Why don't women just divorce?

[arethereanyleftatall]

Musing because I've nothing else to do.

Every day on mumsnet/other social media/my friends there's thousands of women talking about husbands who they clearly neither like nor love.

Why do women stay with husbands who add no value to their lives?

Bling, I know but I just wanted to put it out there that not all men are evil.
Women do struggle more and need more support ; money for refuges and support should be a priority.

The upset to any children, Finances initially,and the starting off with a different life again after everything you have achieved in the home.

I became a different person after divorce, as I never feared being alone, I can cope with most things without all the emotional stuff, and although for a year after, when my ex Husband remarried, I was somewhat on a downer,but after some months,we decided to stay friends, and this is how it continued for many years, until he sadly died six years ago. I have remained single since divorcing in 1987.

Its not always about money. Money is just one factor.
There are a million reasons why people stay in unhappy marriages.
Having to move the children from their schools.
Having to share custody of the children.
Worry about ability to cope as a single parent especially if either the children or parent has a long term illness or disability.
Low self esteem
Learned helplessness
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of being alone
Belief that it’s better the devil you know than the one you don’t.
Many many more reasons but it’s not easy for anyone to stay in an unhappy marriage or leave it.

I just think that men are overlooked.

They're really not. Head over to the Feminist boards and have a read

Bling, I know but I just wanted to put it out there that not all men are evil.

But where was that suggestion ever made on this thread? I appreciate that your'e just trying to reference something you think is important but this has not been a man bashing thread. It hasn't suggested that no men can have a hard time. It's a thread asking why women who are unhappy don't get divorced. And certainly, in the context of mums net, where the bulk of the posters are women, the anecdotal references being made are to many many women who are clearly unhappy but choose to stay in their relationships.

@Cheeeeislifenow I do understand. My kids were just 3 and 6 when my ex changed the locks on our marital home within four hours of me leaving. He was, and still is, cruel beyond anybody's imagination.

@rain. He sounds dreadful, I'm glad you are rid.

The question really shouldn't be "why do woman not divorce these men?" but "why did they marry these men, then have DC with them?", "Why do some woman chose to build a life with a man who's not supportive/kind or they don't love?"

Because things change!
Just like an abuser doesnt show their spots straight away, not does a twat who thinks that women should be fu;y responsible of the home/children. They usually sow their spots once a child is here.

At least that's how DH was.

(And yes I am still with him...)

I know "staying for the children" is never a good thing when there is fighting at home/abuse but in my scenario (where there is none of that) I truly think it's best for them at this stage in their lives. I couldn't trust my husband to adequately meet their needs if we split up, at least this way I have control over that. Also it would be financial ruinous and as a child who grew up in poverty I'm not willing to do that to my children. So on I go for the time being!

Sums up my situation with the added effect of having a chronic illness on the top of it.

Now that my dcs are getting close to A levels, I am looking at building my way out. I'll be poorer but I'll also be able to decide what I want for myself.

Staying for the children only to split when they are teens/older isn't necessarily to their advantage; I had friends whose parents divorced when they were young and they coped a lot better than those who went through it at 17/18 and felt so much more grief and in one case that everything had been a lie. There was guilt too, as it was so obviously their mothers had put up with it all those years for them. It's not easy at anytime. And it's a killer to look back and see how much easier it seems in hindsight..

I agree leaving the children in the situation isn’t always what’s best for them.

Adults can rarely hide their problems from children and if their main role model of relationships is you stay because of finances etc what kind of relationships will they go onto have in future and what will it do to them in the meantime?

I also agree it’s not just women. A lot of men don’t want EOW with their child so stay too regardless of DV, knowing they were settled for etc.

Money!! House ties and children 100%

Until 50 or 60 years ago or so, only the very rich could afford to divorce. Not much has changed really. Lots of people can't afford to divorce. Housing has become more rather than less affordable. Less social housing, increasingly picky private landlords who won't accept tenants on low incomes, some don't allow children. It's so much cheaper and more affordable paying for one household.

