Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best thing you can do is give him a drama free divorce. It is best for your kids and your wallet. Litigation makes post divorce life harder. Don’t be stupid.

-divorced from an attorney

Absolutely. But we always know he is stupid.

Everyone will know the truth and the clean cut mediated divorce with commensurate split of assets, custody, child support, alimonies by, and true ups each of the next ten years.

If they live in a state that punishes adultery, those clauses affect the settlement as well.

Good riddance to the adulterer who kicked his family to the curb.

I say this as a divorced person. No one cares why the couple gets divorced. People have their own lives and problems and the last thing they worry about is why Sally and Tom got divorced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I genuinely think a lot of middle-aged men wildly underestimate how embarrassing it looks to blow up a multi-decade family.

You are not just leaving a wife. You are permanently altering your children’s lives.

You are splitting holidays. Creating two homes. Reducing stability. Weakening trust. Changing the emotional texture of childhood itself. Your kids now have to adapt to transitions, divided traditions, logistical stress, and the grief of watching their family fracture.

And for what, exactly? Validation? Excitement? Novelty? Escape from responsibility? A fantasy that a different woman or different life will fix something internal?

Also, it just looks bad…

A man abandoning a long-term partner and destabilizing his family in midlife rarely comes across as profound or evolved. Most of the time it reads as cliché. Like someone chasing self-reinvention at the expense of the people who built a life with him. Gross.

It's never as cut and dry as people make it out to be. My close male friend in his 50s left his wife in a similar way to OP's but even though everyone might think they were doing great all these years they weren't. I don't think he was a perfect husband but she was constantly belittling him and created a lot of drama. The coworker he left her for is about 7 years younger so not that big of a difference, but she's also a really nice person who is calm and even. She is really pretty too and smart, but I truly think it was more about the fact that she's not the type of person to fly off the handle all the time and say cruel things to him like his wife did sometimes.

Belittled him how?

At work?

Or are you calling it belittling when your roommate tells you to pick up after yourself, or be on time, or don’t forget to do things you agreed to do, or don’t break the XYZ again?

What my STBX has told his handful of friends and his colleagues has no relationship to reality. I would be skeptical of whatever you hear from a divorced man, even if they’re your bff.

The mental case narcs always rewrite the narrative to be the victim.

Initially they’ll say some lame cliche like: we drifted apart, or I worked too much, or she was so difficult to talk with (as if he could even follow a family conversation).

Mine told everyone I was “mean” and “controlling”.

With his work colleagues and his mom (he doesn’t have friends) it is apparent that he didn’t share his secret discontinuation of psychiatric meds, a mental breakdown, and physical abuse.

These aren’t the kinds of things one can casually share with acquaintances in order to correct the record and people are relieved to have a story that doesn’t make them have to rethink what they know about a person, so his narrative stands.

Only my best friends and my children’s closest friends’ parents know the real story and that’s to keep my kids and their kids safe.

I now assume that any cliched explanation about divorce is hiding some pretty dark stuff.

Mine said the same thing. And that I was impossible to talk too.

But would give no examples.

Yet everyone knew he wasn’t controlled at all.

He worked non stop, went to tons of work travel conferences, net working events.
Kept his office and areas of the house totally messy.
Bought BS in Amazon whenever he wanted.
Used to overeat and be obese before GLPs.
Never knew anyone’s life or schedule.
And ignored everyone. Thus everyone eventually ignored him back.

So he made no sense and contradicted his own behaviors right out of the gate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Do you hate men so much?
Women initiate 75% of divorces in the US. They are the ones who decide to break up families.

Are women “breaking up families,” or are women finally financially and legally able to leave marriages that are abusive, exploitative, emotionally dead, chronically unequal, or fundamentally built around the woman overfunctioning while the man coasts?

Also, a lot of men never formally leave. They just slowly disengage for years. They become emotionally absent, avoidant, selfish, rageful, addicted, checked out, or dead weight while the wife keeps dragging the entire family system forward until she finally collapses and files.

