Can anyone - a man? - leave an unhappy marriage without being labelled the bad guy?

[DivorcedAndDelighted]

Musing on whether it's possible for anyone to leave a marriage without being labelled the bad guy, and especially if a man can do it. This is not for myself; ExH left me, but I should have left years before. I'd love to hear views from wise people on here because when I read threads about someone being left, the focus mostly seems to be on either "There's someone else - bastard" or "They abandoned their spouse - bastard" and it feels like there's not space for someone to say "I'm not happy in this marriage, we have not been able to improve things, so I'm leaving." Or at least, I have seen women supported on here when leaving a bad relationship, but when a man has left, that seems to be the dichotomy - maybe because nobody believes he'll be fully parenting. I'm not an apologist for poor fathers - ExH rarely lifted a finger to "help" with the kids he'd so desperately wanted, and after leaving, has not stepped up either. Would not go to counselling or discuss changes. I so wish I'd been brave enough to leave years before, rather than have the kids living in that atmosphere and seeing parents who were so emotionally distant from each other.

I grew up in the middle of parental wars, but they stayed together for the children, and as adults we're all still suffering as a result. I didn't know how to leave; my core belief was that once you're married, you stick together for the children unless one person is violent, in which case you must leave. If they are unfaithful then you have the option to leave (but I didn't). Friends have said about their own unhappy marriages, "I wish he would cheat so I could leave him", because being utterly miserable wasn't a good enough reason. Male friends have said to me that they feel they'd be less judged for ending an unhappy marriage with an affair to force the issue, than ending because they can't live that way any more, and being told they'd abandoned their wife and kids.

Is this attitude because everybody thinks men will waltz off into the sunset without doing on their share of childcare? One friend left her husband but she moved out, leaving him with the kids, to force him to do his share. She knew that she would be doing her share and felt that the expectations for non-resident fathers were so low, it would be easy for him to end up doing the bare minimum. It shocked me at the time but I now think she was right, and they seemed to handle co-parenting very well.

IF a man left his wife because it wasn't working, but did indeed continue to be a fully responsible and devoted parent, would you judge him for "abandoning" his wife / betraying his wedding vows? Is it really possible to end a marriage without being the bad guy?

Yeah i dont like words like 'abandoned' unless that actually happened, that he walked off into the sunset and dropped all previous responsibilities. I am the first person to get annoyed at a man not pulling his weight, but the idea that a man leaving a relationship is 'abandoning' his family leaves the same taste in my mouth as using the word 'nag' for women....

On the topic of 'there must be another woman waiting'
I have observed at length and from personal experience that a LOT of people out there simply cannot comprehend anyone leaving a manage for anything other than infidelity or abuse. And woe betide you if you are a woman leaving a nice guy. Despite the fact there's a million reasons why someone could be a perfectly lovely person and good partner but just not right for you personally, the bar is so low that you are expected to stay with a good one regardless of if you want to be with them or not. And if you do leave, you've clearly had an affair or there's something wrong with you. And a woman being picky is the WORST THING EVER. How dare you be picky about someone you consent to having sex with or living in your house? Your standards are TOO HIGH and thats BAD because.... er.....

Divorce and breakups are so demonised, as opposed to being accepted as part of life, that we teach people that they have to have a really big societally approved reason to leave someone, which then also teaches people that they can behave however they want in relationships, so long as they dont hit or cheat, as surely noone could be sooo unreasonable as to leave a nice guy whose just lazy or doesnt talk about anything other than work etc.

Of course it's possible to leave a marriage without being a bad guy. If you're genuinely unhappy, and you leave in a way that minimises harm to your children (and ideally, ex spouse) and continue to step up with your responsibilities, then it's fine.

But the point about men is that they almost always DON'T. When they leave, they have another woman in the wings and they disappear, don't want to pay etc etc etc.

In most cases where I've seen the separation "work" as it were, yes, it might be one person who makes the final move - th eman or woman - but it's not a complete shock to the other person. There are discussions and attempts to fix things before a final acceptance that things can't be improved and the decision is taken to move on. One person might take the lead on that, but it's not done in a vacuum, doesn't com eout of the blue and as part of the process there are discussions and plans made to make it as painless as possible for everyone involved.

I don't think it's the case that someone has to be the bad guy.

