Why is it the majority of men just bury their heads in the sand when their wives are unhappy in the marriage?

[BillyBusStop]

When I divorced, my lawyer told me that 75% of divorces are initiated by wives against husbands. I tried EVERYTHING to get my exdh to engage in some sort of relationship therapy because I didn't want the marriage to break. We were together over 20yrs. His answer was 'If you've got a problem, that's your problem - go away & deal with it & come back when you have done'. He refused to join me in doing anything, we had no sex life, all assets were strictly controlled by him & in his sole name. Over the course of my therapy, I woke up to the realities of my relationship & it became untenable to continue.

Now two of my friends are in the same boat. Husbands refusing to engage with any sort of counselling, don't want the status quo to change & are both about to lose their wives. I find it SO sad. What is it about so many men that makes them resolutely refuse to engage?

Because unless they have been flirted with or having an affair, they don't want to lose the slave. But also think no input is required.

Same could be said of plenty of wives too.

Wow it took two whole messages before it descended into what about the menz...

Lots of men, IME, stay in the marriage until they get another offer or their wives chuck them. Passive. I don't know why, I'm a mere woman.

Arrogance, ego, fear, pride ??

Who knows.

It took three whole messages before it descended in to someone going all "menz" on the thread

Because they see their wives as domestic appliances and no one asks a washing machine if it's happy

I suspect it is because they expect their wife to be like their mum - does everything for them, doesn't expect anything back, keeps on loving them regardless. And then their experience becomes that this assumption is correct - because their wives put up with it.

A majority of women have an extra person to parent - their husband/partner. It's why women are happier single.

Quite simply because women can be very moody and hard to understand. There rarely seems to be any rhyme or reason to unreasonable behaviour. Is she saying no to sex because she is tired, hormonal or simply embarrassed that she hasn’t shaved her legs? Is she telling me not to sit on the sofa next to her because there is a problem with our marriage or because kids were playing up? You never know. No point looking for causes all the time because sometimes there simply isn’t one and sometimes, for some unknown reason, she won’t tell you.

I still remember clearly being told at 17 by a gf “Nothing’s wrong” and believing it. Only to find out later that day something was wrong. That day I learnt you couldn’t listen to what was being said but you had to play the bizarre game of psychologist body language interpreter to maybe have a chance of working out was happening.

“If you don’t know I’m not going to tell you” generally means you have to start racking your brains for the next few hours trying to go through everything, in some odd parlour game, before the answer may be revealed. Doesn’t matter whether you want to play it or not, you are in it so start guessing son. Limited time, limited clues, Krakatoa if you don’t get the right answer in time.

So believing it’s just some bad mood fuss that’ll all blow over, eventually, is more attractive than believing “I’m scheduled to have weekly, lengthy discussions about deeply personal issues with a complete stranger”

Finally there is also, from what I can see, more belief in the marriage vows amongst men ‘till death do us part” than women. I suspect most men are convinced their marriage is forever, women not so much.

Dunno but I'd like to. I tried to get my husband to engage in fixing our marriage for a long time before I bailed, at which point he was devastated and begged to try again. I think perhaps he / they are so arrogant or inert that they just don't think their wives are being serious about potentially ending things.

Some ridiculous posts on this thread.

I think it’s all down to individual circumstances.

To say the vast majority of women are happier single is a sweeping generalisation and certain doesn’t apply to me.

I tried to get my husband to engage in fixing our marriage for a long time before I bailed, at which point he was devastated and begged to try again. I think perhaps he / they are so arrogant or inert that they just don't think their wives are being serious about potentially ending things

This is certainly what happened in my second marriage. Because it WAS my second marriage, I had learned many lessons about myself from my first marriage- mostly about my methods of communication, as ALovingSpirit alludes to. Hints and subtleties weren't enough, let alone expecting a certain decent level of behaviour as a basic.

So in my second marriage, if he upset me, I told him directly why. If I needed something, I asked for it directly. No hints, no games, no subtlety. Occasionally he apologised, but mostly he just argued at me, telling me why I was 'wrong'.

When I reached the point of saying counselling was needed, he had one job- to research counsellors. This was to prove that he was interested in our marriage as something other than a convenient housekeeping service for him.

He didn't bother. And he was shocked and upset when I called time on the marriage, and couldn't understand why I'd "given up so easily".

I think, in his eyes, because I'd put up with his behaviours for so long, that that 'proved' that he was doing things the right way. Add to that his natural belief that he was Right and I was Wrong (this wasn't personal, btw- just his view of himself and literally anyone else) and that was that.

He too believed that men believed more in marriage vows lasting forever. But that was only on the condition that he NEVER had to adapt to accommodate his marriage/wife/family.

