising of these children, and they live with their mother and father, but I am going to have to pay for a DNA test to prove the boys aren't mine.  

What's the reasoning here?  It makes no sense to me.  

In any case, I'm doing it and getting it over with so we can follow through with the dissolution on May 14th, but the idea of it has me boiling.  

If I had my head together when she asked for the divorce, I could have ended things with my ex in court before she had the first boy, so heed my advice: do whatever you have to do to make your divorce happen quickly.  Don't get caught up in "product of the marriage" nonsense--you could actually get stuck paying for support for children who aren't yours.  Ohio seems to care about paternity, but not all states are the same--some will not care who the father is, as long as the husband has an income.  

What matters most in life

As I experience the pain of another kidney stone passing, I reflect on what's important in life.

People think we're special.  We're miracles.  That some entity created us special and cares about what we do.

This pain makes me think otherwise.  Even if I had not examined the sources of the myths regarding this entity--and other, similar entities--I would call into question the notion that a being, allegedly perfect, had intelligently designed us with such flaws as creation of painful kidney stones.

Then there's children with cancer, parasites that devastate whole populations, birth defects and congenital conditions that debilitate, and neurological conditions that last a lifetime and affect quality of life adversely, or at least making intensive therapy necessary.

I don't blame the entity, because I don't believe it exists.  I don't blame some man and woman who allegedly lived in a garden paradise and ate from some magical tree.  I don't blame deities or the "sins" of man--I only recognize life as the struggle it is.  Life is full of pain and work, and you'll experience plenty of both before you die.

But then there's happiness.  There's love.  There's silliness. There's beauty for all senses to experience.  These are the important things in life, and these are the things that make bearable to live, that make it desirable to live.  We persevere because even though life is pain, struggle, anxiety, and all sorts of negative things, it's also the things that make us smile, laugh, tear up with emotion, and feel needed, wanted, and important to at least one or a handful of other people.  

I live for these things.  I live for the love of the woman in my life, my child's laughter, my mom's unconditional love for me, her adopted son.  I live for the friends who value my opinion and my company.  I live for the people I barely know who compliment me on my relationship and my writing.  

So I sit here in pain, smiling. 

Why it bothers me to say I'm an ally

I had a thought yesterday that's been nagging at me.  I've been called a "straight ally" before, and I've called myself the same, but yesterday, I thought it sounded like I'm in some other class of people, and I don't have a stake in the fight for civil rights for people with sexual orientations and gender identities different from mine.

I have friends in my life who don't have the same rights I do.  I do have a stake in this fight, because the fight for civil rights involves the happiness and well-being of my friends.  If they have to go through hardships and discrimination, the resulting turmoil affects me, too, because I care about them.  I care what happens to them, and when they can't do the same things I can because some people believe that the way they love is a "sin", it saddens and angers me.

Let's say someone I've known for ten years has a same-sex partner who gets in a tragic accident.  That partner ends up on life support, and the friend of mine can't make the decision to pull the plug because he's not the spouse, and he hasn't jumped through the legal hoops necessary to be in a position to make the decision.  That's not fair at all--especially if family comes in and makes a decision contrary to the wishes of my friend.

We don't have to go to extreme examples.  There are tax benefits to marriage.  There are legal benefits.  Credit benefits.  A person better versed in all of the rights one can't have because one cannot get married can give a large list, I'm sure (I've heard it's around 250 items long), but the point is that these are things people can't do because other people--people who aren't affected by the relationships at all--believe that legislating what they believe to be a "sin" is appropriate.

Anyway, call me an "ally" or whatever, if it suits a purpose, because not everyone who has had their rights denied is a personal friend, of course, but I'm on their side anyway.  However, I'm more than that.  I do have friends who are being denied the rights I enjoy, and, as a friend, I want to see them treated equally under the law.

How do you know when it's love?

I didn't think that I would find love in my life.  I thought I'd found an approximation of it when I got married the first time, but hindsight has taught me that it was more a relationship of convenience, and less something based in love.  

