Why do you think the highest suicide rate of all is of men approaching 50?

[RR64]

Why do you think the highest suicide rate of all is of nen approaching 50?

Surely this needs to be addressed?

Middle aged men do very badly out of divorce. They've worked all their lives to provide a nice home life for the family and end up in a bedsit, still funding the family home, whilst often having access to the children made difficult or at best, not having anywhere suitable to spend time with DC.

It may well be right that they continue to fund the family home for their children and the wife who gave up her career to care for them, but you can see why the future looks bleak for them, trapped in a job that probably by this stage isn't going anywhere and not feeling any of the benefit of it.

Apologies, i dont think i've made myself clear.
The problem is that people want to die.
Thats the problem you fix, not that the method of suicide isnt effective enough which is what this is - women are choosing more ineffective ways to die. If they chose the same methods as men, then we'd be talking about a female suicide crisis as the number of women who attempt is much higher than mens.
Its a big, awful problem that anyone wants to die.
But there's clues in the fact that men choose more lethal methods of suicide than women to why more men are dying by suicide, as already mentioned, a lack of early mental health intervention (as men are less likely to speak up due to this awful 'man up' faux masculinity poison thinking) and less caring responsibilities and higher levels of living alone mean that men might choose x or Y method which are more of a 'sure thing' but are also more likely to leave an awful scene for someone to find, because they arent thinking 'my mum will be bring the kids home from school and will find me'

If you want to stop men from choosing the more lethal methods of suicide, then you need to look into the reasons why they might do that, and a way to figure out what those reasons are is to look into the methods other demographics choose and the reasons why, which can give you indicators of things men might have more of/do more of/have less of/do less of.

You need to look at the bigger picture because its key to whats going on with men. You dont look at domestic violence against women and only focus on the woman, you need to fix the problem as a whole which means looking at the perpetrators of that violence.

I think its vile what our society does to men, and i dont mean the media twisting it into 'theres a war on men!!' I mean (to play just one example through) why do so many men take a backseat in parenting, something that could bring them such joy and fulfillment.
Why does that backseat parenting then turn into a divorce where because they let the woman do all the caring labour, they are not the primary carer, have chosen a career (long BEFORE children) that has tricky hours or demands so cant be flexible around childcare, so its best the kids stay with mum majority of the time.
Why does that turn into them leaving the family home and ending up on their own. Because they werent an engaged, present parent to begin with.
And whys that? Because our society throws a parade every time a dad plaits his daughters hair, while mum has been awake since 6am sorting school stuff out.
Whys that? Because we treat caring as 'girly' and little boys get teased for being girly, if a bloke says he wants to get back early from the pub to do bedtime he gets called 'whipped', if he wants to do different hours at work to work around childcare he's treated with suspicion, he gets praised for doing the bare minimum like kicking a football around on a sunday so he thinks he's a 'good dad' and if you already think you're a 'good dad' why would you think you needed to do more? Things like uniforms, dentist appointments, are they getting bullied, are they getting the right messages from us about food and their bodies... the endless list of things as a society 'mum does'.
We let men DOWN with this bullshit, they miss out on things because of it.
And if you live in a social environment where all this is okay, dads just take a backseat, then noone is ever warning you that this behaviour, these choices might end up with you not being resident parent, that you might end up in a shit situation feeling shit. And because society teaches you to be angry at your ex for 'taking money off you' and 'making it difficult for you to see the kids' (normally wanting a routine, because you dont understand why she doesnt understand you HAVE to take that overtime at the last minute when you said you would pick the kids up - you need that money for the kids!) you immediately start that post divorce life alone and angry and not truly understanding what put you there. This is what lets men down, not women saying 'hi institutions, please can you help with encouraging environments where men dont think its okay to rape and abuse us'

And some of you will be reading this and thinking 'thats not my husband/brother/friend or any of my friends who are all enlightened and engaged fathers and actually mothers can be very difficult and controlling' those things can all be true too and are! But that doesnt take away the fact that there are large swathes of society outside your circle who do fall into the situation outlined above.

And its hurting our men. And our women. And our children.
And pretending its the 'war on men' (you know, actually talking about the horrible things that go on rather than it being hidden away as 'its a domestic issue') rather than the fact that this bullshit is ingrained in men from day one where you father in law pulls a face when your baby son has pink socks on.

I am surprised how many people do "but women" here. We all know what happens when post is about women and someone says "but men"...

Are you really? The clue is in the name. From what I can see this is very much a female centered site so "but women" is somewhat to be expected.

Generally I think it's quite refreshing since I can't think of another medium where this is the case. I wonder how many predominantly male forums hand-wring over the problems women face in society. My guess is none!

I hate it when people generalize!

How many of us women use our friends or female relatives as sounding boards when things aren't going right for us.
How many of us have got through boxes of tissues and cups of tea while crying on their shoulders.

I have never done this. And I’m a woman.

Short answer, literally all of us.

No, not literally all of us.