The divorce papers are often just the paperwork version of a marriage that already died years earlier.

Exactly. When women divorce, it’s the man’s fault. When men divorce, it’s the man’s fault.

Why is that so hard to understand, especially here of all places?

I mean, when you suddenly leave your wife and 3 kids for a 17 yrs younger colleague, that kind of is your fault, no?

Just a head start on the lauded gray divorce, no?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Do you hate men so much?
Women initiate 75% of divorces in the US. They are the ones who decide to break up families.

Are women “breaking up families,” or are women finally financially and legally able to leave marriages that are abusive, exploitative, emotionally dead, chronically unequal, or fundamentally built around the woman overfunctioning while the man coasts?

Also, a lot of men never formally leave. They just slowly disengage for years. They become emotionally absent, avoidant, selfish, rageful, addicted, checked out, or dead weight while the wife keeps dragging the entire family system forward until she finally collapses and files.

The divorce papers are often just the paperwork version of a marriage that already died years earlier.

Exactly. When women divorce, it’s the man’s fault. When men divorce, it’s the man’s fault.

Why is that so hard to understand, especially here of all places?

I mean, when you suddenly leave your wife and 3 kids for a 17 yrs younger colleague, that kind of is your fault, no?

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I think what gets me about stories like this is how casually some people destroy entire ecosystems of human attachment.

A man wakes up at 52, feels bored or emotionally flat or newly validated by younger attention, and suddenly decades of shared life become disposable collateral damage.

Meanwhile his wife’s reality is shattered overnight and his daughters now carry this story into adulthood forever. Into their future relationships, trust, nervous systems, holidays, views of men, sense of stability, all of it.

And I know people love to say “well people deserve happiness.” Sure. But adulthood is partly about understanding that your pursuit of personal fulfillment can profoundly wound other people, especially the people who built their lives around you.

Also “please don’t make this messy for the girls” after detonating the family is honestly incredible. Like sir… you already made it messy. The trauma already happened. You left your wife of decades for a coworker 17 years younger and blew up your daughters’ sense of stability in one conversation. There is zero version of that which stays neat and un-messy just because you’d prefer it.

A lot of these men seem to think feeling empty at 50 means they married the wrong woman. Usually, it just means they’ve spent decades avoiding themselves and their own issues.

Then eventually they realize, too late, that the younger woman, the excitement, the validation, the fantasy of reinvention… did not actually fix whatever was broken internally in the first place. Meanwhile the wife and children lose the future they thought they were moving toward, and unlike the a**hole chasing reinvention, they didn't get a choice.

And the damage is not limited to the divorce years. It ripples forward for decades.

Every holiday forever.
Every family gathering.
Future weddings.
Grandchildren.
Who hosts Christmas.
Who feels comfortable “coming home.”
Who takes care of aging parents.
How money and inheritance get divided.
Whether siblings drift apart.
Whether the original children quietly feel replaced by the newer life.

People act like these are temporary disruptions. They’re not. In many families, the brokeness is forever.

Marriage is not a temporary self-improvement retreat you leave once it stops feeling exciting.

It is a commitment you made to actual human beings. Your spouse. Your children. Your family. The life you built.

You’re unhappy? Go to therapy. Develop emotional skills. Deal with your trauma. Get hobbies. Take up pickleball. Start lifting weights. Learn pottery. Touch grass. Welcome to middle age.

Life gets repetitive sometimes. Marriage gets hard sometimes. Parenting gets exhausting sometimes. That is adulthood.

The idea that “I deserve happiness” automatically justifies detonating a multi-decade family system is honestly one of the most narcissistic cultural narratives we’ve normalized.

I really look down on men who do this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Do you hate men so much?
Women initiate 75% of divorces in the US. They are the ones who decide to break up families.

