To ask is there ever an acceptable reason to MN’ers for a man to leave a wife?

[SavoirFlair]

I’m fully prepared to get absolutely flamed for this thread, such is the understandable bias on here from us women.

But I’m wondering - once a man has children with a woman, and something fundamentally goes wrong after time (they don’t evolve together, they fall out of love, the sex ends with little chance of it coming back for one person, they argue to the point of destruction of a loving family environment)

…then is it ever acceptable to MN’ers if a man says “I’m sorry, I can’t do this” and leaves the family?

granted I get there is a crucial part missing here - the man has to have the intent to want to see his family and raise his children, have proper access, want to be a part of their lives and co-parent with respect and understanding .

However I’m often on threads on here where “LTB!” is sounded with regular frequency to the point it’s become cliche here. Does the same count for the “bastards” who have had enough? Can they ever leave?

Some notes for any of the obtuse folk on here who like to pick holes :

1. This is not a ‘reverse’ (ugh)
2. I am not a man
3. Cheating is always wrong. I’m talking about a man leaving without another partner lined up, when a relationship irrevocably breaks down
4. If this thread takes off and you’re the Daily Mail, I abhor your website which tears down women and encourages them to be catty about body types. Horrible ‘newspaper’

Of course a man is free to end a relationship and leave. And they are so fortunate as to not have the same level of risk as a woman. They don’t have to worry about being murdered in the act of leaving or shortly after leaving a relationship. They won’t be in that kind of danger that so many women all over the world are in. Women don’t typically threaten to murder you if you want to end a relationship. So, feel free to end it with no fear for your safety.

If my best friend left his wife I don’t think anyone would judge him but sadly he’s got Stockholm syndrome and can’t see what’s being done to him. If he did realise and leave I think everyone would have a party !

I was also shocked by the frequency of the LTB responses to so many relationship issues here, without any sort of hesitation. I think MN ers ,(as with anyone), will resort to the easiest solution they can think of when in reality the situation deserves more consideration

I dont think the responses are because it is the easiest solution. I think it is projection. Around 1 in 3 women have experienced violence from a partner. And 1 in 4 have been sexually assaulted or raped. That's just the serious shit and not the putting up with being an unpaid slave or having to live with a manchild.

So I would advise without hesitation to LTB for many reasons. No one has to stay with someone who makes them unhappy.

Of course it’s ok. As a matter of fact, more people should leave if they are unhappy, rather than waiting until it all gets toxic/ abusive

The problem here is that men rarely, if ever, leave without a replacement lined up. Even if they haven’t cheated physically yet.

This is how my friend's new partner was with his ex! Once he left , he realized how unhappy he had been.

Off cause they can and should leave a relationship their not happy in. The problem is that "wants" and "having the intention" of been in their children's lives post separation is not enough. They need to plan their new lives around their children's needs, and actually do (not just intend to do) whatever it takes to continue to be an active parent, the same as a mother would when leaving a relationship. That's the part that many farther fail at.

IMO the only acceptable reasons to leave a relationship where there are children involved are abuse or infidelity. On both sides.

Once you have children they should be your priority, and people seem to see relationships as disposable these days. Even on here, the immediate response to “I’m not happy/don’t love him/don’t get any sex/I want 4 kids and he only wants 2,” is “leave.” In fact I even saw one the other day where a poster’s dh of several decades wanted to get a dog and because she didn’t posters agreed that the best course of action was for her to get a divorce.

Nobody actually works at relationships any more. Fact is that all relationships go through difficult patches. Even couples who are still happily married decades later will have had difficult patches, but now instead of encouraging people to work through them we encourage them to leave and move on to someone else, with little thought to the damage the children are suffering as a result.

The damage caused by step families is well researched, and yet we encourage people to enter them because “you have the right to be happy.”

Once you have children your rights come second, assuming as I said above, there’s no abuse or infidelity involved. But even then I think that people shouldn’t be blending families after that. §

Yes obviously.

It’s never easy and each situation is different.

A father shouldn’t just up and leave without having told his wife he was unhappy and why and tried to fix it. Because if he is a father it’s not just about him.

If, having made a genuine attempt to fix things, he leaves, there is probably no single right way to proceed that would please everyone on MN. If he sees the DC EOW that would be too little for some women. If he goes for 50:50 that would devastate others. No one right answer there.

Completely agree.

The epidemic of “blended families” makes my blood run cold.

@DontGoBreakingMyHeart what are you basing that on? My experience is that people feel guilty and stay in relationships for the sake of the kids when actually they are toxic, including to the children. Waiting until someone is so unhappy that they have an affair or start behaving abusively isn’t a positive thing for children. Others judging from their pedestal actually makes the situation worse..

