AIBU to wonder what’s effing wrong with men?

[SuspiciouslyMinded]

Not all of them obviously, but it’s a pattern I see too often: in my own life and in the lives of my friends, and my family... the fecking mid-life crisis. Men in their 40s leaving their wives and maybe 2 or maybe 3 kids, or more, because ‘they deserve something more from life’. Breaking up families because of total selfishness and lack of responsibility. Have you ever come across a woman who has done that to her family? I’d be interested to know if you did.

With guys, it happens over and over again. What’s wrong? Are they wired this way? Not cut out for long-term monogamy and family responsibilities? If so, perhaps we should only get married for 10-15 years and forget about the whole ‘till death do us part’ nonsense. It would save a lot of heartache due to broken promises and unrealistic expectations.

And please don’t give me the platitudes about ‘having to work on a relationship to make it successful’. I get it. But I also get it that both partners have to want to make it work. In many cases, men - especially family men - just can’t be arsed!

Before you jump at me as it to be expected - I know I’m generalising. There are wonderful men, happy decades-long relationships, kids growing up in unbroken families. Well done to all of you who are in this situation.

But the pattern of guys leaving their families is becoming so common that it’s becoming ridiculous. Maybe marriage itself is a flawed concept if fewer and fewer people can stick to it?

Grrrrrr. Rant with me or make or tell me I’m wrong. Either will make me feel better.

Obviously they are shit. Some men are like that and then others are obviously not. I did know a woman who did that - she met another man and walked out of her DH and children's lives and her and the new man moved abroad. I will admit to that being a rarity but it can happen with women.

I thought about that too. If a man walks out leaving his family for whatever reason it’s sad, but if a woman was to leave her family it’s shocking for some reason.

I think we're living in a time where people "want it all" and feel they have the right to go out and get it. I personally believe couples worked a lot harder at relationships a generation or two ago. I feel that genuine commitment, through good times and bad, is fading away.

Add to that the fact that it seems much more easy to cheat nowadays. With the internet and mobile phones. It makes sustaining a marriage for life, that much harder.

I have certainly lost faith in men, and plan to remain single the rest of my life now. I couldn't handle giving someone that much power over my heart again. I've had enough, and I think any men of my age that are the "long term" type are already with their long term partners.

But the pattern of guys leaving their families is becoming so common that it’s becoming ridiculous.

Is it? Literally nobody I know has done this.

I know quite a few men who’ve done this. Everyone did the “not for us to judge” bullshit.

One woman who did it, mate of a mate. She was utterly vilified and also moved abroad.

Breaking up families because of total selfishness and lack of responsibility. Have you ever come across a woman who has done that to her family? I’d be interested to know if you did.

Yes several, all of whom were bored with a DH who worked all the hours god sent to facilitate their SAH lifestyle, and proceeded to run off with the next bloke who gave them any attention. In every case it was a tradesman who thought he'd struck gold. In every case, the woman ended up middle aged and alone. The DH who worked all the hours? All of them ended up with younger versions of their original wives and second families.

It does seem to be a recurring theme with a lot of middle-aged men, unfortunately.

Although I do know a woman who when her eldest daughter left home at 17, started an affair and then eventually left her husband and 12 year old daughter for the OM. She left and barely had a relationship with the youngest daughter right through her teens. It's a testimony to the dad that the 12 year old turned out so well. That woman was my mother!

My dear old mum says men and women aren't cut out to be together for a long period of time. Her and my dad have just celebrated 65 years of marriage and love each other dearly !

And another two women I remembered!

Came out in their Mid 40's ran off with other women. Kept the kids though

So the definition of a wonderful man is one who sticks with a life that makes him miserable in order to benefit others?

Selfish, adjective. A word used by a woman to describe a man who isn't acting in her best interest.

because ‘they deserve something more from life’. Breaking up families because of total selfishness and lack of responsibility. Have you ever come across a woman who has done that to her family?

Someone very close to me (a woman) Is doing this right now. I’m so angry with her. She is devastating her family and acting like a fucking teenager. Thinks she is in love with some new man.

Seriously! A man who did some work in my house started contacting me with messages on Saturday nights!

I had asked him to do the work over stages to budget and last few things he was to do he kept rushing to get them done which was fine but then I got a message one Saturday night via WhatsApp clearly pretending I was someone else but it’s clear I was not that person because of WhatsApp picture.

He eventually started saying how attractive I was and how he wants to date, have sex yada yada.. I had to ask him what about his wife a kids! He disappeared

This happened to me - he had what I think was a mid life crisis (and affair) and left us. I’ve had tough years but have met someone else who makes me much happier. I’d never live with a man again though

But he did us both a favour I think. Life’s too short to persist if it doesn’t make you happy

Having said that I love to see couples who’ve been together for 60 years and still happy - it’s awesome!

I only know if one woman who left her kids - and yes she’s been vilified - none of her friends can understand it

But yes I know of lots of men who’ve done it.

Sorry to be sexist but that’s probably the right way - I think if your a child whose mum has left you it’s much more of an impact

Both my sisters left their first two husbands under the “deserve something better” mantra. So they are both on their third marriages, big huge weddings each time, and lied about it each time trying to make out it was the husbands’ fault even though they had affairs.

