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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
JapaneseMargaret · 05/08/2014 21:17

Rainbunny - do not feel guilty. You did the right thing. By yourself, and any future children. It would have been much, much worse to persevere out of misplaced feelings of guilt.

Also, I think your case proves that the impetus to leave is often very different for women compared with men.

I totally agree with SGB's take on it. Women are often (broad generalisation) much more capable, able and self-sufficient within the average family set-up. They either do, or manage, the majority of stuff that goes on in the house, whether SAHM or WOHM.

Often times, this workload becomes intolerable, and so resentment sets it, which gnaws away at the happiness of the relationship. When it doesn't get resolved, the relationship breaks down.

And then, it is 'easier' (relatively speaking) for the woman to leave and got it alone, because she knows she can cope on her own, and in fact, being alone would be mich more preferable. She does everything anyway, and it's one less person to look after.

It is much more difficult for many men to make that leap, because they don't have the first clue/appreciation as to how much is involved in the running of a house, not the inclination to do any of it.

Hence, swinging orangutan-style onto the next relationship, getting a firm grip on the next woman, before releasing his grip on the previous.

Disclaimer: I am not talking about happy, mutually satisfying relationships, with kind, decent men. I'm talking about relationships that break down, and where one partner resolves that by cheating.

BocaDeTrucha · 05/08/2014 21:31

limon, bad choice of words on my part, of course I don't mean it's all the ow's fault, I meant "because of a situation with an ow". The man is hardly an innocent party, is he?

My sweeping statement was just my way of saying "the vast majority", nothing scientific meant by it!!!

jane, I can very much see that being the case here.... The fallout from there being an OW would be huge with his parents.. I'm not sure if he's got the balls to face up to it yet, if that is the case. I really hope not.

OP posts:
danker126 · 05/08/2014 21:59

My OH left his ex but no one else was involved we met several months after he left her. She claims she wasnt aware of issues with them even though he slept on the sofa for 1.5 years. There is cases of men leaving because of OW but just as many without.

ApocalypseThen · 05/08/2014 22:03

*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!*

I'd be very wary of a man who speaks about an ex like that. Very wary.

Notcontent · 05/08/2014 22:03

I don't know about 99.9% but I would say the majority of men leave because they have met someone else. And in many cases they initially claim it's for some other reason.

BruthasTortoise · 05/08/2014 22:40

My DH left his ex-wife because when he found out about her second affair he realised he actually didn't care which to him made clear that there was no relationship left to "fix". It was, IMO, an incredibly brave decision on his part as there was every chance she could've took the DC and he would've been a weekend dad, which he would've hated as he was their main carer. As it turned out she moved in with the OM and he didn't want the kids but they did want her share of the house sale, so he and the boys were left homeless for a time. This was a year before we met so he must fall into the 0.1%

FrankSaysNo · 05/08/2014 23:08

NickiFury I always listen t ot both sides and sit out any storm.

All I can say is join a private gym you get your money worth , and two female partners came out as lesbians (not with each other). It happens. Thats life.

The original Q was If a man leaves his wife and family, 99.9% of cases are because of an OW? And the answer to that is "no". I dont have 1,000 relationship anecdotes to give you where I know the facts from both sides ..... I say I've witnessed 12 long term relationship breakdowns, of which 10 were the fault of the female.

ElizabethArdenGreenTeax · 05/08/2014 23:10

Well, in who's opinion?! The men's? your friends?
My x was abusive for years (verbally, emotionally, financially) but he firmly believes, as do all his family, that I left him because I was selfish, unstable, lazy, blah blah blah.................

FrankSaysNo · 05/08/2014 23:12

BTW I come from a gender imbalanced culture. Ratio of four men to one woman. Women have their pick. There is no equality, it's shag and move on to the next best thing.

tiggytape · 05/08/2014 23:14

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Bumply · 05/08/2014 23:24

My ex left me and two boys with no sign of an OW. I think I could have found it easier if he had.
I never did get any reason from him that made rational sense (to me at any rate). I presume it was mid life crisis and inability to cope with young children. He later met someone else and married them after spending 20 years with me declaring he wasn't the marrying type.

SweetSummerSweetPea · 06/08/2014 03:09

who knows....perhaps..all i know is I have seen so many families destroyed because man has gone off with another women but wants his wife back and im sure sometimes it works but it does kill it really. its never the same.

EarthWindFire · 06/08/2014 06:27

I'd be very wary of a man who speaks about an ex like that. Very wary.

What about women that bad mouth their exs. Would you be wary of that too?

differentnameforthis · 07/08/2014 03:13

Well my dad left because of my mum's affairs.

I doubt he is the .1%

differentnameforthis · 07/08/2014 03:18

A friend left his wife because he knew she didn't love him as much a she should, but that his salary provided a nice lifestyle for her...

She admitted it too, during the divorce.

differentnameforthis · 07/08/2014 03:34

ElizabethArdenGreenTeax

Just because YOUR ex would do that & it not be true, doesn't mean it isn't true in all cases.

Yes, men lie. Yes, some men tell their partners that their ex wife was this that & the other & it not be true. But in some cases, it is true.

Same the other way around. My mother taught me from a young age to put walls up against my dad, I lost several years with him due to her lies about what a manipulative, abusive, thieving liar he was.

Yet, he wasn't. He was (and still is) the loveliest man I know who would give you the shirt off his back. SHE is the manipulative, abusive, thieving liar, I found that out soon after I hit my 16th birthday.

ElizabethArdenGreenTeax · 07/08/2014 10:08

It's still a nasty thing to say. I went out with a man who had had an acrimonious split from his wife and yet he never said a bad word about her because she was the mother of his children.

My children think their father is lovely. I haven't contradicted them. Doesn't change the fact that he left all the childcare to me, never helped and saw nothing wrong with that status quo. But yet, he has a good relationship with them now, so they would believe that he was a good father, and perhaps he is, now that they are older and their needs are less. When they had a lot of needs, he was not going to be the one to meet those needs. So to be honest, you are not equipped to judge with complete accuracy whether or not your mother was 'lying' and /or whether or not your father was manipulative or abusive or a thieving liar. Do you think she made it all up so that she could be a single mother!? Because that is such fun.

but good luck to you, sounds like you're navigating a few tricky situations. I wish you well.

LaQueenLovesSummer · 07/08/2014 10:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

brokenhearted55a · 07/08/2014 10:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MsAnthropic · 07/08/2014 11:04

You know what? If my choice was to end a marriage and see my child(ren) EOW or staying in a dead/unhappy marriage, I know what I would do ...

The deciding factors and considerations for leaving a marriage are very, very different for men and women, so I think we should not be at all surprised that on the whole men will stay in marriages that are over far longer than they would otherwise do. I instigated the split of my marriage, but it was just as over as far as my ex was concerned - he'd never have left though, but maybe an exit affair would have provided the catalyst after enough years of living like that.

I think that if men left in the same way as women did, and OWs weren't involved, there'd be as many ended marriages. It would just be different.

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