Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If a man leaves his wife and family, 99.9% of cases are because of an OW?

70 replies

BocaDeTrucha · 05/08/2014 16:47

Close friend's dh has just said he wants to separate from her... Totally out of the blue, citing various issues which is the first time he's ever mentioned any of them... (money issues etc) and not giving her or them any chance to address the issues and make it work. He says there's noone else and I think she believes him. But I just don't believe it.... I just don't think a man would up and leave what appears to be an ideal family (3 gorgeous kids, good lifestyle) if there wasn't an OW in the picture somewhere.

OP posts:
EarthWindFire · 05/08/2014 17:48

My DP and my BIL left their wives. In bith

EarthWindFire · 05/08/2014 17:48

My DP and my BIL left their wives. In b

EarthWindFire · 05/08/2014 17:49

My DP and my BIL left their wives. In both cases because the wife had affairs!

googoodolly · 05/08/2014 17:50

DP left his ex and three kids because she cheated on him several times and demanded a DNA on their youngest because "there's at least three possible fathers." Hmm

He was single for eighteen months until we got together.

Infinity8 · 05/08/2014 17:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NickiFury · 05/08/2014 17:52

That's true infinity and you'd be surprised how many of them droop around telling anyone who will listen how sad they are not to be living with their kids anymore and what a bitch ex is for throwing them out Hmm.

PopularNamesInclude · 05/08/2014 17:57

I'd say it's generally OW, but not always. I think announcing it out of the blue and refusing all efforts to get into counselling or try to save the relationship... that points more strongly towards OW. My cousin swore blind to his wife and all family members that there was no OW... there was. None of the women in the family believed his denials.

TheWordFactory · 05/08/2014 18:00

I was a family lawyer for many years.

Genrally, though of course not always, if a man leaves his family voluntarily (as opposed to being kicked out), he has another woman.

He will give a whole heap of other reasons though Wink.

FrankSaysNo · 05/08/2014 18:00

Not necessarily. Although if you posted this on Relationships you would have The Script whispered in your ear.

Several of our male friends have failed relationships, with children involved, bluntly, you wont like the language, some of the mothers have had some form of "episode" should be be sectioned and never allowed out in public again which can only be described as acute jealousy and/or paranoia with unfounded accusations. The men left because the relationships got too unstable, one case of domestic violence by the woman to th man.

Not one man had an OW or form for playing around. Some of the mothers in these relationships had varying degrees of shagging the tennis coach, declaring lesbianism, finding God, and sadly an inability to communicate and work through "issues". Self centred I call it.

Eastpoint · 05/08/2014 18:00

I know of only one man who left his wife without their being another woman involved. His wife had been beating him up and verbally abiding him, it took him 8 months. All the other splits I know have been women leaving or men leaving for other women.

BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted · 05/08/2014 18:03

*"Also worth noting that a lot of cheaters don't actually intend to leave their spouse, but then the spouse discovers the affair and ends it themselves, so the cheater ends up with the ow by default. So romantic...

That's true infinity and you'd be surprised how many of them droop around telling anyone who will listen how sad they are not to be living with their kids anymore and what a bitch ex is for throwing them out."*

This was the script my father kept to for a very long time. He ended up very unhappy with his second wife and when he confessed it to me many years later I had no sympathy for him whatsoever. Which he didn't expect at all. Stupid, stupid man!

NickiFury · 05/08/2014 18:05

Frank its so funny you should say that because that's the kind of thing my ex used to say about me! Tell me was it your MALE friends who told you all this about their estranged wives?

I do love the way you slipped in the lesbianism and tennis coach cliches too, sounds like an episode of Dallas!

Bluetonic123 · 05/08/2014 18:05

I think sometimes men are more reluctant to leave without a concrete reason, like (but not limited to) another woman because, rightly or wrongly, society is still set up in way where for men leaving your relationship means leaving your children whereas so for women it doesn't.

Obviously there are exceptions but in most cases it is the man who lives away from his children in the event of a separation.

limon · 05/08/2014 18:06

Yabu. It's not always "because of" another woman - the man is also to "blame"

Namechangearoonie123 · 05/08/2014 18:13

If a heterosexual couple come to counselling and the man has decided to have counselling (as opposed to choosing to come together or the woman choosing it) with his wife it's so he can tell her that he has someone else and that he wants to leave.