It’s a real problem when people say women have support and men don’t.
I’ve never had support and there are plenty of men who do have support.

We have a mental health crisis, women and men, old and young are suffering.

@YouAreNotBatman Yeah I have to agree some men have so much molly coddling and support well into middle age, I don't accept the blanket statements about women having more support. Just see how many lonely women at the school run posting on MN how nobody talking to them or mums suffering PND on their own stuck with a baby while husband is out all day at work and then gym or hobbies. So many young women and teenage girls are lonely. There is so much pressure on them to be strong, independent women who have it all, perfect mum, perfect everything.

Quite right. Look at forums, subreddits etc aimed at men. Unsurprisingly, they centre men, much in the same way that MN threads centre women. The only thing most male centred threads are missing are self appointed defenders of women, ready to tell the OP that NAWALT, or that "you'd get ripped apart if the sexes were reversed!!!!"

Job Pressures tend to increase as we age , children leaving home , deaths and Ilness in families , divorce

I do think men are used to being cared for throughout their lives, so when they reach an age when nobody is caring for them - their own parents now start to need care themselves/die. Plus if they are single/divorced and are no longer a particularly attractive option for women- if a man has a tidy home, car, decent job, the basics in place, it is going to be easier to attract a woman than a man who is bitter from divorce, living in a hovel with no career prospects, lack of emotional intelligence etc.

I do think men's value (and how they value themselves) is very much based on whether they are able to attract women and their material status. If they are single, unable to look after themselves and have not met the basic standards of decent job, home etc then...they might start to get depressed, turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism and just think what's the point...

Stress, financial responsibility, kids leaving home for uni, professional stresses, the realisation that there's less life in front than behind.

On an evolutionarily level we are all programmed to want our genes to survive into the next generation, so deep in our subconscious is the need to be useful to our families.

In a traditional family set up they will have started having kids early 20, with the man will have been the provider and the women doing the bulk of the care. Then at around 40, those children are grown and fly the nest. The woman still has a role to play in emotionally supporting the adult children and possibly caring for grandkids in the future, but the man's provider role is finished. Even his wife will be less dependent on him financially, as she is no longer tied to childcare and can regain her financial independence, so the man no longer feels needed, and may be envisioning a time when they are more of a burden the an asset.

Toxic masculinity.
next question?

Unfortunately these days men are increasingly disposable. Nothing will be done as basically nobody really cares. Each is no doubt a personal tragedy for thosr affected but as a whole we (society) aren't that bothered.

Nope.
Every year for Int'l Women's Day i tweet stuff about women: women's health, women's mental health, successful women, role models, whatever and all the things.
And get abuse from people (not all men) "wah wah why do people always talk about women and not men wah wah".
One year i took note of who did this. I replied to all saying "Int'l Men's day is 19th November, i do similar on that date, why not join in?"

and come 19th November i share resources for men's mental health, men's health, and so on and so forth. And do i get shit tons of women going "wah wah wah what about da womenz"? do i buggery. They retweet, share their own stuff etc.
Meanwhile the account that were all "what about da menz?"? Crickets. Nothing. I sometimes tweet them - "now's your chance". Crickets AND abuse.

So no. It's not that they are disposable. That is a "wah wah poor menz" response. I get "why are there no men's refuges" (clue: there are). Well, buddy, do you know why there are women's refuges? WOMEN SET THEM UP.
We offer to share resources, experience and ideas. Crickets.

IME it is because the people who cry loudest about do nothing and expect others to do it for them. The people who are engaged with this (are men and women) are doing their best in the face of indifference. CALM (the campaign against living miserably) is aimed at men specifically. A woman set it up.

All most all the things listed equally apply to women... the true is societal expectations push them too far.

Society doesnt take male issues seriously such as male domestic abuse or male depression etc... men are expected to be stoic and strong no matter what and the truth is most just can't be. Where as there are millions of charities and outlets for female domestic abuse and women are expected and encouraged to talk about emotions and seek help and profesionals actively keep an eye out for the symptoms of these things in women.

Maybe the read all the hatred for middle aged men on MN?

Rubbish. MN is a tiny corner of an internet which is AWASH with hatred for women often going into graphic detail about how they want to harm us. Particular women or women in general. If that was a suicide trigger we would be few and far between.

Middle aged men do very badly out of divorce. They've worked all their lives to provide a nice home life for the family and end up in a bedsit, still funding the family home, whilst often having access to the children made difficult or at best, not having anywhere suitable to spend time with DC.

as we have been telling men for the last 40 or 50 years: do childcare, step up and be a parent. Then they won't be Sunday dads. If they took Paternity Leave and did a bit of career sacrifice for the sake of the family and their own wellbeing and relationship with the children, this would be less likely.

And yes, middle-aged white-men are still in charge of most things. So when things go tits-up who should we blame? women? black men who haven't made the grade? How about white-men budge over and share some of the responsibility as well as some of the rewards?