I liked all of these brother in laws! I miss them. The ones they are married to now are meh and I know at least one of them has regrets.

Why did they do it? Because our mother brought them up to be shallow and encouraged the breakups at the first sign of hard work. (I wasn’t liked so largely ignored. Thus I escaped this brainwashing!)

Well you can't really judge every man that leaves as being the only player in the fault game can you?

Some men are in shit marriages with shit women too. Maybe they are done with pretending.

Have you ever come across a woman who has done that to her family?

My god you're right! Now that I think about it, no woman has ever broken up a family.

Actually, I know an equal number of women who have done this once the children reach teenage years. It tends not to be for another man though. It's realising that the relationship they had is just dead, and that's a really lonely feeling.

It's not always a lack of commitment. I was in my relationship for nearly 30 years. All I needed was just a little indication that he still saw me as a person in my own right, with my own hopes and dreams, not just a 'mum' and a 'wife'.

Was it a mid-life crisis? Yes. If that means re-evaluating your life and deciding whether this is how you want to spend the next 30 years of it.

I didn't leave my children, I left my husband and I'm way less lonely on my own than I was living with someone who never seemed to see me other than as my role in the family.

Oh, and I didn't leave my children. We had 50/50 care and they've both grown into lovely young women with good relationships with both parents.

I do think, though, that it is more common for men to leave when the children are young (under 10) simply because they don't want to deal the the hard work that stage entails.

Thank you all for some interesting comments and scenarios. I can’t mention everybody by nickname, but:

Firesuit you’re being sarcastic and I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. You say
^Selfish, adjective. A word used by a woman to describe a man who isn't acting in her best interest.^
I’m not talking about men who don’t act in their partners’ best interests. What’s going on between adults in their relationship is up to them, it’s all mutual, give-and-take etc etc. I’m talking about guys who get bored with family life and leave their own kids. Putting your own needs over those of people dependent on you is the very unsarcastic definition of selfishness.

PurpleDaisies you’re very lucky not to know anyone in this situation. In one of my kids’ classes almost half of the kids are brought up by divorced / single mums. Some by dads who buggered off and are not even in touch. There’s one single dad - the estranged mother has a serious mental illness and is hospitalised, after an episode of harming the girl. That’s a middle-class primary school should anyone ask.

Oddcat kudos to your parents!

Storm4star You’re so right about the ‘I want it all’ - i.e. selfish - culture. Plus I have precisely the same feelings regarding potential future relationships.

SeriousQuestion09 Well played. A great example of the healthy “Hoes before bros” philosophy!

I know younger couples where they seem to be rushing into children/marriage without having really got to develop as people first?

I wonder if this is the fallout - the drive towards early domesticity followed by disappointment in the way they haven’t had time to grow as people?

(which seems weird because you don’t NEED to now - it’s easily the social norm for middle class people to get X career, have a life, then partner up in their mid thirties)

There seem to be quite a lot of posts from women with 3/4 children complaining about how things aren’t rosy at home (not in terms of the husband leaving, but frustration and lack of time and resources) But there isn’t much explanation about “whose decision was it to have a larger than average family”?

Of course this is a skewed vision online, but it seems that more mindfulness in terms of the emotional/financial/practical needs of both parties could help?

A former colleague wanted two children and to “run her own mummy business and bake and have Family Time” .

She had a degree, but had chosen to marry in her 20’s to a guy without a career. She wanted the babies, so there was no time for him to retrain.

That was her husband permanently on supermarket night shift, then, to facilitate her idea if having a family. Then of course if he was unhappy in later life, it was because he was a “bastard” letting his wife down.

It’s not always as black and white as it seems.

My ExH wanted an Audi TT when he hit 40. We couldn’t afford it and had 2 kids. When he got to 45 he left as family life didn’t suit him anymore anc moved in with a much younger woman. They now have a child and I’m sure there will be another soon. So much for not wanting family life he now maintains two families :-)

70% of divorces are instigated by women despite men having lower levels of happiness whilst married and quadruple the rate of suicide

Mawalls - that is because it is the partner who doesn't have the affair who has to start the proceedings, in the UK. eg; I instigated the divorce against my first husband because he had left me and started a different life, so I needed to get shot of legal ties - he was perfectly happy to just forget I existed without doing any paperwork.

Mawalls are you sure? I swear I've read several times that married men are statistically significantly happier than single men, with it being the other way around for women.

''Well you can't really judge every man that leaves as being the only player in the fault game can you?

Some men are in shit marriages with shit women too. Maybe they are done with pretending.''

Yes I have seen man who cheated on their wife/gf get vilified when he left her and the kids but while I am not condoning cheating i do think that often times there are 2 sides to the story. For eg 1 guy i knoe cheated on his gf and mother to his child but in reality she was a nightmare-spoiled rotten and very difficult. She also always refused to sleep with him yet had everyone thinking he was the villain. Another dad i know of 2 daughters did the same and i pitied the wife but then i heard from close friends of the family that she was a very difficult woman to live with....