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Divorce/separation

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

Original poster

The amount of men who have a midlife crisis and abandon their families is depressing

127 replies

Menreallysucksometimes · 11/03/2025 22:39

Is anyone else thoroughly depressed with amount of men who seem to be having a midlife crisis and are prepared to leave their partners and families and just walk away?

Do many of them coming crawling back?

OP posts:
FurzeNotGorse · 11/03/2025 22:49

Of the three friends who’ve divorced in middle age after long marriages, one was divorced by his wife and fought it the whole way (she’s way happier without him)
, and the other two seem to have replicated pretty much the exact dynamics of their first marriages with their new partners (one with his affair partner, the other didn’t leave for an affair, lived alone for a while and then found a relationship. Which is exactly like the marriage he left.)

No crawling back that I know of by anyone.

Huckleberries · 11/03/2025 22:52

I don't think I know anyone who did this

I know of men who have ended their marriages because they were unhappy, and actually two of them are looking for more access to their children, not less.

socialdilemmawhattodo · 11/03/2025 22:55

Huckleberries · 11/03/2025 22:52

I don't think I know anyone who did this

I know of men who have ended their marriages because they were unhappy, and actually two of them are looking for more access to their children, not less.

My opinion about access to children is that it is financially driven due to the constructs that we have in family court and child maintenance services. Ie 50:50 being considered to be ideal when more often than not it isn't. A father who agrees to have his children overnight is given credit for that financially despite the lack of their involvement in any other significant way in that child's life.

MuckFusk · 11/03/2025 23:00

It's not a midlife crisis. It's just shallow men wanting to be with younger women in order to feel "manly."
Who would want them to come crawling back? I have heard stories of them trying to when the new toy turns out to not be all they had hoped, but by that time the wives had moved on and were divorcing them.

PermanentTemporary · 11/03/2025 23:01

Good friend's husband did a classic disappearing act aged about 48, went off with work colleague aged 30 leaving teenage children behind, only to have a new baby serve him right I always thought he was a twat BUT I have to say they originally got together when they were 18 and it's tough to make anything last through so much change.

I also know one other who left and also had new baby with new younger partner and likewise never got on with him, but his wife has significant issues and it's more a case of why did they marry in the first place.

That's about it. I suppose my dad went off with someone else at the age of 63 but my main thought was again wondering why they'd ever married - the taboo against sex before marriage in those says has a lot to answer for.

If you expect people to be perfect you'll be constantly disappointed.

Waterlilysunset · 11/03/2025 23:02

It’s so embarrassingly common

ForFunGoose · 11/03/2025 23:04

I don’t know anyone who has done this.
I do however know people who have left marriages because it was over for them.
The advice I’ve seen given to people in unhappy or unhealthy marriages is to leave.
why do you assume it’s a midlife crisis and not a well thought out decision?

How many couples are you basing this on?

JeanPaulGagtier · 11/03/2025 23:05

Guys don't have sticking power, particularly when women hold them to account to be decent husbands and fathers. It's all in line with the rise of Tate and this tech bro culture, which seems to spend a lot on brainwashing guys they can have it all if they leave families and be shagging 20 year olds whenever they like. The fact this is the dream life for many men over 40 is very depressing. Sex is paramount to their entire lives, which must be pretty dull.

BlondiePortz · 11/03/2025 23:12

So it's better they stay out of pity for the wife? Or because people have to stay married just because?

We get told constantly on here how bad men are and women should leave if a man drops a towel on a floor so why would it be best for men to hang around?

Pigeonqueen · 11/03/2025 23:14

I think it’s also fairly common for middle aged, menopausal women to get the ick and dump their husbands when the kids are older and the oestrogen caring hormone runs dry.

Gardenyear · 11/03/2025 23:14

The men I've known who've left in midlife have generally hung on in poor relationships until finances or DCs finishing education enabled them to feel more comfortable about leaving without "abandoning" anyone.

Most continue to be very involved and haven't abandoned their families at all, in fact all the divorced middle aged men know are at the beck and call of their adult children in a way that suggests over compensating.

ForFunGoose · 11/03/2025 23:21

On paper my brother would be an asshole but he was dying of loneliness in his marriage.
If he had stayed I think he would have become depressed and possibly suicidal.
Imagine coming home every day to a wife who only wants your paycheque.
There are two sides OP

TheSassyTraybake · 11/03/2025 23:22

I don’t think happily married men (or women) have affairs. I think it’s people who already unhappy in their marriages.

cakeoverexercise · 11/03/2025 23:23

Yes, this happened with my ex. Definite mid-life crisis, around 2 years ago. Went off with a younger work colleague and has left me and two teenage DC with almost no contact since. I agree, OP, it's depressingly common, and such a cliche.

