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

[Menreallysucksometimes]

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?

Always two sides to a story

I know four couples who divorced in their 40’s early 50’s, without exception all the wives had worked their way up in their career and were going up the ladder. Plus they brought up their children and kept the home running. I’m beginning to think men don’t like successful women.

I recognise myself in @RedCatBlueCatYellowCat s post. We are middle earners and stayed together through his several affairs as couldn’t make it work for housing, childcare and finances. So I stayed until middle age/adult children then got rid.

He’s with latest affair partner now. It may look as though it was a mid life crisis but it was over for ten years before that. My life is probably better than his in most ways now but I don’t think he has any regrets. He still constantly wants to see me and wants me to facilitate his time with the children and his relationship seems rocky but he would be too proud.

And no. It wasn’t a selfish ‘financial plan’! I earn more but still needed two incomes to afford life for my family. That’s reality for most of us.

Absolutely right that there Is. If a man is unhappy in his marriage, why on earth would he/should he stick around. That’s not a mid life crisis, that’s common sense. Can men be selfish dickheads sometimes, of course. But women can also be hard work, they don’t need man to put them on life’s moral pedestal, they do it themselves.

My best friend is mid divorce, and I’ve much sympathy for her soon to be ex husband.

Yes this was my experience. I was always a lot more successful than him. He got noticeably more miserable after I had a big promotion. And then even more so after the twins

I think he felt I only needed him to have children. Once id had 3 children he felt surplus to requirements (largely true I suppose). It was clear I loved having twins and he hated it. And I suspect he felt like a total failure (which in the cold light of day he is)

Almost every divorce I know, including my own, was a wife finally being in a position to leave an abusive relationship.

The only man I know who divorced, left a controlling and nasty wife, and has since spent a decade trying to offer their daughter some stability.

In fact, I don't know a single man who had a mid life crisis and left for another woman.

I get there two sides to every story and that no one should be forced to stay in an unhappy marriage. However I’ve become aware of a growing band of late 30s, early 40s men, who are fairly successful career wise/high earners who seem to not be able to hack the baby/nursery stage of parenting and rather than try and work with their partner/try couples counselling just walk away to be EOW Disney Dads. They just seem to have an almost overnight personality transplant and mourn their child free/stress free lives. I suppose I struggle to understand why you wouldn’t at least try to work on relationship in this situation before throwing in the towel.

How many men genuinely want a child/ren or do it to keep their wife happy, no it is not right to do this but if a man genuinely loves his female partner and didn't want to lose them what would happen if they were totally honest and said they didn't want children?

I know one man doing this and abandoning his family for a woman in her 20s he had an affair with at work. None of his kids or grandkids see him now and his parents were still alive too and basically disowned him for what he did. He lives 300 miles away from them with his new wife.

My female friend is doing it the up front way and divorcing her husband of 20 years. They are mates but she just doesn't fancy him any more.

I think it's when kids are out of the way or couples start to spend more time together that they sometimes realise they don't actually want to be together any more.

Because by the time they leave, they are done. There’s nothing to save.

This is actually a really interesting theory and one I hadn’t considered.

Said it before on MN, but women tend to drastically over-estimate just how much men actually want children. Sure, there are some men who are desperate to be fathers and thrive in that role, but there are a huge number who are ambivalent at best, but will provide a pretence of willingness purely to keep their partner sweet. Hardly any wonder that they rapidly lose interest when the reality of children hits. It's not a "personality transplant", it's the simple difference between life pre-children and life after they arrive.

And also women are blamed for not having enough children so that we face the demographics we have today.

I think this may be closer to the truth. The fundamental question of both the mid life crisis and a marriage just ending is “Is this it?”

In a way labeling the unhappiness of a spouse as “Oh A midlife crisis!” will just exacerbate their feelings because it rubbish es their discontent at their life.

No, they never come back, and usually people quickly get to the point of not wanting them back either.

Don't think this is the norm at all. I also don't think anyone should stay in an unhappy relationship. (Although, as someone previously posted - it seems on MN that men aren't allowed to leave but women are).