Staying for the children could mean many different things. I had an awful stepmother. I wouldn't divorce my dh for fear of who would enter dd's life. And I have friends who feel the same.

Control is a big one. While you're all under one roof, if you think one another is behaving unreasonably you can challenge and hopefully rectify it.

We always made sure we could pay all our bills on one wage, because you never know what's around the corner. So never feel trapped by money.

This is so interesting to me.

The vast majority of my female friends earn the same or more than their husbands

Do they have children though? If they do, how many? And what's the childcare set up?

I earned the same as DH and our careers were parallel right up until my second maternity leave. Then he got a promotion and I had to take a step back to pick up the slack with the kids. My career has never fully recovered.

I often look back and think that that was the pivotal moment where I became a 'weak woman' as some have described on this thread, who has 'become financially dependent on a man'.

But realistically there's no way I could have, in good conscience, told DH not to go for the promotion and drop to four days a week instead like me, so that we could share childcare. It wouldn't have been fair.

Luckily, divorce isn't on the cards. But I can totally see how women like me end up with a career in tatters and not much financial independence, despite not starting out like that. Also, I have never had any family help with childcare. It's all been down to what we can afford to pay for. If things were bad and I wanted to leave DH, I would be fucked, to be honest. I can see how it happens.

For those women who have managed to keep their careers and earnings on track, I salute you. But I do wonder what the childcare situation is, what your's and your DH's commute length is, whether there's family close by to help out. Also, what's your job? I worked in a very competitive industry where it was all about networking and drinks in the evening and getting your face known. I just couldn't compete. All these variables make such a difference.

I often look at my situation now (which really isn't bad at all, not at all where I thought or planned I'd end up) and wonder wtf happened. And it was that second maternity leave and DH's promotion.

Anyway, sorry to derail. I'm just picking up an undercurrent of women-blaming in some of the posts on this thread. Like, if only they were more savvy they'd have made sure they would always be in a position to flick off their wanker DH's and not even notice the difference.

It's obviously never that simple.

Ahundredpercentthatbitch

"For those women who have managed to keep their careers and earnings on track, I salute you. But I do wonder what the childcare situation is, what your's and your DH's commute length is, whether there's family close by to help out. Also, what's your job? I worked in a very competitive industry where it was all about networking and drinks in the evening and getting your face known. I just couldn't compete. All these variables make such a difference."

To answer this question: I'm someone whose kept their career and earnings on track and its very much a double-edged sword. I separated from my husband and am a lone parent so I've had to accelerate the tempo of my work. I work like an absolute nutter -- 12-13 hour days as a minimum. I'm the sole breadwinner and my ex does no childcare and pays no maintenance.

It's shit in some ways because I have almost zero quality time with my child -- I'm wfh at the moment and am locked in another room for most of the day so the home schooling etc is out of the window.

Many women would pity me on that basis and I do feel resentful at the moment that I am totally strung out from working all the time and can't do the home schooling thing. But the flip side of it is that my career is on track, I don't have to sacrifice my earning potential to support someone's career aspirations and I don't have to worry about kowtowing to someone else.

There's no perfect solution really. But ultimately the compromise of having to downgrade my life aspirations to accommodate someone else's was something I wasn't prepared to do. That wasn't why I ended my marriage. But in an odd way I'm grateful that it has happened this way. I certainly would never get married again.