If you have communicated your unhappiness, looked together at what needs to change and tried, or decided that what needs to change is too much for one of you, then the relationship has run its course.

I think, when it comes to men, what we see often on these threads is men saying they are happy, they love their wife, planning futures and then suddenly pulling the rug and blindsiding their wives. Whether there is another person, whether they have known they are unhappy for a long time is a little by rhe by as they've been building a false impression of the relationship before suddenly walking out of it. That does make someone a bad guy Whether male or female

No, you see it all the time on here; people should split before having an affair, but also leaving a wife/partner and kids before this is always seen as merciless and with a chorus of ‘cherchez la femme’. As if men cannot just simply not want that woman.

Fine for women to leave men though.

If you read MN Relationship posts there's always a lot of comments like "anyone can leave a marriage anytime for whatever reason".
So casual, like it's an easy decision.
In reality, people do tend to look for fault or blame, so someone generally gets labelled the bad guy.
One partner has an affair, other one ditches them - clear bad/good guy situation.
One partner leaves because they are unhappy - well less clear but some people will label the one who leaves a bastard.
"Men don't leave a warm bed" - I read that a lot on here but in the case of my personal friends and family it's not 100% true.

No one needs to be the bad guy, and why should it matter what anyone labels them? These hasty judgments are usually made by folks who don't have the facts and don't care to have them. Their judgment counts for nothing, in my view.

IF a man left his wife because it wasn't working, but did indeed continue to be a fully responsible and devoted parent, would you judge him for "abandoning" his wife / betraying his wedding vows? Is it really possible to end a marriage without being the bad guy?

Sadly I've never seen it. I've seen men who were left do it. Many times.

There is an issue I think that men leave their wife-and-children and women leave her husband, never the children.

One friend left her husband but she moved out, leaving him with the kids, to force him to do his share. She knew that she would be doing her share and felt that the expectations for non-resident fathers were so low, it would be easy for him to end up doing the bare minimum.

Provided you know the kids will be safe and you have somewhere decent to go, if you’re doing 50/50 childcare then this is a really good idea. The mothers will always be judged as abandoning their kids tho even if they’re still doing half

I've known one wife leave her children. It's rare I agree.
She just upped and ran off with a much older man and left her husband with her children!

Yeah, I definitely think it's possible.

I know two couples who split up during COVID. No affairs, the marriage just wasn't working and I think lockdowns just made things worse.

In the first case, the woman initiated the split, they still got on but she'd fallen out of love with him, and the relationship had become more of a friendship. They split amicably, strict 50/50 custody. He had a bit of a wobble when she met someone new a couple of years ago, dealt with his feelings of jealousy badly and they ended up having a few arguments, but resolved it within a couple of months and get on again now.

The second case, they still loved each other but just did not get on. Bickering turned to constant arguing until he called time on things. He moved out, and they managed to split remarkably amicably. More or less 50/50 childcare, he's a teacher so has them more in the holidays, while she has them more during term time. Both have moved on with new partners, and they actually all socialise together frequently. (They kind of have to. His sister is married to her brother, which probably goes some way to explaining why they were so careful to keep the split amicable. It could have been an absolute disaster if they'd hated each others guts.)

In both cases, there were no bad guys, mainly because none of the people involved painted their ex as the enemy, so no friends felt they had to take sides.

You can leave a marriage without being the bad guy if you are not a bad guy.

But you cannot leave without being labelled the bad guy because it's someone else doing the labelling, whether they are correct or not. All you can do is just be decent in your communications, support your children and get on with your life.

My exH left me; he is a good man. In fact, he is one the the best and most decent human beings I have ever known. I have never said or thought differently about him. I have never heard anyone say anything negative about him. He says only good things about me (messages me every Mother's Day to tell me what I great mother I am to our children and I do the same every Father's Day to him).

I felt upset when he left and ended our 20yr. marriage but he was right to have done it. Both of us are happier now and we get along better than ever. Have all been together on occasion with our children with our respective new partners.

Honestly, I’ve a large social group and have seen many relationships break down in various ways over the years, and I’ve never really known people to care that much. Sure, a woman’s mum and best friends might be invested enough to want to rant on about how her partner leaving her means he’s a bastard or must have another woman; everybody else just makes a few sympathetic murmurs and then carries on as normal being friends with both parties or the one they were friends with, regardless of who left who, because most people understand that relationships just don’t work out sometimes.