So what is love?  How do I know I've found it?

Here's what the dictionary says about it:

love

  [luhv]  Show IPA

noun

1.

a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

2.

a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.

3.

sexual passion or desire.

The dictionary has these definitions separate, but I think they all fit together.  When you have a tender, passionate affection for another person, when you have a warm personal attachment, and when you have sexual passion and desire for an individual, you've found love.

How do we tell love from strong infatuation, though?  A person could feel these things, but not really be in love; it might just be a strong, fleeting, desire that feels like attachment.

Here's how I recognized my current relationship for what it is:

• I was happier than I'd ever felt in my life.  Again, could be a sign of infatuation, but I'd never felt happier.
• I could list reasons I felt the way I did, rather than describing a general, nebulous feeling that  couldn't be defined. 
• Nothing was awkward.  Not our conversation, not our first kiss, not the first time we had sex, nothing.
• Her passions interested me, whether or not I shared them completely.
• The "chemistry" was there.  Looking into her eyes triggered deep emotion.
• I went out of my way to make time to talk to her and see her.  I did everything I could to make sure I kept getting together with her, and she did the same with me.  More so, even, because she drives to my place a lot more often (it just makes sense for us right now).
• We were incredibly sexually compatible.
• We were both contributing to the relationship in lots of different ways, and the efforts we made didn't feel like effort at all, even when we were making sacrifices to see each other and do things for each other.  
• She's constantly on my mind.  Still, six months later, my every decision involves thoughts of her.  

I define what we have as love.  If love can't truly be defined, let's call it incredible compatibility, resulting in intense pleasure and prolonged happiness.

How to stop marijuana from being a gateway drug

The anti-drug campaigns tell us that marijuana is a gateway to other drugs.  This argument sometimes even takes the form of a slippery slope fallacy, asserting that marijuana consumption inevitably leads to consumption of other, "harder" drugs.  Plenty of people will argue that the majority of marijuana users will stick to marijuana, never using other drugs, but there's an effective way to reduce the chances of drug users ever having such a gateway.

Legalize it!

The main reason marijuana users have access to other drugs now involves the nature of the drug trade.  Dealers will sell what makes them profit (not all, but many), so they will offer other drugs, such as LSD, ecstasy, heroin, cocaine, or meth.  As such, those who are willing to experiment with other drugs will have the access to them.  If legalized, marijuana will be sold in state stores, dispensaries, and possibly grown at home, depending on how the laws for it are written.  Legal outlets will not risk their business by offering drugs that remain illegal.  Also, the chances that marijuana will be laced with other drugs (it is sometimes laced with cocaine or formaldehyde) become vastly reduced.

Legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes, as Colorado and Washington have done, creates a revenue stream for the state, but it also stops the practice of making criminals out of non-violent drug users.  Furthermore, it takes away an income source for opportunistic criminal enterprises.

It would be interesting to study how much reduction in use of harder drugs takes place in Colorado and Washington over time.

Life as it stands right now

In six days, my current relationship will be six months old, and it's going strong.

Anyone who has followed this blog from the beginning knows I was married, but I haven't really talked about the end of that marriage and what's happened since.  I could write about what happened between the time I met my fiancee back to the time my ex decided she wanted a divorce, but it's in the past, it's not going to change anything, and things are going so well right now, I don't want to dredge up the negativity.  To summarize briefly, we had terrible marriage counseling, I immersed myself in gaming, had a lot of deaths among friends and family, let things get a bit out of hand, finally regained control of my senses and finances, and figured out that I was better off without her.  It was just me and my daughter for awhile, then I moved back to Ohio from Michigan, near my mom.

     A few months after I moved, I met Jeanie in a mingling group on Facebook, and we found love.  We fell quickly and deeply, and it continues to grow stronger.  There are so many reasons we're together, but one of the points of compatibility is that she has a son on the autism spectrum.  He has Aspbergers.  Knowing the signs of autism, I could tell when I met him, but if people don't know, they just think he's a goofy, quirky, funny kid.