I divorced my ExH (def not D) 2 years ago. Making the decision to leave him was really hard - was afraid of what it would do to my DD, of being alone, of impact on finances - and the divorce process was horrible and stressful (and really expensive).
I think another thing that's really hard is you've invested a lot of time and emotion in your marriage and it feels terrifying the idea of having to start again and basically change your entire life and mindset. Even if you're miserable, it's hard to let go of everything you've built and invested in.
The impact on my DD was, as far as I can tell, not nearly as great as I thought. ExH was abusive and though nothing of shouting and swearing at me in front of her, and I didn't want her to think that was normal in a relationship. We moved to a new city and I started again from scratch - I will never own my own home as would never get a mortgage but we love where we live and have settled. I was fortunate in that I have a career so can still support myself and DD. She still has a relationship with him and sees him regularly and we are on reasonably good terms (not mates and never will be but we can have a civil conversation about arrangements for DD etc)
Even though it was the hardest thing I ever did, I am so happy I left him and our life is happy, peaceful and full of joy - which is never was with him. When I think back to how I was when I was married to him, feel like I was living a half life and that the real me wasn't there at all. Also with regards to fear of being alone - it felt a lot more lonely being trapped in a miserable marriage than being a single parent.
I'm just glad I was able to leave when I did and that I didn't stay out of fear as our relationship would never have been healed and I would have been unhappy forever, and so would DD. But I know what a hard decision it is to make and understand that for some people, it's too difficult or impossible.

Those who say they're happier and it's easier being a single parent, do you not miss 'the other pair of hands' at all? I think I would be overwhelmed with having to do it all at home..

What a stupid fucking question.
If you read those types of threads so much you’d know why people don’t just “get divorced”

@arethereanyleftatall what did make you decide to leave then, out of interest?

HeyGirlHeyBoy in my case, no. My exH did minimal childcare and his contribution to the financial pot was disproportionately low. He did cook which is the only thing I miss.

Also the freedom from being mithered about trivial shit, stonewalled, abused, sulked at etc vastly outweighs any marginal benefit which he may have provided.

And also the feeling of not having to answer to anyone else is so great.

Many women would pity me on that basis and I do feel resentful at the moment that I am totally strung out from working all the time and can't do the home schooling thing. But the flip side of it is that my career is on track, I don't have to sacrifice my earning potential to support someone's career aspirations and I don't have to worry about kowtowing to someone else

Thanks for your answer thepeopleversuswork

I don't mean this defensively, I'm just musing really, but when I took a step back and effectively sacrificed my earning potential to support DH's career aspirations, I didn't see it as kowtowing. I saw it as a bonus for our family. He had a huge salary hike and it was a great opportunity for him to take a step up. In a happy marriage, of course I was happy to facilitate that, because it benefited me and the kids too.

But in the context of an unhappy marriage or post-divorce, you could also look at it that the person who took a step back in their career has come off worse.

The other thing that this thread has made me think about is that for a while, after our first DC was born, I also worked like a nutter and barely saw my child, so that I could 'keep up' with DH's career. Because in the back of my mind I was always thinking 'if the shit hits the fan, I need to be able to support me and my child alone'. But it made me so stressed and miserable - I was exhausted and missed my child. But also I couldn't keep living as if my DH was going to run off with OW at any moment. I You can't think like that. At some point I decided that I just had to trust DH and our marriage. So I took a step back.

Maybe it will backfire on me in a few years time if he does run off with OW. But I didn't want to nearly give myself a breakdown trying to live as an independent single woman when in fact I was in a supportive, happy marriage. So I guess I do bristle at the suggestions on this thread that women in my position are surrendered wives destined for a single middle age on benefits because they haven't kept their careers going.

While that may be true, I guess what I'm saying is that it isn't their fault. The system is so rigged against you once you have kids.

Ahundredpercentthatbitch it’s a really interesting point you raise. I out-earned my husband so there was never really any question of my stopping or even pausing work.

It’s an interesting question as to how I would have felt if it had been the other way round. I can totally understand how in those circumstances it would make perfect sense to take a step back and allow his career to be in the driving seat.

One of the reasons the marriage failed was that he expected me to be both a breadwinner and a stay at home mum and it wasn’t fair or sustainable. I still do everything now but I have the advantage of not having to worry about what he thinks.

In some ways, difficult though it was and still is I feel I dodged a bullet in not having to make that choice. I think I would have felt much more resentful if I had had to make that - entirely rational - decision.

Fear that he'll kill you (and/or the kids) or drag you through family court for years until you're financially ruined and/or lost custody of your children.

That's why. A lot of women are scared of bad men.