The Dynamics of Divorce 71
these guys were continuing merrily along during the first few
years following their marriage to drink, party, and carouse with
their youthful, exuberant, male-bonded buddies. This behavior
seemed to them to be a perfectly normal carryover from high
school or college, but was beginning to be viewed as childish by
their more rapidly maturing young wives. Several of these guys
didn’t seem quite ready for fatherhood in their early twenties,
and this undoubtedly contributed to some of their problems if
they had kids early on.
Ironically, once these playful and undisciplined young bucks
get divorced, the real world hits them hard and fast. They find
themselves saddled with child-support responsibilities (often
when they are still at their low earning stage and unable to afford
much). Furthermore, their now noncustodial kids are often still
toddlers whom they may visit only infrequently. (The tempta-
tion seems to be stronger on the part of a custodial mom to limit
the dad’s visitation with an infant or a very young child than she
would if the child were in its teens.)
Forced male maturity through divorce? Young men in this sit-
uation are often left in a fairly miserable state. They are often
shocked to find out, too late, that their now ex-wives have sud-
denly begun to place more of a premium on maturity and social
and economic stability in their mates. These young women are
no longer enamored with their husbands’ aging “party animal”
behavior, and may have left in search of a more established and
dependable career man. Meanwhile, the poor jilted young hus-
band has had a tough time getting established financially and
still hasn’t put together a stable career. According to a study by
the Pew Charitable Trust, the median inflation-adjusted income
for a man in his thirties in 2004 was 12 percent lower than it was
in 1974. Statistically speaking, a young fellow at this stage may
well get remarried within the first couple of years following his
first divorce, but only to find that somewhere between 70 to 80
percent of these second marriages follow right along in the failed
tracks of the first.
The divorced younger man may simply have a harder time
putting together the viable life-support system needed to keep a
wife and stable family intact. He still doesn’t own his own home