Are women “breaking up families,” or are women finally financially and legally able to leave marriages that are abusive, exploitative, emotionally dead, chronically unequal, or fundamentally built around the woman overfunctioning while the man coasts?

Also, a lot of men never formally leave. They just slowly disengage for years. They become emotionally absent, avoidant, selfish, rageful, addicted, checked out, or dead weight while the wife keeps dragging the entire family system forward until she finally collapses and files.

The divorce papers are often just the paperwork version of a marriage that already died years earlier.

Exactly. When women divorce, it’s the man’s fault. When men divorce, it’s the man’s fault.

Why is that so hard to understand, especially here of all places?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I think what gets me about stories like this is how casually some people destroy entire ecosystems of human attachment.

A man wakes up at 52, feels bored or emotionally flat or newly validated by younger attention, and suddenly decades of shared life become disposable collateral damage.

Meanwhile his wife’s reality is shattered overnight and his daughters now carry this story into adulthood forever. Into their future relationships, trust, nervous systems, holidays, views of men, sense of stability, all of it.

And I know people love to say “well people deserve happiness.” Sure. But adulthood is partly about understanding that your pursuit of personal fulfillment can profoundly wound other people, especially the people who built their lives around you.

Also “please don’t make this messy for the girls” after detonating the family is honestly incredible. Like sir… you already made it messy. The trauma already happened. You left your wife of decades for a coworker 17 years younger and blew up your daughters’ sense of stability in one conversation. There is zero version of that which stays neat and un-messy just because you’d prefer it.

A lot of these men seem to think feeling empty at 50 means they married the wrong woman. Usually, it just means they’ve spent decades avoiding themselves and their own issues.

Then eventually they realize, too late, that the younger woman, the excitement, the validation, the fantasy of reinvention… did not actually fix whatever was broken internally in the first place. Meanwhile the wife and children lose the future they thought they were moving toward, and unlike the a**hole chasing reinvention, they didn't get a choice.

And the damage is not limited to the divorce years. It ripples forward for decades.

Every holiday forever.
Every family gathering.
Future weddings.
Grandchildren.
Who hosts Christmas.
Who feels comfortable “coming home.”
Who takes care of aging parents.
How money and inheritance get divided.
Whether siblings drift apart.
Whether the original children quietly feel replaced by the newer life.

People act like these are temporary disruptions. They’re not. In many families, the brokeness is forever.

Marriage is not a temporary self-improvement retreat you leave once it stops feeling exciting.

It is a commitment you made to actual human beings. Your spouse. Your children. Your family. The life you built.

You’re unhappy? Go to therapy. Develop emotional skills. Deal with your trauma. Get hobbies. Take up pickleball. Start lifting weights. Learn pottery. Touch grass. Welcome to middle age.

Life gets repetitive sometimes. Marriage gets hard sometimes. Parenting gets exhausting sometimes. That is adulthood.

The idea that “I deserve happiness” automatically justifies detonating a multi-decade family system is honestly one of the most narcissistic cultural narratives we’ve normalized.

I really look down on men who do this.

Sometimes that pain of dealing with all that is a much lesser pain than staying married. We have no idea about his take on this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a now adult woman who was once a teen girl whose Dad did exactly what OP describes, allow me to remind the “what’s the big deal” posters that the trauma my dad inflicted on our family has never gone away. The complicated family holidays, the awkwardness at family events, the impending problems with health care proxies, estate division, and relationships with grandchildren…it just keeps going. My father imploded our lives because he met a woman who worshiped him (she was also a personality disordered soon to be alcoholic but that didn’t matter as much as her care of my dad’s ego).

People act like these choices exist in a vacuum. They don’t, and the reverberation effects just keep going. The people who call this “not a big deal” are effectively saying that the women and children affected by these men don’t matter. We do.

Life is messy. Grow up.

