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.

Im old enough that many of the couples who's weddings I attended in my 20s are now separated. There certainly does not seem to be any pattern of affairs exclusively carried out by the men. More a mixed bag of growing apart/shitty behaviour across the board by both men an women.

Was he always as keen to have children as you were or did he need persuading?

This seems to happen quite a lot and it’s usually because the couple have stopped investing enough in their relationship as a couple once children came along, or because they didn’t have enough in common to start with and the children were a sort of buffer until they left home.

I've never known it to happen either.

I'm in my sixties too and most of the men I've known have either left for an affair partner or the marriage has broken up because he had a ons or did something like go to a massage parlour.

I would imagine - another wild guess - that given life expectancy is in the 80s the thought of spending 50-60 years with one person (farts, warts and all) is as attractive as wet sludge. Plenty of folks might just want a second life, and another chance at adventure and happiness.

If he wants to leave, and he's not leaving because of some obvious big problem in the marriage, then he wants there to be someone else, even if there is no specific person in the frame.

So if he hasn't given a specific reason that he just can't live with anymore, then it's most likely a simple case of wanting to move on to new things.

The person who leaves in normally a lot further down the track than the other person they’ve long checked out and moved on before it comes to the separation stage
where the other person it’s a bolt from the blue and seems as though they’ve hopped from one to another

I know two people who are divorced. One had consistently cheated on his wife for years the just fell head over heels in love with someone. Divorced his wife and married her.

Another his wife has been physically abusing him for years BUT he still only left after forming an emotional attachment to a woman at his local gym. He then went on to marry this woman.

The men I know who have left their wives/partners through their own choice have not had OW lined up. The ones who have left and gone to the OW have all been kicked out by the wife after the affair has come to light.

I'm not sure you read what I said?

but! you have provided reasons for them leaving !
the OP’s husband cannot apply any of these justifications
to his situation

Yes, this sums up most of the cases I've known - including my 2nd marriage. I ended the first on finding out he'd been in a parallel relationship for several months.

The others left because the marriages had become intolerable and were ostensibly single afterwards, yet were in a serious new relationship suspiciously quickly. I don't believe that many people go from broken-hearted to dating to engaged in under a year. They must have at least been doing the dating before quitting their marriages!

Literally the one man I know who broke the mould is my DH when he left the mother of his kids.

And I only have his word on it, although they are amicable and he was single for absolutely ages before we got together with no whiff of any other women in his social media, no mentions by family and friends etc. so I do believe him.