Utah Rep.: Women Don't Really Understand Divorce

Getting a divorce in Utah is hard enough as it is, but state Rep. Jim Nielson wants to crack down on divorcing parents by making it even harder to split up. Since 1994, couples in the Beehive state have been required to complete (and pay $55 for) a two-hour divorce class before a court will make their breakup legal. Now, Nielson is proposing legislation that would force couples to complete at least part of the seminar before filing for divorce. This measure seems drastic as it is, but it’s Neilson’s reasoning—that women are just filing for divorce left and right without really knowing what divorce is and blindsiding their husbands—that really raises questions. “The friends that I have that have gone through a divorce, most of the people that I know personally that have gone through that personally are men,” Nielson said on the DadsDivorce.com Internet show earlier this month. “And my sense, at least from the men that I interact with, is that they’ve usually been surprised by the divorce request, by the filing.”