Tages Anzeiger from June 12, 2007
Next Sunday is Father's Day. Then husband and fatherhood come to the fore. Men want to remain good fathers even after divorce. But that's not always so easy.
Just as mothers receive flowers and poems of gratitude for their motherhood at least once a year, men are now demanding appreciation for their fatherly commitment: the first Swiss Father's Day will take place next Sunday. The special day was launched by Mannes.ch, the forum for men, emancipation and politics. The day is intended to motivate fathers to be active fathers because raising children is a job for two.
Divorced fathers in particular often suffer from the fact that they can no longer properly live their role as a father because they see so little of their children. In most divorces, the court awards the children to the mother. Although joint parental custody is possible, it requires agreement from both parents. In 2003, 26 percent of parents agreed on shared parental custody. So if a woman doesn't want to, the man loses out. This position of power for women is fraught with conflict, especially when the man earns the money. It is not uncommon for maintenance contributions to be traded for children's days.
Who has parental responsibility decides
Even if fathers have visitation rights according to the divorce decree, many only see their children very irregularly after the divorce. And this is often involuntary, because some mothers use all means to torpedo the visits and because the authorities often watch this behavior clumsily and without sanctions. Helping with post-divorce conflicts is not that easy, especially if one or both parents are not willing to do so and do not realize that their behavior is harming the child. Ultimately, they believe they are acting in the best interests of the children.
The risk of breaking off contact is great. It's not just the fathers who suffer, but above all the children, even if the mothers don't always see it that way. It is particularly drastic when the mother tries in court to suspend the father's visitation rights without any understandable reason or with the help of a made-up reason. The court orders a complete abolition of personal contact “if the detrimental effects of personal contact for the child are within unacceptable limits”.
If a mother simply alleges that the father does not take sufficient consideration of the children's interests and will, this is not sufficient reason to have the visitation rights revoked. It is also not enough if the children refuse to see their father. And especially not if they refuse to see the father because the child's mother has a negative attitude towards the father.
Fathers demand equal treatment
The required change to the current divorce law in favor of joint parental custody is not a solution for parents who are engaged in a merciless post-divorce conflict. Shared parental custody may be beneficial for a large number of parents who, despite the conflict, are able to focus on the real well-being of their children with the help of experts and advice. It would at least do justice to committed fathers. A lot would have been done for their sense of justice if the court would, as a rule, leave responsibility for the children with both parents and thus not judge the fathers' sufficient parental competence. With this solution, custody would only be left with one parent in exceptional cases, and this would not necessarily have to be the mother.
The dispute is not just about the children, but at least as much about the amount of maintenance contributions to the ex-wife and the duration of the payment obligation. Many men do not understand why their wife cannot work after a divorce, especially if the children are already of school age. They forget that care before and after school is very important.
Personal responsibility for both
Our divorce law places the personal responsibility of both spouses at the forefront. However, the husband may be obliged to pay alimony to the wife (or husband) because of a need that arose during the marriage. One such example could be the lived division of roles: “Man works, woman stays with the children”. Men also find it difficult to pay alimony to their ex if she has a new partner or if she was the one who wanted the separation because of another man.
Hurt, pain and anger cannot be compensated for in numbers. A divorce agreement can be more or less fair, but can it also be fair? It is aimed at the moment of divorce. What is striking is that, according to a study by the Swiss National Science Foundation, almost half of all divorced fathers feel disadvantaged when it comes to paying alimony. Conflict-filled divorces often have a lasting impact on men's health. Does a man whose wife leaves him for someone else consider the obligation to pay alimony for three years to be fair? Hardly likely. Many men also find it difficult to divide pension fund assets as required by law. Men in particular who have experienced the classic division of roles in marriage find this division offensive. If both parents work alongside childcare, the pension fund assets are balanced. This means that the woman also has to share the assets she acquired during the marriage with her partner. This type of role division offers another advantage: If the man spends a lot of time with the children in everyday life, there is a greater chance that the woman will agree to shared parental custody in the event of a divorce
By Ruth Eigenmann