    Anyway, it's awesome enough that Jeanie and I get along the way we do; we have been told we inspire people to find true love, and we absolutely enjoy each other's company.  We both agree that we've never been happier.  I've never laughed more or harder, never had more affection or passion, never had so many reasons to love someone as I do Jeanie.  But the fact that her son and I hit it off is a huge bonus.

     I've taken him to the store with me a few times and once to get a haircut, and we've gotten to talk and laugh together.  He embraced me on the first visit, and he enjoys sharing jokes with me.  I helped him with his computer, as well, and he wants me to teach him programming.  Jeanie says it is not each for her son to get attached to strange men, but it happened pretty quickly with me, and I love the kid.

    My own daughter hit it off with Jeanie, though she does have problems with breaks in her routine, and we've had some issues when Jeanie was staying at my place the first few times.  When we went to Pennsylvania before that, she loved Jeanie right away, and got along with her very well.  Now she looks forward to the visits from Jeanie and her son, and asks when they're going to be over.  The aids at her school tell me that she talks about them all the time, excitedly.  Caitlin really wants to move to Pennsylvania, and she said it the first time we were there.

      Having a woman in my life who understands the autism spectrum and is such a great advocate for her own children is a huge benefit to our relationship.  It's not why we're together, but it sure makes life easier.  Jeanie has been great about looking into autism resources in Pennsylvania for Caitlin already.

     Jeanie has a daughter, as well, whom I've met, but I've not had much opportunity to interact.  She's a brilliant girl, into art and language, and I think we'll be fine.  It's hard to relate to people when you're really smart, so having someone else who is on her level around the house will be a welcome change, I'm sure.  Eventually.

     Anyway, I'm head-over-heels, crazy in love, and I've been riding that emotional high for almost six months now.  It's been wonderful.  It's done wonders for my outlook on life.  She makes me a better person.

   

Can we stop it with the attacks on foreign aid that distract from the real budget issues?

A meme has permeated social media that complains about many of the issues the poor (though slowly recovering) economy has caused, then blames foreign aid.  I understand the gut reaction, but most people don't realize that the defense industry has basically become a welfare program for executives, shareholders, and workers who remain involved in obsolete programs that simply haven't been cut from the budget.  The jobs remain open for political reasons, not because they should exist.

There is a tank manufacturer that produces war machines that will never see the battlefield.

Aircraft manufacturers make jets that will never reach a combat zone or see any other kind of action.

About twenty percent of the American work force has its employment tied to the defense industry, and the dollar amount dwarfs the foreign aid budget.  In terms of the total budget of the Untied States, foreign aid is a drop in the bucket.

Nobody complained when a similar amount that goes to foreign aid was re-routed by executive order from HUD (low income housing) to the remodeling of churches whose congregations couldn't afford to remodel.  Worse, a similar amount went to clinics meant to mimic Planned Parenthood, but were really propaganda centers for the anti-choice crowd, where women were encouraged to continue unwanted pregnancies and give the resulting baby up for adoption.

Furthermore, with reforms to the for-profit health care industry, Medicare would cost the country less money.  Profit in health care makes the cost 25% higher than it would be otherwise, because we pay executive salaries and pensions, not to mention dividend checks we pay the shareholders.

So your foreign aid complaint?  It's a gut reaction based on a lack of education of the real budget issues we have.  It also marginalizes the diplomatic advantages of that foreign aid.  Some of it is downright stupid, I'll admit, but in many cases, we give that aid in exchange for trade deals, mineral rights, and strategic military advantage, not just to give it away.

I haven't provided links to real numbers to back up what I say, but I welcome any corrections to things I've stated here.  I've researched these issues in the past, but I wanted to vent and provoke thought more than I wanted to spoon feed people statistics.  Sue me.