Of course a man can leave (his partner, as you clarified, not his children) for any or no reason. So YANBU to state and advocate for that. But you seem to be starting from the assumption that this is an unusual or controversial view and that the majority of posters here will disagree with you, so YABU there. People frequently post here that no one should stay in a relationship they don't want to be in; every pair-bond relationship requires active opt-in from both participants. That doesn't apply to one sex more than the other.

I think the majority of posters here are women, and responsers are likely to assume a relationship-problem poster is a woman with a male partner unless stated otherwise. In cases where the person says he's a man considering leaving a woman, I've normally seen supportinve and constructive responses, and sometimes criticism that he has stayed so long/not spoken up about wanting to end the relationship/not followed through on leaving.

The one set of cases where I think there should be a difference in responses/standards based purely on sex is where a women is pregnant or recovering physically from a pregnancy/breastfeeding a newborn. In these cases, the man cannot simply separate from the woman and separately take on his 50% of responsibility for the children; he is going to have to continue a close (not romantic or committed or sexual, but collaborative and in some cases assistive) relationship with the child's mother at least temporarily. (Of course it's possible for two women having a baby together to split during the pregnancy or soon after birth, and same standards should apply, but these cases are relatively rare and the pregancy is typically planned for and intended, which is often not the case with opposite sex couples. )

Is there any actual evidence for this or? Because this isn't my experience at all.

Yes I agree, it is completely terrible. Far worse than the women who are killed by their partners, domestic violence, child abuse...

@DontGoBreakingMyHeart

Once you have children your rights come second,

Fuck that

I've supported quite a few men posting on the relationships boards. Men absolutely have just as much right to end a marriage as women. And cheating, abuse and all the other things are equally bad whether it's a man or a woman doing them. I suppose there are people who always blame the man, but LTB works both ways, you just fill in the last letter accordingly.

Indeed. Staying together whilst you don't even like eachother is a perfect way to entirely fuck up your children and their interpretation of relationships.

I am VERY glad that my mum left my dad when she did. Very very glad indeed. I dread to think what situation I'd be in if I had been brought up to think you stayed with people like that "for the kids" or that it was a good example of a normal relationship.

A man has as much right to end a relationship he is unhappy in as a woman does.

I am not happy is an acceptable reason.

The difference is, as I am sure you well know, that the majority of the time when a man ends the relationship he leaves by himself. Quite often into someone's waiting arms.

Women ending relationships generally remain primary carer for the children

I seriously doubt any adult has ever turned to their parents and said I know you were so unhappy when I was growing up, I heard you arguing, I heard you crying, I felt the tense atmosphere but I'm so glad you stayed under the same roof, getting more and more miserable for my entire childhood. It was wonderful. I have so many great memories.
I'll be sure to raise my own children like that.

Anyone, male or female, can leave a relationship (married or not) that is not fulfilling their needs - whether it is because they do not find their partner attractive, have fallen out of love, have grown apart.

The only thing that is unacceptable, is not to do whatever is the best for your children - frequent contact, co-parenting amicably, staying fully involved in their lives, financially supporting. That includes prioritising your children, co-parenting relationship and financial commitments to your existing children over any future partners and potential second families.

If you don’t wish to be in a marriage any more, for whatever reason you can leave, irrelevant of gender. It’s not a prison sentence

The poster (if you would trouble to read it) said that abuse was a reason to leave.

You can leave an abusive marriage without going into a blended family.

I think it's fine as long as they're honest (same goes for women but as we are talking about men..). People fall out of love, it happens. Being honest about it though rather than just fucking someone else, stringing someone along etc is important. Of course it shouldn't be an excuse to leave his children as well, you'd hope for some sort of agreement which suits both parties and is fair to the children. Often women choose to cut their hours or leave their jobs, either decided before children or after, or to facilitate a man's career at the expense of their own, which is their choice and the consequences of that are that they might leave one day.

This.

The fact is that men are more likely than women to leave their children and expect respect for seeing them eow and paying as little maintenance as they can get away with, especially if they re-discover their bachelor days or/ and then go on to have a second family, while women just leave their partner and put the children first.

Some women are so institutionally misogynistic they praise men who maintain any contact at all with their children as "amazing" and make excuses for men not seeing their children as long as they occasionally chuck a few pounds their way or send the occasional WhatsApp, and blame the children for not making an effort...

You see this depressingly often "You can't blame him for not seeing his kids, he messages at least once a month but his 13 year old makes no effort and his ex doesn't make him 🤷" 🙄 Strangely nobody ever thinks a mum is okay never to see her young teens and just message them a few times per year, but too many people think it's fine for dads and never their fault.

I was just mocking your ridiculously over the top language. Your blood runs cold? Get a grip and find something truly awful to get upset over.