Does her DH have somewhere to land??

I think that's truly awful for the wife.
To find out that for 15 years of your marriage the person you lived with, loved, shared your life with was miserable but didn't have it in them to discuss that or make changes.

That's almost worse than cheating or no different I suppose - it would definitely make you feel that you had lived a lie & would make you feel just as humiliated really.

Why would anyone here have the faintest idea what the situation is? Maybe he's met someone else, maybe he's just sick to death of his wife. I think it's more common for men to be miserable and keep quiet about it until the point of no return than it is for women. A family friend of ours was in your friend's situation and her husband hadn't met someone else - he'd just been silently unhappy for about 15 years of their 25-ish year marriage, apparently, and she had no idea. It's possible your friend's husband has met someone else. It's equally possible he hasn't.

It's possible but I'm not sure that convincing her that he is would be helpful without proof as relationships can break down very quickly at the start of divorce/separation (lots of people say they will be amicable at the start). I'm sure a lot will come out over the next month. It's strange he doesn't want to separate first and has gone straight in to ending it permanently.

Maybe he's been wanting to leave for ages but has not be able to afford it before without affecting his kids too much financially.

Frankly it's all just idle speculation. I only hope that he carries on being a good dad and that they can both co-parent amicably

Is that why you're trying to work it out?

The big promotion seems relevant! Could he be thinking that he 'settled' with your friend and deserves more? Some people have strange ideas about status and what a 'higher status life' should look like.

Oh, yes, it’s never done honestly and overtly. But they’re always there, in the wings.

Same.

Often they got together with a new girlfriend very very quickly after the breakup and it later became apparent there had been some overlap. Of course, that wasn’t the reason they gave for leaving, it was always the wife’s fault.

Wouldnt be shocked he has someone else lined up.

Would also not be shocked if he has left because he is unhappy with the marriage, he's told his wife the reasons he's unhappy, but she doesnt want to share those reasons with you.

Lack of sex? A friend's husband left her for this reason. She admitted to me that she no longer wanted sex but never thought he would leave her over it.

Same.

So 100% of men are 100% cheating when they leave a marriage? There could be no possibility of anything else at all ever?

So this happens every single time? I would guess 50/50

I know plenty of women who don’t leave a relationship until they’ve got the next one firmly in sight and lined up, and are never single - it’s hardly just men.

Quite. Women post on here all the time that they are unhappy and want to leave even though their partner is a perfectly nice man who has done nothing wrong, they just no longer “in love”. And they usually get told to leave, life is too short to live like that etc etc.

Because, of course, no woman has ever been abusive or had an affair so no man has ever had a reason to leave a relationship unless he's had his head turned.

FFS.

Hello @RhaenysRocks I am here advocating for the men who do exactly what you describe. He was just unhappy. No OW. Maybe I’m “lucky”, maybe it’s less usual. But it DOES happen!! (And no, I’m not the man…)

That's fine if he also says (and does) I'll sort out somewhere suitable and have the kids 50/50 and we'll split the costs equally and I'll do my fair share of dentist appointments and birthday parties and school admin and costume making. ...how many men do you know who actually DO that post split? I do t care how unhappy/ bored /MLC he's feeling, he shouldn't get to just effectively walk out on parenting which is highly likely what he'll do.

I think it happens sometimes.

I also think some men leave for OW and some leave so that they are then free to date & pursue a new relationship.

If that's the case, the man is actually doing the right thing in ending his marriage first but I think to outsiders this looks like an affair because the man gets into a relationship quickly & that's why it seems like so many marriages end in affairs.
If that makes sense?

I spend the majority of my working life with men. I honestly do not know a single one, from work or anywhere else, who has left without someone to go to. Literally never. Oh, they might deny it at first, because of the optics, but in the end? It always comes slithering into sight.
Women? Yes, sometimes, but I also know a fair few who left for someone else.
I also have a weirdly good radar for affairs, I can always bloody tell. Saw BIL a few weeks back and after an hour in his company, I just knew. Discussed with DH who went mad, said I was mental, he’d never do that. Saw him again recently and after a few drinks, he confessed. I hate being right!

You can still leave someone if you’re unhappy, and your child is 8.

I think ‘he must be having an affair’ is just sometimes more palatable than thinking someone just genuinely doesn’t want to be with you.

Yeah, I call bullshit on this whole "every man I know who's left a marriage has been having an affair, thus every man who leaves a marriage is having an affair" line.

I'd like some hard numbers from them - how many divorced couples do they know? In how many of those cases do they actually know the ins and outs of what happened (not counting second-hand gossip or a one-sided narrative)? I flat-out do not believe that number is above, say, 20 for your average middle-aged person. And I'd wager it's more like single figures. Which is certainly an insufficient data set to be basing any universal claims off.

My 2 kids are 8 & 11. My DH wasn’t happy. No OW. The separation was a shock but I missed some signs (in hindsight). It amazes me how so many mumsnetters think this just isn’t something that happens in real life.

(And yes I’m 100% sure no OW because of our post split set up/he has barely has time to fart for years, let alone date!)