I think this is a definitional thing. I’ve known marriages that fell apart because one person grew up and the other didn’t–where one was either chronically unemployed or underemployed, and who spent a great deal of the household’s money on their own hobbies, bad habits, or toys. Generally speaking, you don’t describe that guy as “refusing to support his own kids”–you think of him as “failure to launch” or “has problems with depression” or “deeply immature”. The OP seems to be treating the effect–kids unsupported–as a motive or goal.
For the person that suffered the ‘failure to launch’, would you say they fell on the autism spectrum? I’ve met people that have the potential to be perfectly decent human beings, but get so engrossed in hobbies and stuff that they really lose sight of what their obsessions are doing to the people around them. They don’t seem to be able to relate to other people and how their actions affect others, which causes a lot of strife in marraiges/families.
I wasn’t thinking of any one particular person. I don’t think it’s that uncommon-there are people out there that just don’t get the idea that they have to make a living, contribute, produce. They resent it, or blame someone–their parents, their partner–for “nagging” them. I think a lot of marriages manage to work around this, assuming there are other good parts, until there are kids, and then the situation isn’t really sustainable anymore–it’s easy to freely sacrifice your own resources to support someone while they find themselves, but it’s different when you have to sacrifice your kids’ resources and have begun to see that this is how it will always be.
There are people like this of both genders. When it’s the woman who is like this, I think there is less resentment because both partners may well be operating off the idea that financial support, especially, is the man’s job. But no, I don’t think it’s autism. I think it’s just immaturity.
Did you talk to your friends’ ex-wives?
Not directly related to the OP, but…
Back in the day, Mammahomie worked for Illinois Department of Children & Family Services, in the Child Support division. She told me that she had several cases of men with 6- and 7-figure jobs going on welfare in order to avoid giving their exes so much as a dime.
Alimony, sweet alimony.
In quite a few cases my friends WERE the ex wives. How unwise of you to assume I was looking at this only from the perspective of men.
Please answer my question. Where is the evidence? How do you know this? You claim it’s one of “the most common causes of divorce.” Prove it.
Hahahahaha. Good one. 
(asking** NWH **for a cite. Hilarious)
I would suggest this ha less to do with the desire not to co-parent etc., or a pre-nuptual plan to stick it to the woman; more to do with an incredibly vicious divorce proceeding where the response to (perceived) excessive support request was “bitch, you’ll get nothing from me.” Nothing beats a divorce for nastiness; immaturity on either or both sides doesn’t help.
It’s not that the father hates the kids, the breakdown has just made him incredibly nasty toward the mother. If the kids take the mother’s side (who’s feeding them the propaganda?) they may be collateral damage.
There was a case about 20 years ago where some major league player sat out the season to avoid paying a large alimony, IIRC. The judge said that was deliberate and awarded the ex a huge settlement anyway.
Judges nowadays have this discretion - if the spouse is perceived as deliberately under-earning to reduce support obligations, the judge may assess the person based on perceived earning potential. As I said before - you can’t get ahead; the deck is stacked heavily against someone trying to shirk child support.
No need for propaganda or brainwashing when something like that is going on. It really harms the kids when the parents hate each other more than they love the kids.
This. It sounds like the kind of thing I’d say now, and I’m a 36 year old single father, so I obviously have no plan to actually do it. It’s just a funny thought. Kind of like I told a friend I can’t wait until my daughter is 18 so I can date her friends. That’s gross and creepy and I couldn’t even stand to be around an 18 year old, but I said it because it was funny at the time.
Can you tell me more about these live-in maid/sex partners? I didn’t realize they were so widespread and I’d like to get on that bandwagon.