MN is a bunch of people opining and judging on people they don’t know in situations they don’t need to be nuanced about, and often trying to stir up some drama in a thread by telling the OP her partner must have been cheating and to look for evidence.

MN is a bunch of people opining and judging on people they don’t know in situations they don’t need to be nuanced about, and often trying to stir up some drama in a thread by telling the OP her partner must have been cheating and to look for evidence.

I find there's a lot of projection on MN too.
"DH left me and there was another woman so your DH couldn't possibly be leaving you without there being another woman".

Of course you can leave a marriage without being labelled a bad guy if you are not a bad guy. Cheating is the poison in a marriage. If you want to end a marriage, then end it as amicably and kindly as possible. Don't cheat.

In real.life - ie not on mumsnet men seem to move on freely even after a affair with young kids " my wife couldn't give me what I needed" ( ie sex with stranger). And after a while that's all fine.

So I can't see why not. Hardly anyone seems to be horrified. Dh was telling me this about his mate and got sucked into pitying him. It's a well used script and clearly works nicely. But I guess us woman can see past it. I have never known a man to leave for a cold bed tbh.

"I have never known a man to leave for a cold bed"

Yes, exactly this.

Judgy/ gossipy people will judge/ gossip no matter what.

I'm a man. I left because life with my then partner had become intolerable and despite my beat efforts I had lost all hope that it would improve. I didn't have an affair or have another woman lined up. We did 50:50 for a while but that broke down and I ended up with my DCs living with me full time.

I also know a number of other men who have ended relationships for various reasons and, like me, went on to be single for quite a while.

There persists a weird assumption by many women on MN that men like me and my acquaintances simply don't exist. Sometimes I wonder if that's at least partly driven by the common MN trope that while men can of course be abusive to women, and there are many examples of women being abusive to other women, women are rarely if ever abusive to men. So if a woman can't ever treat a man badly the only reason a man could want to end a relationship is because he's found someone else. Or maybe it's simply a lack of life experience. Who knows?

If he just left then sure. As long as he doesn’t have very young children, didn’t leave for someone else and he wasn’t a dick about why he was leaving.

Some things just don’t work out.
The issue is that unfortunately it seems like most men don’t leave unless they have someone else lined up.

I judged my friends ex because he gave the marriage no chance he just walked with no warning and there was no other woman involved. He did step up for the kids fairly well but she was completely blind sided and I find the lack of care or consideration reprehensible but he always was pretty selfish (even if not a bad person).

It’s not the leaving that makes someone the villain. It’s how a person leaves and how they behave going forward.

Marriage is a financial commitment and that commitment doesn’t end easily. The person leaving needs to understand that and be prepared for an exit to be expensive.

With children involved, parents are going to need to turn their lives upside down to rearrange work schedules and living arrangements to prioritize shared parenting.

the problem is when someone just declares the end of a marriage and think that absolves themselves or all responsibility.

My brother ended his marriage because he was utterly miserable. We from the outside could see things were not great. It was not some flippant decision, he had tried very hard to work on the relationship and a way forward but she was pretty uncompromising and eventually he decided to end things. Was single for several years before finding a lovely new partner.

In the case of men leaving a marriage, the financial shock tends to fall on women as they are the ones who are more likely to be SAHM. While I can respect a man who is a good dad post divorce, I think that he conduct financially is also important especially if his wife is a SAHM. I’m not saying that he should pay for leaving but a decent man would consider his moral financial responsibilities and pay his share of bills until the marital home can be sold etc Too many stop their financial contribution suddenly when there can be financial entanglements that take time to unravel. Too many think, I’m leaving so taxpayers can take over paying from tomorrow.

Maybe it’s because my kids are older or my parents are very unhappy but I don’t believe in staying for the kids as it fucks them up. Their future romantic relationships will be influenced by their parents’ relationship and I wouldn’t want them thinking that bad behaviour is normal or should be tolerated.

Thanks @Thundertoast -well put, and especially this bit:
the idea that a man leaving a relationship is 'abandoning' his family leaves the same taste in my mouth as using the word 'nag' for women..

It sounds like some people would prefer that women and men both kept quiet and put up with crap 🤷 Why, I wonder?