Lol, you’re exactly who I’m talking about. Men like my dad, and maybe you, always have and probably will continue to casually detonate other people’s lives in pursuit of their own “happiness”. But as one of my favorite teachers always said, there’s no free lunch. Everyone sees my dad for who he is. And now that I’ve had my own children, I know exactly what he was willing to give up by walking away from us. Life may be messy, but somehow I’ve managed to keep that mess out of my own children’s lives.

You can ignore how you hurt other people. But rest assured in the end, you will be seen for who you are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Do you hate men so much?
Women initiate 75% of divorces in the US. They are the ones who decide to break up families.

Are women “breaking up families,” or are women finally financially and legally able to leave marriages that are abusive, exploitative, emotionally dead, chronically unequal, or fundamentally built around the woman overfunctioning while the man coasts?

Also, a lot of men never formally leave. They just slowly disengage for years. They become emotionally absent, avoidant, selfish, rageful, addicted, checked out, or dead weight while the wife keeps dragging the entire family system forward until she finally collapses and files.

The divorce papers are often just the paperwork version of a marriage that already died years earlier.

Anonymous wrote:Also the “women initiate 75% of divorces” stat gets thrown around constantly with zero nuance. Filing paperwork is not the same thing as causing the breakdown of a marriage. A woman formally initiating a divorce after years of neglect, cheating, emotional abandonment, addiction, untreated mental health issues, refusal to participate in family life, rage, stonewalling, or chronic selfishness does not magically mean she is the primary destroyer of the family.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I think what gets me about stories like this is how casually some people destroy entire ecosystems of human attachment.

A man wakes up at 52, feels bored or emotionally flat or newly validated by younger attention, and suddenly decades of shared life become disposable collateral damage.

Meanwhile his wife’s reality is shattered overnight and his daughters now carry this story into adulthood forever. Into their future relationships, trust, nervous systems, holidays, views of men, sense of stability, all of it.

And I know people love to say “well people deserve happiness.” Sure. But adulthood is partly about understanding that your pursuit of personal fulfillment can profoundly wound other people, especially the people who built their lives around you.

Also “please don’t make this messy for the girls” after detonating the family is honestly incredible. Like sir… you already made it messy. The trauma already happened. You left your wife of decades for a coworker 17 years younger and blew up your daughters’ sense of stability in one conversation. There is zero version of that which stays neat and un-messy just because you’d prefer it.

A lot of these men seem to think feeling empty at 50 means they married the wrong woman. Usually, it just means they’ve spent decades avoiding themselves and their own issues.

Then eventually they realize, too late, that the younger woman, the excitement, the validation, the fantasy of reinvention… did not actually fix whatever was broken internally in the first place. Meanwhile the wife and children lose the future they thought they were moving toward, and unlike the a**hole chasing reinvention, they didn't get a choice.

And the damage is not limited to the divorce years. It ripples forward for decades.

Every holiday forever.
Every family gathering.
Future weddings.
Grandchildren.
Who hosts Christmas.
Who feels comfortable “coming home.”
Who takes care of aging parents.
How money and inheritance get divided.
Whether siblings drift apart.
Whether the original children quietly feel replaced by the newer life.

People act like these are temporary disruptions. They’re not. In many families, the brokeness is forever.

Marriage is not a temporary self-improvement retreat you leave once it stops feeling exciting.

It is a commitment you made to actual human beings. Your spouse. Your children. Your family. The life you built.

You’re unhappy? Go to therapy. Develop emotional skills. Deal with your trauma. Get hobbies. Take up pickleball. Start lifting weights. Learn pottery. Touch grass. Welcome to middle age.

Life gets repetitive sometimes. Marriage gets hard sometimes. Parenting gets exhausting sometimes. That is adulthood.

The idea that “I deserve happiness” automatically justifies detonating a multi-decade family system is honestly one of the most narcissistic cultural narratives we’ve normalized.

I really look down on men who do this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How often do you think this happens?

