Oh what a great Dad this man is

[cabbageandgravy]

Cave guy
Yet, surpringly this attentive, involved, and not at all up himself in any way bloke's marriage has broken up.

The selfishness and self-absorption is off the scale!!!

Love the way the Guardian prints these preening living-in-the-woods guys' self congratulatory spiels so uncritically. "My wife didn't want the baby to sleep on stones so sadly our relationship ended but SMELL THE SELF-REALISATION!!!

Its was the same with the naked rambler man. He was an absentee father who paid not a penny for his children but people loved him. In Hebden Bridge people held a naked protest in support of him! madness.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2200337/Why-DID-Naked-Rambler-choose-nudity-children-Wife-eccentric-freedom-fighter-plea-clothes-on.html

He had a heart attack.
He worked as a survivalist instructor and was in the marines until 2011. Survivlist instructors and marines aren't known for being home bodies, I'd imagine the wife was used to him not being around.
After his heart attack, he went to the woods for weeks at a time and came home for weeks at a time as part of his recovery.
His boys are teenagers, hardly 3&5.

I fail to see your outrage.
Man who lived away for months on end continues living away for weeks on end and their relationship breaks down after several years.

Or, put it another way, of a bloke left his wife just after she'd had a heart attack... He'd be every name under the sun. 🤣

Only the Graun could publish such po-faced drivel about “finding yourself”. His ex-wife must have been delighted when the stone-table making, cave-dwelling father of her children deigned to pop back to the 21st century to spend time with their children. Thank God for YouTube, eh? He can still earn a living 🤦‍♀️

This is like something out of Private Eye's 'Psueds Corner' which always has at least one Grauniad quote.
His wife's likely better off without him I reckon.

Or, put it another way, of a bloke left his wife just after she'd had a heart attack... He'd be every name under the sun.

I suggest you possibly read about who leaves their spouses and to what extent after a serious diagnosis before you say this again. It makes you look a bit foolish.

That has nothing to do with what a typed and what I typed was hardly serious anyway, you evidently missed that.

But thank you for forum and tone policing, I hope Mumsnet pay you well. 😋

Never click on the G out of protest ( and I was a subscriber for years) but….

are they bagpipes under his arm?

It reads to me that he and his wife were already separating and that was part of motivation for going to live in the wild.

don’t really see what’s wrong with this.

are they bagpipes under his arm?

I thought that might be arrows.

To be fair his kids are teenagers and his job anyway had him away for months at a time, so I don't think that's a problem.

This is funny though, from someone who rarely sees their family and lives away from communities: "Ancient humans focused on family, community, and the natural world, and I think we can learn so much from that."

I think you'll find that already happens, and people just accept it.

Also from the Guardian .

But that same study showed that when partners leave, it’s normally men. One study from 2009 found the strongest predictor for separation or divorce for patients with brain cancer was whether or not the sick person was a woman. That same study showed that men were seven times more likely to leave their partner than the other way around if one of them got brain cancer.

I read this as action man type with some serious issues feels need to push himself to the physical limit, has heart attack at 37, feels even more vulnerable so goes to even greater extremes to prove how manly he is, wife already sick of him so no great loss to her as he's been an absent dad all along, likes to pretend his kids matter to him but doesn't do anything practical to raise him. Pretends to be very simple and cave man like but still adopts modern trappings albeit very simple like a tin can, metal water bottle and dried mangoes, still could get killed by a wild animal for no good reason seeing as we long since worked out caves weren't the best place to live. Final punchline to his simple life joke is that he's actually a YouTuber.

I don't see a problem with it... apart from that a man can usually afford (not economically) to have his space . whilst its rare a mum can do this, separated or not. I so find men can just float off and allowed to do their own thing when they're struggling but a woman/mum rarely can.
Im a woman. If i was separated, same circumstances,and didnt see my kids much due to that, id live off grid...away from people...ideally.

Wonder what they'd say if the roles were switched and the man was raising the children while the woman went off to the woods for months on end to find herself.

When I have my sons, we like to watch documentaries, but they’re teenage boys so they also have their own interests.

Hhmm. Odd sentence.

"In sickness and in health" as the wedding vow says, few get married nowadays so no longer relevant or expected I guess. Thanks for thought provoking article, in the main it seems men are fair weather partners!

Let's be honest. If the woman had posted a description of the relationship prior to the breakup on Relationships, there would have been 20 pages of LTB by now.

@KissTheRains
1- his dcs werent teens when he went away 6 years ago.
2- whether they are teens or children, they still needed their father
3- ofc it’s the mum who ended up ensuring the dcs were ok - financially, putting a roof over their head, health wise (remember it’s the US with all the health insurance issues), emotionally etc…
4- is the fact he was away a lot before that a good enough reason fir him to bugger off to find himself that she isn’t allowed to find it unacceptable then? Maybe she should have stayed married too maybe?
5- at no point does the article say he came back ‘home’ for weeks at a time at the beginning.

I mean, you want to go and live in the woods? Go fur it.
You want to live like one if the pioneers but still use SM, earn money from it (why when an old can is enough to earn water?). And a small notebook isn’t going to make a book either.
And it still doesn’t change the fact he left his dcs, had no money (at least to start with) to support them. He is an absent father. Nothing else.

You must be really bothered by my post, I'm sorry about that.

But:
1- his dcs werent teens when he went away 6 years ago.
Presumably he had his kids at least 12 years ago as they're teens. 2023 - 12 = 2011 so likely had them just after leaving the military and after he'd become a survival school instructor and they'd always known dad as ex military and outdoorsy.

2- whether they are teens or children, they still needed their father
Which is probably why he quit the marines.

3- ofc it’s the mum who ended up ensuring the dcs were ok - financially, putting a roof over their head, health wise (remember it’s the US with all the health insurance issues), emotionally etc…
This is offensive to any parent that's not live at home. And I didn't see in the article a breakdown of financial input he has with the kids, for all I know, his instructor pay and youtube revenue pays a healthy alimony (remember this is the US where alimony can be serious)

4- is the fact he was away a lot before that a good enough reason fir him to bugger off to find himself that she isn’t allowed to find it unacceptable then? Maybe she should have stayed married too maybe?
I didn't see in the article where she was forbidden from doing anything or not allowed to find it unacceptable? For all I know she supported his endeavours in the military and being a survival expert etc.

5- at no point does the article say he came back ‘home’ for weeks at a time at the beginning.
At no point in the article does it give the wife's opinions and yet here is everyone guessing her feelings based on a single line that they were seperating. For all I know, she met Tony the Car Sales Man and gets bent over a sedan hood thrice nightly.

For all I know, she met Tony the Car Sales Man and gets bent over a sedan hood thrice nightly.

She "gets bent over" by some random bloke, whilst single-handedly raising the kids. He gets to spend all his time finding himself in the woods.

Not quite seeing the balance here unless it's that all the men in the equation seem very well satisfied with their lot.

I just wondered who was keeping an eye on the homework/ supplying some healthy meals/ dealing with behaviour issues/ferrying to sppets clubs and washing the kit/ juggling work hours/etc etc wtc and i had a suspicion it wasn't him.

Not much of a man really

Sports clubs obvs

"Ancient humans focused on family, community, and the natural world, and I think we can learn so much from that."

I can only assume he means that others should focus on the family and the community.

Isn't it?