AIBU to think husbands usually leave because there is someone else?

[Mostlywilliow]

Cherchez la femme? I personally cannot think of a single case of a husband leaving his wife without there being another woman involved. Not one. And I’m pushing 60.

My friend’s husband “hasn’t felt the same for a long time” and asked for a divorce. He is adamant there isn’t anyone else. She is desperate to believe him and hopes he might come back. And he might - but there’s someone else I reckon, cos there always is.

Apparently she is, was hard to live with. However, he can’t fault her as a mother. Just a partner.

Not necessarily an OW, but ime men are very passive and either have to fall or be pushed.

Id say it's truer to say that men often leave when there's another women. That's not to say they were happy before, just that the new woman is a trigger to move on.

It's more the leaving the kids part.

My husband’s best friend left his wife when he found out she was sleeping with her personal trainer.

When my husband left there was definitely no one else involved, and when my now husband left his previous wife it was definitely down to her abusive behaviour and to keep the kids safe, there was no one else involved.

My ex husband left because he changed his mind about having children…… after me giving birth to twins (children 2 and 3 by the way). I know for a fact he didn’t have an affair because what man in their right mind would lie and say he didn’t want his kids to hide another woman? TBH I’d rather he’d had an affair - emotionally I think that’s easier to deal with than the man I married and spent 2 decades with announcing something so awful

Not true.

I know two men who've asked for divorces and in both cases the issue was money.

1. wife insisted on being a sahm, would not even consider a part time job when kids were school age. He was working all hours trying to cover the bills.

2. Wife was a secret spender/impulse buyer. He was constantly find credit cards, subscriptions, unpaid bills etc.they hadn't had kids yet and she was absolutely ruining him financially.

My DP left his ex-wife because once the kids left home, they just didn't have anything in common any more, and he wanted the next 25 years to look different than the previous 25 had with her.

Generalizations of the sort you're making, OP, are rarely supported by hard evidence. People leave for all sorts of reasons, men and women.

I don’t know a statistically significant number of divorced people. Certainly the cases I’ve known when the husband initiated the separation there was another woman on the scene suspiciously quickly. Where it was “by mutual agreement”, no one else seemed to be involved (but you don’t know). In cases where the woman has left the man there was often abusive or at least unpleasant behaviour involved. As I say, not necessarily representative.

My friend’s husband left her for another woman, though he denied it at first. It very quickly came to light.

A friend of a friend was the OW for years and he did eventually leave his wife for her. AFAIK they’re still together. He made his landing very very soft.

Another former colleague was on the verge of leaving his wife for his affair partner. She left her husband. Then he changed his mind. 10+ years on he is still with his wife.

I dont blame them for leaving my mother.

I can think of more than a few, when there was no OW.

I am sure there are plenty when men left because of the OW, but just as many when the marriage was over but they waited until they found the OW.

But as many of these "OW" were married themselves, I am not sure why we generalise on just one side of the couples?

It's just a wid guess, but I would imagine there are a lot of couples who only stay together until the last child leaves home.

So do some wives, I’ve known. Always easier if someone is waiting. 🤷‍♀️

Yep. I left my ex when the kids left. Ho abuse, no one else involved. Just boredom.

I had very happy years after that, after meeting the man who would be my second husband, until he died. 👍

He left his kids with a crazy person? That's nice.

Virtually every time. Range of levels of involvement. That said, same for women I know who left…

Why did he leave the kids if she's so.crazy? I never understand that.

I know of 4 men who have left their wives.

One because he was having an affair
Two because because they caught their wives having an affair
And one because they just weren't getting on any more and he wasn't happy. No new woman turned up for over a year afterwards.

So thats a 75% no new woman rate anecdotally.

This is one of those weird MN articles of faith that doesn't bear any relation to real life. I don't think leaving for an OW (or OM) is very common at all - not in my social circle anyway.

Most relationships I know of have ended because of a specific life event pulling two people apart (such as one person gets offered a dream job somewhere the other person can't or won't go) or one person realising they want a different sort of lifestyle to the other (travelling vs settling down, city vs country) or just growing apart/incompatibility. All of those things are way, way more common for both men and women than cheating and affairs.

Whenever I read someone saying that in their experience, every time a man has left it's because there's another woman, I just think their experience must be very limited.

Reading comprehension is also very limited on these threads as you'll always get plenty of posters pointing out the number of men they know who've left for a non-OW reason, but STILL others will claim that all men only leave for OW as a blanket rule.

I think men leave because their wives aren’t having sex with them.

Men seem to tolerate all kinds of shit as long as they are having sex. Once the sex stops they start thinking about their exit, which is often the first woman that will have sex with them.

I think most men view having a wife like an appliance- like a hoover or whatever - and they will just replace one for another.

I also think this is true. It’s been my experience.

When my exH walked out of our marriage,he swore that there wasn't another woman. Three months later I found out that he had been seeing someone for several months before he left.

I don't think they generally leave because there is someone else exactly. I think a lot of men won't leave until they have another woman lined up but the cracks in the relationship are generally there before that.

In general, men get more benefit from living with a woman than women get from living with a man, so the cost benefit analysis for leaving is different. Once they've lined up another woman, that changes.