Oh what a great Dad this man is

"In sickness and in health" as the wedding vow says, few get married nowadays so no longer relevant or expected I guess. Thanks for thought provoking article, in the main it seems men are fair weather partners!

Wonder what they'd say if the roles were switched and the man was raising the children while the woman went off to the woods for months on end to find herself.

When I have my sons, we like to watch documentaries, but they’re teenage boys so they also have their own interests.

Hhmm. Odd sentence.

I don't see a problem with it... apart from that a man can usually afford (not economically) to have his space . whilst its rare a mum can do this, separated or not. I so find men can just float off and allowed to do their own thing when they're struggling but a woman/mum rarely can.
Im a woman. If i was separated, same circumstances,and didnt see my kids much due to that, id live off grid...away from people...ideally.

I read this as action man type with some serious issues feels need to push himself to the physical limit, has heart attack at 37, feels even more vulnerable so goes to even greater extremes to prove how manly he is, wife already sick of him so no great loss to her as he's been an absent dad all along, likes to pretend his kids matter to him but doesn't do anything practical to raise him. Pretends to be very simple and cave man like but still adopts modern trappings albeit very simple like a tin can, metal water bottle and dried mangoes, still could get killed by a wild animal for no good reason seeing as we long since worked out caves weren't the best place to live. Final punchline to his simple life joke is that he's actually a YouTuber.

I think you'll find that already happens, and people just accept it.

Also from the Guardian .

But that same study showed that when partners leave, it’s normally men. One study from 2009 found the strongest predictor for separation or divorce for patients with brain cancer was whether or not the sick person was a woman. That same study showed that men were seven times more likely to leave their partner than the other way around if one of them got brain cancer.

To be fair his kids are teenagers and his job anyway had him away for months at a time, so I don't think that's a problem.

This is funny though, from someone who rarely sees their family and lives away from communities: "Ancient humans focused on family, community, and the natural world, and I think we can learn so much from that."

are they bagpipes under his arm?

I thought that might be arrows.

It reads to me that he and his wife were already separating and that was part of motivation for going to live in the wild.

don’t really see what’s wrong with this.

Never click on the G out of protest ( and I was a subscriber for years) but….

are they bagpipes under his arm?

That has nothing to do with what a typed and what I typed was hardly serious anyway, you evidently missed that.

But thank you for forum and tone policing, I hope Mumsnet pay you well. 😋

Or, put it another way, of a bloke left his wife just after she'd had a heart attack... He'd be every name under the sun.

I suggest you possibly read about who leaves their spouses and to what extent after a serious diagnosis before you say this again. It makes you look a bit foolish.

This is like something out of Private Eye's 'Psueds Corner' which always has at least one Grauniad quote.
His wife's likely better off without him I reckon.

Only the Graun could publish such po-faced drivel about “finding yourself”. His ex-wife must have been delighted when the stone-table making, cave-dwelling father of her children deigned to pop back to the 21st century to spend time with their children. Thank God for YouTube, eh? He can still earn a living 🤦‍♀️

He had a heart attack.
He worked as a survivalist instructor and was in the marines until 2011. Survivlist instructors and marines aren't known for being home bodies, I'd imagine the wife was used to him not being around.
After his heart attack, he went to the woods for weeks at a time and came home for weeks at a time as part of his recovery.
His boys are teenagers, hardly 3&5.

I fail to see your outrage.
Man who lived away for months on end continues living away for weeks on end and their relationship breaks down after several years.

Or, put it another way, of a bloke left his wife just after she'd had a heart attack... He'd be every name under the sun. 🤣

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2200337/Why-DID-Naked-Rambler-choose-nudity-children-Wife-eccentric-freedom-fighter-plea-clothes-on.html

Its was the same with the naked rambler man. He was an absentee father who paid not a penny for his children but people loved him. In Hebden Bridge people held a naked protest in support of him! madness.