GreenwayHouse · 11/03/2025 23:30

Yes, this has just happened to me (see other thread about our counselling). Definite crisis and coincidentally with big birthday coming up. He's turned very selfish and wrecked our relationship with no thought. He's now miserable and I think is very screwed up. No OW involved though.

I know someone who did this as well but he did go crawling back to his ex DP. By that point, she'd realised she was much happier without him and told him to sling his hook. I was impressed with her for doing that.

MidnightMeltdown · 11/03/2025 23:35

Loads couples I know who got together in their 20s divorced in their 40s. I don't think that you can necessarily always blame the man!

They say that your personality changes every 7 years. Most of us aren't the same people at 45 that we were at 25. As we mature, we change and no longer want the same things. It's perfectly natural to grow apart over time.

Sugarnspicenallthingsnaice · 11/03/2025 23:38

I'm mid-life crisis age range and genuinely can't think of anyone this has happened to.

In most divorces it's been the women who pulled the pin. (Including my own.) The two men I can think of who left were lonely and miserable for many years afterwards, they didn't jump into new relationships.

I'm wondering - without setting out to offend anyone - whether what OP describes is more common in suburban breadwinner/SAHM setups which is not really my demographic, the women in my circles started families later in life and are pretty self sufficient.

AgnesCastusAside · 11/03/2025 23:48

Midlife generally coincides with the age you are when you have been married for a long time, things have gone pear shaped, you have tried to make it work for years and no longer have it in you to carry on flogging a dead horse, though?

In the couple of cases I know of, it’s been the man that’s pulled the plug even though the wives have been just as miserable for years. So not a midlife crisis, more of a, “well, one of us needs to bloody well be brave enough to end this thing!”

HellDorado · 11/03/2025 23:49

Menreallysucksometimes · 11/03/2025 22:39

Is anyone else thoroughly depressed with amount of men who seem to be having a midlife crisis and are prepared to leave their partners and families and just walk away?

Do many of them coming crawling back?

No.

RedCatBlueCatYellowCat · 12/03/2025 00:06

In conversation with a solicitor, she said that in her experience, less well off couples divorce quickly after an affair because they have little to lose. The uber wealthy also divorce because they can afford to lose a lot and still be wealthy. For those in the middle, they are more likely to try and work things out, and if they do, the wife (assuming it is the man who cheated) tends to end up with the upper hand in the relationship. She had known a number of couples get almost through the divorce process before the man decided his wife wasn't so awful after all, begged forgiveness and they called off the divorce. I have no idea how accurate this is. It was purely her observation.

I suspect most people who decide to stay together don't announce that there has been a third party in the marriage, because of societal disapproval. That said, the only couple I know where it happened, the wife did take him back and they seem much more content together now than before where it was non stop bickering and open resentment of each other.

S0rrywhat · 12/03/2025 00:10

ForFunGoose · 11/03/2025 23:21

On paper my brother would be an asshole but he was dying of loneliness in his marriage.
If he had stayed I think he would have become depressed and possibly suicidal.
Imagine coming home every day to a wife who only wants your paycheque.
There are two sides OP

Completely agree! Two sides to every coin!

BlondiePortz · 12/03/2025 05:36

Pigeonqueen · 11/03/2025 23:14

I think it’s also fairly common for middle aged, menopausal women to get the ick and dump their husbands when the kids are older and the oestrogen caring hormone runs dry.

I have lost count of how many times I have seen on here 'I have been with my partner for this length of time now I have the ick'

then there are endless replies 'get rid' , 'life is too short' , 'just leave' etc.

man wants to leave 'OMG how can he do that to you he is pure evil take him for all his worth' etc.

but then we have the 'I want to leave my husband but he is my financial plan so i will stay till the kids leave home'

Bailamosse · 12/03/2025 05:43

DH’s friend left his wife last year. She tells everyone it was a midlife crisis.

Really, she was awful and controlling.

There’s two sides to every story. And he didn’t ‘abandon’ his DC; he left her.

justanothercrapbedtime · 12/03/2025 05:50

My ex husband had an epic mid life crisis. Announced he didn't want / couldn't cope with family life and left whilst I was at the shops - moved his things out 2 weeks later. Left me raising 1 year old twins and a reception age child. We'd be married/together nearly 20 years.

Took him 2 years to admit he regretted it but there was no way I was taking him back

ladymammalade · 12/03/2025 05:58

Quite a few of our friends have got divorced in the last five years - and in every one of them it was the wife who instigated it.

One was seeing another man and left to be with him, another left because he was an alcoholic and the others were just fed up/grown apart.