More than 40 couples so far.

In real life every man I've ever known leave a relationship has had someone else to go to.

There's been a whole heap of denial bullshit before and after for months but eventually it comes out she was in the background.

Mummytoagorgeouschops · 05/08/2014 18:30

My DP left his ex after years of endless bull shit and sponging and realising what a manipulative slob she was.

Like he said, if she put in as much effort as she did trying to be sly and manipulative into finding a job and working hard then she would've gone far!

Her web of lies include a pregnancy which she planned, unbeknown to DP (by her own admission)

ElizabethArdenGreenTeax · 05/08/2014 19:02

wow! he sounds quite bitter still :-(

My xh would give me a dreadful character assassination but I am genuinely a really nice person. So, it'd be interesting (or maybe that's not the right word) to know what my xh's fiancee has been told about me! Goodness me I bet my heart would stop beating for ten seconds if I did know. Better off not knowing.

flyingtrue · 05/08/2014 19:09

I think it's often true but not always. Sometimes you really don't know what a relationship is like inside.

My friend was left by her H (also my friend), we were all shocked and thought it another woman. Actually the relationship was just over, it had been on the rocks for ages but they'd been in denial and trying to hide it. In the end he just couldn't cope with the denial anymore and left. Actually speaking to him about it, you could see the fakery from the outside. She still denies to this day there were issues but in hindsight they were obvious- they just hid them well. Denying the issues was why the relationship ended.

JapaneseMargaret · 05/08/2014 19:18

I left, because I didn't want kids and she did.

Yes, but you're clearly just at the dating/pre-family stage.

The OP is talking about men with wives and children.

Rainbunny · 05/08/2014 19:45

Well I don't know about men, but in my case I sought the divorce in my first marriage. I married young, realised quickly into the marriage that we shouldn't have rushed into it. I sucked it up and tried to make it work for almost a decade, as awful as it sounds I didn't love my ex-h. I tried, there were other issues as well and I finally asked for divorce (no kids involved.) Even though we were both unhappy, he would stayed in the marriage, so perhaps OP is right in that some men feel they need to have a woman (even if they're miserable) rather than be alone.

When I decided to get divorced I already knew that I wanted to remarry and have a family. I finally made the decision to divorce BECAUSE I wanted to have a happy marriage and children and I couldn't keep drifting along as I was. So while I didn't cheat, you could say I had the hope of a different future partner. I've always felt a bit guilty about that, as if I did cheat.

HappySeaTurtles · 05/08/2014 19:51

My family looked like a happy family from the outside.

Behind closed doors, my mother had untreated PTSD which resulted in emotional and mental abuse growing up.

You can't judge from the outside looking in. It's obviously not an ideal family.

whatever5 · 05/08/2014 20:06

In my experience if a man suddenly announces that he wants to separate totally out of the blue (in his partner's opinion), there usually is an OW.

LoveBeingInTheSun · 05/08/2014 20:16

I agree with you, people don't tend to find the push to leave till they find someone else. If that is the case it will come out.

Deluge · 05/08/2014 20:22

I think its fair to suspect, but not to make sweeping statements about '99.9%'.

I know several men who have ended marriages/left the family home for very different reasons.

One left because the marriage broke down after his wife became unexpectedly pregnant and decided to terminate (against his religious beliefs). The marriage crumbled after that.

One had a proper stereotypical mid life crisis and wanted to piss about on a motorbike, travelling the world and being a lad . No OW on the scene even five years or so later.

Another just walked out after many years of marriage when the kids were teens, said he just didn't love her any more and they had nothing in common. He seems to be living a very solitary life in a small flat alone, sees the kids regularly, but no OW.

You just never know.

janesaysl · 05/08/2014 20:47

Sadly this has recently happened it a friend of mine. He cited falling out of love, feeling tied down, settled too early. Denied to hell having an OW.... Had one all along.
I think he couldn't face his parents knowing what he'd done, denied it to them too.
Yanbu

Swipe left for the next trending thread