I caught up with a grad school friend I hadn't seen or spoken to in 4 years. Married, 52, three daughters 12, 14, 17, lawyer. Husband is a lawyer too. No abuse, cheating , drugs or excessive alcohol according to her. Just a ho hum, one foot in front of the other marriage.

Husband came home from work one day last February and said:

"I'm done. I'm in love with a colleague (17 years younger) and I want a drama and trauma free divorce. Please don't make this messy for the girls. Please lets just end this. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen but I don't love you anymore."

It actually made me tear up typing this out because it's just so.... sad. She is a great person- so kind, funny, pretty and now she is.... in deep, deep depression.

I mean, that doesn't sound like a great marriage to me. Clearly there were cracks.

I know someone whose husband did the same thing but after the initial shock wore off I realized I wasn't actually that surprised - their marriage wasn't that great.

I'm sorry for your friend, that sounds awful, but if I had to list the people I'd expect something like this to happen to, it's all the ones where their marriages aren't very strong. Now, if it happened to some of my friends I would be jaw-on-the-floor shocked. But others? Sad, of course, but not all that surprised.

I think only a minority of people have GREAT marriages. Do you disagree PP?

I'm the PP. I'll use our neighborhood as a sample size because I can reasonably analyze that amount of people.

In no particular order:

Couple 1 - I thought their marriage was rocky when I met them 10 years ago and I was right, they divorced about a year after that
Couple 2 - married 30 years, great marriage
Couple 3 - married 20 years, great marriage
Couple 4 - married 30 years, great marriage
Couple 5 - married 20 years, great marriage
Couple 6 - married 15 years, great marriage
Couple 7 - married 25 years, lots of cracks over the years, divorcing right now
Couple 8 - I didn't think their marriage was that great but didn't think it was as terrible as it was but I also didn't spend a lot of time with them, they divorced in 2020
Couple 9 - married 15 years, some cracks but both seem committed to the marriage, currently in therapy
Couple 10 - married 15 years, some issues but they love each other fiercely and have a pretty great marriage
Couple 11 - married 10 years, some major issues with alcoholism but she hasn't left him yet so who knows, I'd say their marriage is pretty terrible
Couple 12 - married 15 years, great marriage
Couple 13 - married 15 years, great marriage
Couple 14 - married 10 years, great marriage
Couple 15 - married 25 years, great marriage

So yes, most of the people I know would likely rate their marriages as great. We all spend a lot of time together, our kids all go to school together (different grades, but private school), the dads go on trips together, the moms go on trips together, various families vacation together, etc. We talk a lot and support each other and see all the couples in a lot of different situations (including stressful ones, we've all suffered loss of parent, loss of job, sick kids, etc. to some degree). Some are religious, some aren't. Most are dual-income, some are miliary, some wives out earn their husbands, some are same-sex marriages. Everyone has at least one advanced degree if not more, all are UMC.

If I expanded outside of this group and thought about my best friends from high school, college, and beyond, I would say that most of us have great marriages. We're not perfect, no one is perfect, and who knows what the future will bring, but when I read the posts on DCUM with people saying that all men are useless, etc., I just don't relate. Those aren't the men I grew up with (my dad wasn't like that, my friends' dads were not like that) and they're not the men I'm around now (my husband, my friends' husbands, my male friends). You can say I don't know what goes on behind closed doors all you want, but I haven't been surprised by a single divorce (they all had some pretty serious cracks/issues), and again, we do talk. You can discount my experience all you want, it doesn't bother me, this is just what I see.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think that ever happens the way you described it. This is a failed marriage and she is trying to say she had no idea that everything wasn't blissful? That it never took a turn at some point and didn't recover? Sorry, I'm not buying it. It's mostly women who tell these stories about being the perfect wife and then, out of the blue, they are blindsided like this. Got traded in for a younger woman by the evil husband. Absolutely no fault of her own that the marriage fell apart. No other possible explanation except for him chasing that young one out of pure selfishness with no regard for his wife and family. Yeah, riggghhht!