Men's erroneous ideas of why women initiate most divorces?

[tinsatape]

I've seen a lot of things online recently about how women initiate something like 70% of divorces. I think this is roughly true but a lot of men are framing it to mean that women don't really love men, that they marry for "beta bucks" and once they no longer need the guy around they divorce him, take his money, home and kids and she goes back to playing the field. In this take the guy is a good loyal loving husband who has been blind sided by his heartless wife.

Now I'm not saying this never happens anything is possible but in most cases of divorce that I know of (including my own) it was because the relationship had totally broken down often due to issues caused by the men such as cheating, porn addiction, gambling, drugs, alcohol misuse, abusive behaviour, checking out of family life often through work or hobbies, not doing any domestic work or childcare even though both worked fulltime and it had been discussed repeatedly, misuse of family money i.e. a friends husband burned though their savings for a house deposit to feed his coke habit.

Women tend to be less happy in these situations where her Dh becomes a liability especially where kids are involved or her is less a partner to her and more a burden. Even in cases where both know the relationship is dead the man will often carry on even if everyone is in misery. So women are the one's who take the initiative. Most women do not enter divorce thinking how great it is going to be or that they will have lots of great men beating a path to their door, most women who get divorced know that it will likely be difficult and lonely and that they may never meet another partner but that having a safe peaceful home with just them and their kids is better than living with a man who destroys that with their behaviour or moods.

I did post some version of that to a thread elsewhere, I was careful to make a lot of caveats but it was not a popular post lots of men saying that women do just divorce men for no reason, because they think they can do better or just settled for the guy in the first place and never intended the marriage to last long term, that "divorce rape" is often planned as a way to steal from men and so on. Eventually my post was taken down for misandry!

I do think that online there is a dangerous picture of women being painted and lots of men obviously believe it. There was the mass stabbing in Sydney at the weekend where the man seemed to target women and even if own father said he was very "frustrated" because he couldn't get a girlfriend. I just worry that men who have their own personal gripes against women then go on read crazy ideas about women and it dehumanizes us to them and makes us a legitimate target for violence.

Your post made me think of these words on TT.

I love this.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeHVpn6X/

‘Men can’t believe women are single by choice, because men aren’t single by choice’
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeHVtdhC/

Marriage is better for men then women. Marriage lengthens mens lives and shortens womens (yes yes on average) so men are less likely to blow up what they see as an easier life (unless they have another potential servant on the sideline) whereas women just see how heavy their load has become and grow resentful.

Once they have had children the useless men are of no value anymore unless the are contributing fairly to the household and are present family members. They are just another burden for the wife. It's not shocking at all.

I have a decent one myself so I know they exist but I'm shocked at the constant low (or even high) level of shit some women cope with daily. Im not special, just got lucky with mine. He could have turned after marriage/children very easily and would have been stuck. Easy to imaging longing for freedom once those restrictions lift.

I divorced my H.

He said it was for no reason.

I said it was because he hurt our daughter so badly I called the police.

It's obvious why he isn't telling anyone the real story as it paints him in a very bad light.

I haven't divorced my husband (he is fairly useless but not a bad person) but the extra work and stress his causes is unbelievable!
Mentally and physically it is like dealing with an extra child, he definitely gets the better deal by being married.
Until men as a whole are capable of seeing the massive imbalance in the work loads of married couples I believe and hope more women will choose to stay single rather than lead a life being downtrodden.

Same! ^

Incels are gonna incel.

I'm not sure why we are even trying to discuss whether what they say is evidence based or total and utter self serving bollocks.

I divorced my H, who acknowledged that I “hadn’t been happy with” him for a while. What the poor misunderstood soul failed to mention that I’d put up with over ten years of him checking out of family life; consistently lying about large and small matters; doing things he’d agreed not to and hoping he wouldn’t get caught, and as I found out, having several affairs. If there’s a really tiny violin going spare, can I borrow it please?!

@tinsatape Your post is one of the most sensible I have read on this subject. I completely agree.

My general impression is that most divorces are initiated by women because the men they married are too disloyal or lazy or both.

Over recent years I've seen many people close to me get divorced. In all cases bar one, it was always the woman who initiated the divorce, as in the legal side of it - it just seems to be another piece of wifework admin that ends up on their plate.

However, in every case the man had physically and emotionally checked out of the marriage already.

1. Man admitted he was gay and moved out to live with his male partner.
2. Man was having multiple affairs and using sex workers; wife had to live with him while divorce was sorted
3. Man was having an affair with a teenager; wife kicked him out
4. Man had a baby with another woman and moved out to be with her
5. Man had substance abuse problems, became violent and had to leave family home for children's safety.
6. Man checked out of marriage and parenting; essentially lived his own life in the family home, then one day moved out to a flat, leaving wife, two kids and dog as if he'd never known them.

In all of the above LEGALLY the woman initiated the divorce, but the man caused the end of the marriage.

In the last case I know of, the man initiated the divorce, however for a year the wife had been suspicious of his relationship with a coworker, he denied he was having an affair, but there's evidence that they had daily contact and had stayed in the same hotel on multiple occasions and they're now in a relationship, so he essentially divorced to be with this other woman.

Who initiates the legal side of the divorce proceedings in my mains isn't a true representation of who caused the break down of the marriage.