Both of mine have tried to return, one after a year, and the other tried three times over five years , I suspect because he's running out of money and can't flash the cash to attract a 30yo any more.

There are always two sides to every story though. Plenty of women lose patience with dithery hapless husbands once they have their DCs and discover their husband can't boil an egg.

I know one couple, all seemed to be going perfectly, married 9 years, two DC's, lovely house, both had good careers, no money worries. Then husband walked out one morning, no explanation, no warning, no sign of OW.

18 months later he married an ex-wife-lookalike, then had two disturbingly similar children, then tried to buy the ex-family home off his ex-wife, and when she refused to sell, he bought a house four doors up.

That was truly weird.

I absolutely agree that a lot of men have children to pacify their oh.
I’ve said it before and posters have disagreed with me, but the fact is a lot of men do not care that much about their children. Of course some do. However if it came to it and a woman said I am not having children under any circumstances, most men would go along with it. They would not leave and become single.
It is mainly women who want children.
Look at how many older fathers there are having yet more children with younger women. That is down to the new woman.
My friend is using several online dating sites. She has said you would not believe how many 50 year old men have young dc after getting with a younger woman and then (usually) the woman gets rid of him once she has had her child. She doesn’t want to date men in this position as her dcs are adults.
Often these men already have older dcs from a previous relationship too.
So, I think in a lot of cases the man is more likely to not bother too much with his dcs once the relationship breaks down.
The majority of parents spilt up. Even more so when they are not married.
I’m not sure if couples were happier in the past, or if it was down to societal pressure to stay together.
As for couples getting back together, no I don’t really know anyone doing this. I know instances where the man has cheated and the woman has stayed regardless. Quite frankly I stay friends with one woman on social media and I feel embarrassed for her. Her constant talk of her wonderful husband when he has shagged about throughout their marriage is cringe. She posted recently that they have renewed their wedding vows. Even her own family have disowned him.

That is one of the weirdest stories I’ve heard, how bizarre. Must be awful for the ex wife being stuck with them living so close too.

Yes I'd actually agree with you - if I had said to my ex I didn't want children he'd have been more than happy. As it is I said yes I do want children when you have "the talk" before marriage etc and he said he felt the same way but I suspect he said what I wanted to hear.

He was an ok dad to 1 child - looking back because I naturally did the majority of the parenting - and he always got plenty of "me time". When the twins came along the expectation was that "me time" became significantly less as we now had 3 young chicken between the 2 of us - within the year he was gone. He openly said as he was packing his bags he realised he didn't want to parent full time and he couldn't cope with it 🙄. That he had effectively done "his job" in giving me 3 children and now he was off

I think mid life is a turning point. You realise if you're going to change things it's now or never. That doesn't mean you're having a crisis, so much as taking positive steps that maybe should have been taken sooner.

I've always been able to tell if a man or woman has written TV shows when there is a split. If it's a male author then men rarely have lines where they ask about the kids, spend time planning what to do on weekends with them, go shopping to prepare their favourite meal, have to wash kit or read a bed time story over the weekends but they do somehow manage to attract a woman half their age...if the kid even gets a mention I always wonder if a woman has pointed out it might look better on set.

Is it a midlife crisis or have they served their purpose of being a family and providing for the kids until they’re old enough to leave and then want to be free to live their life now they want?

I agree with you to a point, however this post was actually meant to be aimed more at men who have very young families who just up and leave. I think there is a big difference in walking away after years of a marriage slowly winding down or unhappiness, to walking away without even trying counselling etc when you are both in the trenches with very young children and babies. I can see both sides, however I think young children are hard work and it isn’t easy, things get tough for a while. However, walking away at that point without even trying to save things just doesn’t seem right or fair.

Do you think the same applies though if the children are still very little? Pre-school and babies. I kind of feel you are in the trenches at that point and more effort should be made to try and rectify things. Obviously somethings can’t be saved and a person has to walk away for their own sanity, but if there is no abuse and the other partner is willing try, surely that’s best at that stage?