Erosion of trust is the root of all Divorce impasses.

guest post by  MH

I am a man who for the past year has been personally enveloped in a contentious disputed divorce initiated by my wife. In recent weeks I have met and spoken to several men who for one reason or another are refusing to give their wives a religious divorce, effectively creating a religious equivalent to, self-directed and self- imposed civil contempt.

What I personally learned early on in the divorce process is that when a woman today asks for a divorce, what they are really trying to accomplish is to divorce from the husband not only themselves but their children, property and future earnings. In the secular courts a man has no voice, with a few lies and twisted truths a woman can easily accomplish her divorce, effectively reducing the man to visitor status (often supervised) in his children's life and financial ruins.

The question begs how the situation erodes to the point where a husband refuses to give his wife a religious divorce?

The answer can be summed up into three words “erosion of trust”.

Jewish law dictates that a man does not have to give his wife a divorce just because she demands it, this is a power and property given to man by G-d and no one has the right to question G-d. If we chose to be religious then we chose to abide by G-d’s laws period!

There are situations where a legitimate Beis-Din can try to coerce a man to grant his wife a divorce but it seems legitimate Rabannim are scarce, the laws regarding those situations are very strict and the correct lawful coercion methods are very limited and mostly ineffective.

A common theme among all the men I have spoken to whom are in this (Agunah \ civil contempt) stalemate situation, have all with their own words and stories described to me a similar process. They were all forced unwillingly to travel a path in the gender biased secular courts that systematically and effectively destroyed them personally whilst simultaneously eroding any and all trust in their wives to the point where they can no longer trust them at all. Just like the civilized world has learned that we cannot negotiate with terrorists, trusting their wives has  become impossible much akin to terrorists.

The secular courts open door policy to all women especially to the orthodox women that they see as repressed, creates a state where once trust has evaporated a man has almost no other alternative other than to use the one G-d gave him.

The deeper a man proceeds into the bowls of the corrupt, skewed and gender biased secular courts, the more the trust erosion proceeds uninhibited. There is a point during this process that I have termed uncivil-divorce critical mass, once that point is reached there seems to be almost no way to return and trust has probably gone for good.

Without trust negotiations are futile. Without trust there is no point in arguing because without trust the wife is viewed as a terrorist and therefore any and all attempts to negotiate is futile. If a woman has tasted the sweet waters of the secular divorce court very little can be done to stop her from returning even after mutually agreed settlement's.

The solution to all these divorce stalemates on both sides of the sexes is to prevent the erosion of trust before it can even begin and in the cases that it has already occurred to try and fix the trust breach before attempting to negotiate or mediate a settlement.