Exactly this.

The beta bucks thing is an incel argument.

I think it does need to be discussed because when this kind of rot is allowed to fester away without being challenged in various corners of the internet then more and more young men come across it, and in some cases they are literally being radicalised by false ideas and in some occasions they actually act out and commit mass murder against women fuelled at least in part by this ideology.

It is incel but it is also just a general red pill idea and it is shocking how pervasive that thinking is. I know its bullshit but it that part of my post I was posting about what men say, it isn't just incels or red pill men using this kind of language now it has become part of the discourse online via tiktok and the majority of young people are on tiktok these days.

@Farahfawsett Exactly my point but so many men deny this, and many men even fail to admit there own part in the destruction of their own marriage and they were right there.

In same sex marriages, the likelihood of a divorce seems to be extremely high in female marriage and very low in male marriage. Scandinavia is often depicted as more enlightened, but divorce rates are even high for both parties when a Scandinavian man marries a British woman and lower when it is the other way round. There do seem to be challenges that go even beyond the issues with British men.

@Sweden99 I wasn't talking just about British men I was talking about men in general.

I can't speak to why lesbians have a higher rate of divorce than gay men. I do think that women are less likely than men to put up with a shitty situation than a man is, usually because in a heterosexual relationship the male is the net beneficiary of that relationship so even if the romantic and sexual relationship is soured he still benefits from his wife's domestic labour in a way that she does not from his, in fact he typically adds to her burden. In societies where women have the legal and financial freedom to remove themselves from a partner who has addictions, is abusive or is just checked out of family life.

I am assuming you are a Swedish man but I know that in Sweden the divorce rate is high. There was a documentary some years ago called " The Swedish Theory of Love" which looked at how Sweden's highly individualistic society along with its social policy had contributed to this high level of people either staying single or getting divorced. It was perhaps not the the best documentary but interesting. The UK is also a highly individualistic society with progressive laws. However I really don't see how that makes any difference to what I say in my OP. Women who can get out of a bad domestic situation with a male abuser or addict for example should and in western countries have greater opportunities to do so thankfully. Sadly many women in other parts of the world have to put up with ongoing exploitation and abuse.

In most of the marriages I know that ended in divorce, the woman divorced the man because as soon as the kids came along he sat back and expected her to carry the entire load while his sole contribution was to go to work (even when the wife worked too).

Most of these men told everyone that their wife was either having an affair or trying to have an affair. In only one case was this fact.

@tinsatape, the name is out of date, I am in Denmark.
Thank you for your post. I think we are very rough on the reasons, it is great that divorce is straight forward, but perhaps a shame as it reflects what was intended as a life long relationship has not worked out.
The divorce rate is very high in Denmark and Sweden also. Though, compared with the UK, the lesbian divorce rate is less (closer to that for straight couples) and the gay male divorce rate is higher (closer to straight average).
When marrying Danes, British women are more likely to divorce and British men more likely to stay married.
I very much agree that it is not a case of women not loving men. I might guess that in the UK, a man falling ill or losing his job is more of a betrayal of his traditional role and so likely to lead to divorce. But that is perhaps more the betrayal aspect, which would be less ingrained in Scandinavian culture.

"I might guess that in the UK, a man falling ill or losing his job is more of a betrayal of his traditional role and so likely to lead to divorce"

@Sweden99 I don't think this is the case in fact men are more far more likely to leave when their wife becomes ill than the other way around. It is possible that if a man just refuses to work long term and leave every thing to the wife financially and otherwise that may strain the marriage but simply losing your job isn't the case. I am sure it comforts men who wish to hold on to the idea that they did nothing wrong, were just unlucky abd their heartless wife life them at the drop of a hat, in reality women can discuss at length the many years of suffering and pleas to their partners to at least do their fair share, get help for addictions, and to not just check out prior to them filing for divorce.

@tinsatape, ah, that is interesting. I had read an article in The Guardian discussing that women were far better at keeping their marriage together when they suffered illness or unemployment with it making divorce less likely. Whereas men in contrast were less able to keep their marriages together with illness and unemployment being more likely to lead to divorce.

I would agree with you I think, that compared to Scandinvia, British women perceive far less support from their partners regarding housework. I have experienced this first hand.

@Sweden99

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110105401.htm

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19645027/

It is important to note that many women who are "unemployed" are actually doing fulltime childcare, other caring responsibilities and unpaid domestic work.

Also women do not merely perceive a less support form their male partners, men do in fact typically do far less household work and childcare than their female partners. This is true even in cases where the couple both work similar hours.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2019/jul/less-7-couples-share-housework-equally

I could have written this.

I filed. It wasn’t what I would have chosen but I couldn’t overlook a four year affair.

I’ve heard it said and seen it myself that women will end a marriage/serious relationship because they’re not happy and will purposely leave to be intentionally single, whereas men will leave if they have another woman to go to.

Men rarely leave with no other option of a woman to do all the wife work/have sex available but women are much more content being alone.

Yes my x would have said something similar. I left him "on a whim".
What.
He had become increasingly abusive towards me over the previous 3 years, but refused to see it.

He still hates me years later. My dd asked him why he was "like, so obsessed" and he got angry with her. He has he park his failings in somebody else. Tedious.