MH provision isn't good enough for anyone. Add to that the fact that men don't want to/won't/can't talk about things, and it is a crisis of huge proportions. What is the answer? More investment: in MH provision. In their lives. In their families. In their relationships with their friends/parents/family etc etc. Some of this has to come from outside, but some (most) must come from men themselves.

Meanwhile, women still face many many issues. So excuse me if i prioritise people more like me. I'm happy to play a supporting role for men's MH etc, but bloody hell they have to move their own bleedin' arses.

An area near us has one of the highest male suicide rates in the country. The research that we have done suggests that there are many contributory factors, but that an underlying thread is that men of this age feel themselves under massive pressure to be the "all-singing, all-dancing stereotypical good man" that they were brought up to believe of themselves, and failing to achieve that doesn't compute as an unrealistic expectation but, rather, as failure in themselves. But at the same time men are brought up not to be "weak" and not to admit "weakness", so they don't seek help.

Women have the same pressures from stereotypes, but because those stereotypes also include an "expectation of weakness" they are more likely to spend years dosed up on various medications that "fix" their "problems", and will also talk / off load to people more readily which is a safety valve.

Quite rightly there has been and continues to be a lot of focus on the damage that misogyny and stereotyping does to women - but there is an insidious opposing side to it that is much less spoken about that pulls down men too.

I'd be surprised if more men want to take their own lives than women. I think women are more likely to keep going from a sense of responsibility and thought for those they'd be leaving behind. Also less likely to succeed by their methods of choice than men.

Men are taught to be an island. Men must always be strong mentally and physically whilst age permits.

Asking for help is often seen as a weakness "He couldn't even do .... by himself". It is permissible to ask for help for jobs that require two people but if it can feasibly be done by one person - then it should really be done by that one man regardless of his confidence, previous skill or experience in that one job.

Seeking relationship advice or support is not really permitted. Asking their mother makes them "mummys boys", asking female friends is "probing for an affair". Asking male friends is weird and frowned upon "can't handle their woman".

Seeking support about their children is also not permitted often framed as either incompetence at their ability to parent. As a man, you must let the mother decide what is best for the new baby and lead all decisions whilst you go back out to work for 40+ hours plus travel time both ways. When the child is a toddler, the man has been given little opportunity to develop parenting skills and asking for help and support is framed as useless incompetence, possibly intentional incompetence.

Providing for the family is the primary purpose. Should you fail, you are incompetent. If you are incompetent, you have no value as a man.

Mental illness is not tolerated, being unable to complete either 'blue' jobs or 'pink jobs' means that there is little value in you any more. What does the mentally ills man wife even get out of the relationship ? If they have no wife at all, then what is the point of carrying on ?

Men are taught to be an island, it can be very lonely there. Our culture permits little assistance without ridicule.

Competence is to men as beauty is to women. "You are useless at ...." is the same insult as "You are fat / ugly" is to women. It can be hard when you hear that from someone who claims to love you when you have tried your best.

I don't think any of this is the fault of women, just in my view what the cause of male suicide, when a man thinks that he can offer no more value to the world.

Dropping testosterone causing depression.

Middle aged men do very badly out of divorce. They've worked all their lives to provide a nice home life for the family and end up in a bedsit, still funding the family home, whilst often having access to the children made difficult or at best, not having anywhere suitable to spend time with DC.

That's not true though is it - it's women who are left in poverty following divorce, having given up/reduced their earning potential first by taking maternity, then by doing the lions share of the childcare. This isn't opinon - this is backed up by national (and international) statistics! Women who find themselves in poverty later when maintenance/child benefit ends and they have no workplace pension and have to start at the bottom of the career ladder again.

And yes, the solution is to step up, and do their share - divorce favours continuity for the children, so if mum does bedtime, doctors appointments, dinners and birthday parties and dad barely manages to attend sportsday, of course that's going to be sensible the way it continues! Men need to stop delegating parenting. As a side effect, it turns out when they do, divorce is significantly less likely!

Men are taught to be an island. Men must always be strong mentally and physically whilst age permits.
Asking for help is often seen as a weakness "He couldn't even do .... by himself"

as i said in my first post here: toxic masculinity. It is the flipside to "women are weak and must concentrate on home and children" and this is why we are all part of the solution

Exactly @SunThroughTheCloudsAt6am

Society is changing. Men who resist those changes are going to struggle more.

As an aside I’d like to see mens suicide figures excluding suicides by persons charged with child sex offences and murder of a domestic partner and/or child followed by suicide before we decide that prevention of suicide by men should be our focus.

If you are suicidal the "thought of those leaft behind" is not a stopper. As explained to us (and millions of others) when family member did it and his closest broke down asking why would he leave them, did he not love them enough and did they not show him enough love.

I suspect that those contemplating suicide think that their friends and family will be better off without them or that there's no one who actually cares.

Being ex forces doesn't help.

What exactly are you trying to insinuate here? That male suicide is some sort of correction to violence and sexual abuse? I'm actually appalled at this attitude.