Finally there is also, from what I can see, more belief in the marriage vows amongst men ‘till death do us part” than women.

LovingSpirit, my DF is a retired GP. He says in his 30+ years of experience women stick to their marriages far more than men. If a partner becomes disabled, if a child has serious health problems? Women stay as a rule. It's men who bale

Interesting thread.

@prawnofthepatriachy

That’s certainly at odds with pretty much all research into the issue. Funnily enough I was reading “psychology today” recently and it confirmed this thread. The vast majority of divorces are initiated by women and in the majority of cases men don’t see it coming.

I’m not sure if I can post links but here it is
www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-new-resilience/201508/women-initiate-divorce-much-more-men-heres-why

livingspirit

I have to agree with you.
Men do believe in the marriage vows being forever. But I think we disagree on the reasons why or the expectations.

I think men think some men think marriage is forever regardless of their effort or behaviour towards their wife ,
Whereas we women reach a point where we are just not going to accept unreasonable behaviour just because we are married

For some bizarre reason, men are usually shocked by this

I read a lot of threads on here where an OP writes that her DH has suggested he is unhappy etc. A significant number of pps will tell her that he is having an affair or is mentally ill.

That has always led me to wonder if this creates a catch 22 for any man trying to instigate any type of conversation about the state of their relationship. Over the course of a long relationship both partners will at some stage feel disconnected to some level. I would hope that if I said that I wouldn’t be met with accusations of an affair or insanity.

If I was going to be cliched about it, I would say most men aren’t burying their head in the sand. They know there is a problem but they have much less invested in home life. They have work, hobbies and more opportunity to have affair. If they can have that and come home to a clean house and home cooked meal all the better.

Maybe because generally men are happy to shag about outside the marriage, therefore having all their needs met. Whereas women (in general) don't believe they have a right to shag about to make the (failing) marriage more palatable.

Meh, in RL my observation is the % of people having affairs in marriage splits 50/50 male female. However the women usually leave for the OM but the men stay in the marriage.

Lots of sweeping generalisations here.

AlovingSpirit Sorry, maybe that's your experience but it certainly isn't mine.

I spent years, a decade really, talking to my stbxh , begging and pleading with him to change his destructive behaviours. I talked with him, wrote him letters and e mails, talked more, went to 3 different counsellors over multiple counselling sessions, I kept on for years saying how his actions were impacting me and our marriage.

When I finally had to leave, as my health was starting to suffer from the chronic stress of an unhappy marriage, he then accused me of walking out without giving him a chance to change and also accused me of refusing to "work" at the marriage, when in fact the last ten years I had been doing nothing but work to try and turn it around. He told everyone I just woke up one day and told him it was over and refused to engage in efforts to save it. Not true.

Don't perpetuate this bullshit myth that women expect men to be mind readers. Many of us have articulated exactly what is going on to our husbands for years, and after years of trying we have realised that sometimes for whatever reason our words and needs are not being listened too, or maybe even cared about. I never did silent treatment, I always believed in being upfront and communicating, it made no bloody difference in the end.

I think the stats about who initiates divorce don’t take into account the true complexities involved. I was the one who filed for divorce from my ex, but I wouldn’t say I initiated it.

He said he wanted a divorce, refused counseling, started behaving increasingly disrespectful and single and even emotionally abusive. I finally filed for divorce when I found out he was also having an affair.

I’m not sure why he didn’t file, actually. He was clearly the one who wanted the divorce.

ALovingSpirit that article doesn't say what you seem to think it does. It says nothing about seriously injured or disabled spouses/children - which was my point.

I know women instigate the majority of divorces. The article reports research which supports the feminist assertion that some women experience heterosexual marriage as oppressive or uncomfortable.

The lead researcher adds, I think that marriage as an institution has been a little bit slow to catch up with expectations forgender equality. Wives still take their husbands’ surnames, and are sometimes pressured to do so. Husbands still expect their wives to do the bulk of the housework and the bulk of the childcare.

There's no suggestion that men take their vows more seriously, rather that marriage is more likely to be unfair to women.

I’m in an unhappy marriage, we do love each other but I am miserable because he drinks every night and falls asleep. We have had counselling but nothing has changed. We can not afford to live apart and so are stuck with each other leading pretty much separate lives. DH would never leave because of our children. It’s a sad and miserable situation to be in. I have accepted the fact that DH will always drink every night and I am not the type to accept or be happy with this. I have tried to instigate conversations with him about it where he just blames me for the majority of the problems which is frustrating and we move no further forward. Groundhog Day.

@granhands1
You nailed it in one comment