Men moving on quickly

[LucyvanderPelt]

Another thread has made me think about how men seem to move on so quickly after the end of a relationship, no matter how long the relationship was or how it ended (even after the death of a partner).

Do you think men tend to move on far more quickly than women? And why - are their feelings more superficial? Do they just want a maid and don’t mind who it is? Do they have the new partner already lined up before ending their current relationship?

Yes I think they do from what I've seen in my friendship group.

One of my friends ended her marriage and her husband went from begging her to stay to downloading dating apps in days. He ended up in a relationship with the first woman he dated (they bought a house together).

Others have done the same. What cracks me up is that their wives ended it for various reasons to do with the husband's behaviour yet they've all managed to end up being apparently wonderful partners to their new women, if you believe the Facebook posts they're tagged in.

I was with my exH for 30 years. We broke up three years ago and he moved in with a new woman within two months. I’m still single.

For a lot of men, women are basically domestic appliances. Old washing machine breaks, get a new washing machine, no question of living long term without one.

I think it's just simply easy to move on now. They apparently grieve later down the line to women?

My most recent partner was hooked up on his ex for 2 years after we met. Nearly killed our relationship. He wouldn't admit it but he was in touch with her. Keeping her photos..talking about her. He had me and her both wound up by the other. It was the strangest situation I had ever been in. He's let go of her now unless he's extremely good at hiding it..I know he still has a peek at her online sometimes. He told me a couple of months ago she'd been to Iceland in January and he was annoyed as he always wanted to go and shed gone with her new Chap.

@PurpleWhirple what irritates me is how selfish men can be to their kids, it’s one thing if they feel ready or that they need to move on but why can’t they just control themselves for the sake of the kids. In fact this is probably why men move on quicker than women. Women pour their resources into the family, making sure the kids are settled etc and men just go and do what they want.

I think men generally get more out of cohabiting relationships than women do. If my DH and I were to break up, I would have considerably less looking-after and thinking-about and caring-for to do, and he would have more, as he’d suddenly have his entire self to take care of, on his own. I’ve no doubt that his top priority, if we split up, would be to find someone else to take the load off.

I say this with a lot of fondness but also cold hard realism.

FIL sat at his wife’s sickbed while she died slowly of cancer, looking at OLD sites. He was living with a new woman a few weeks after the funeral, became totally absorbed into her family and lost touch with his own adult children completely. He never grieved at all. I don’t think his feelings ran very deep about anything.

Yes, definitely. Most men can't survive on their own for long. If they haven't got someone lined up already they swiftly find a replacement, even if they've been in a long marriage.

My cousin was flirting with a new woman at his wife's funeral.
I think they partly fear female pickiness. What if they ended up one of those loser men without any sex or maid service?
Whereas women often find being single liberating.

I was with ex-h for around 15 years. He was on OLD pretty much from the day we decided to split up.
He ended up in a serious relationship with the first person he went on a date with and met her kids straight away, while we were still living together. They're now married with a kid.

I always thought of my ex as a limpet (and this was actually said to me by a clairvoyant that my mum dragged me along to see and I was told to get rid of him asap - I didn't listen unfortunately 😄). I knew he'd move on quickly but not that bloody fast. He said if I dated anyone he'd change the divorce papers to show my 'infidelity'.

My brother also married the woman who was his first date after splitting with his wife. This surprised me far more than my ex as my brother is a great catch for someone and after being taken for a ride by his first wife, odd that he was so willing to risk it again. They're a few years in now and are extremely happy.

Tend to agree with this, people of either gender who leave relationships have been thinking about for some time and have already checked out months if not years before hand and have already done their thinking

I think its generally much, much easier for an (average) man to find a partner at any age than for an (average) woman. Also, men usually don't have a child to look after full time and have more disposable income and time. I think its mainly practical reasons though I do agree that men are much less bothered with emotions and are mainly interested in sex and practicalities.

My ex of 10 year left me for someone younger he was cheating with her.
Told me i will never do any good i was to old for him we are the same age and he was just using me untill better came along. ( he was very abusive )
Its been 9 years now he is still with her having baby no4 now.
I can still see her doing the he picked me dance very smug i had a black eye she said well he wont do that to me i did not argue i just said good luck you have taken my problem he`s all yours.
I picked up my back pack got my children and went to a womans refuge in a town id never been to never looked back.

I had 2 children but he was not the dad to them thank god they have now moved out and got their own lifes.
And he has almost 4 around his feet and planing no5.
Its like he keeps her pregnant.
He loves to be in control at all times.
Hes cheated on her 4 -5 times already.

I stayed single and i love it.
Im not angry anymore i think thank god im free he wanted someone easier.
I was not my fault.
I would not have a man live with me again i found the real me after years of abuse.
I dont miss anything a man can give.
Looking back at it all all he wanted was a maid and someone to bully cook clean sex and the rest.
There are good men out there but i dont want one.

XH started dating within 3 months of our 10 year marriage breaking down. Which, if I'm honest, annoyed me a bit because I'd spent two years worrying about how badly he was going to take our break up!

I did wonder if it was just me, that he didn't actually love me as much as he said he did, but then he did the same thing more recently with his most recent ex-girlfriend. He claimed to really love this woman, and was happy to ditch being a parent for weeks at a time to go away on holidays with her, but when she dumped him he was out within a week with another woman.

I can only think that he doesn't feel things as deeply as other people might. Which would explain a fair bit.

Men benefit enormously from relationships with women, while women don't get nearly as much out of being with a man, so it makes sense that men want to replace their maid/emotional support/sex object as quickly as possible. Women are often happier alone than with a man so there's not really a reason to rush into a relationship. There are of course a small number of men who are better than that, and women who can't live without a man, but generally this seems to be true.

When DHs aunt died unexpectedly his uncle started a relationship very quickly.
However it was very obvious that he was incredibly lonely. He was what you would call ‘hard work’ as a character and honestly everyone was avoiding him, even his own children. So he met someone who embraced his character and so did her children. The family were furious about it but not sure what they expected.

I have noticed now I have a few female friends who are the ones moving on very quickly now. When they still have school aged children always surprises me.

I think there's a lot of truth in that though not all men are like that of course

Because men benefit from relationships/marriage. Live longer, they are healthier, earn more - basically because there's a woman there doing all the shitwork and making sure the man is well take care of. Most older women have realised that and decided that fuck it, we're happier alone.

It depends, you can't generalise but in my experience perhaps but in many cases it may be that they had already moved on before the split, or grieved prior to loosing their spouse (eg nursed through illness) so it appears to the outside world they were fast but not really surprising to them. People thought I was fast "moving on" but my marriage had been holding on by a single thread for years so once we decided to split I was ready!

I read somewhere that a man will leave a woman and immediately start dating again, seemingly without a backward glance, whereas the woman will take time out on her own. She misses him at first while he's having all this fun. But gradually she heals, and eventually finds someone else. Whereas in time he starts to realise what he had with her, and misses her, but it's too late she's moved on. That really resonated with me

@florizel13

My ex definitely had regrets after a string of girlfriends didn't work out, I understood him (he's definitely on the autistic spectrum but not officially diagnosed)

I am sure there is proper research done on this regarding how common it is for men to move on quickly following the death of their wife - whereas women tend to stay single. This is from national widows.org

One of the statistics Keogh cites is how within two years of becoming a widower, 61% of widowed men find themselves in a serious relationship or had remarried compared to only 19% of widows. Keogh writes, “widowers are eight times more likely to remarry over their lifetimes vs. widows

One of the first names for a man in the bible is Enosh, which means weak willed. I think the emotional strength of women has been recognised since ancient times.

I think men are better at compartmentalizing. So are often able to put their baggage in a box, so to speak, and move on as you suggested.

I see MN stereotypes are out in force today. I have seen plenty of my male friends spend considerable time working their way through post relationship breakup trauma (sadness, low self esteem, depression etc) before they even considered dating again. Incredibly, I have also seen plenty of men leave relationships because they were desperately unhappy and were more then capable of being single for a while. Surely the speed at which someone moves on depends on the manner of the relationship break-up? If you have initiated the split you have probably mentally checked out of the relationship months before and are further down the road of processing your emotions etc.

Husband of 25 years replace me less than two months after we separated. As soon as he broke up with his partner , he had a new one lined up.

My friend left her husband and tge very next day he joined a dating agency. He was absolutely devastated by the split but went on his first date 4 days later. I told him it was too soon for him as he was grieving the end of his marriage and he said " I need another one". So that's what it boiled down to for him.

He was remarried within a year. That didn't last either.