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.

um..., love?

Anonymous wrote:Some men (and women) just pick stupid fights for years instead of admitting that they are unhappy and divorcing. At least he fessed up that he wants out. I dont see this as a huge tragedy, you see it to be.

Many cheaters like to pick fights to cause conflict so they can spin the narrative to be the victim

Anonymous wrote:Would be interested to hear his side of the story

They never admit to being cheating, immoral scumbags
Cheating is completely the fault of the cheater.

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.

So many men who do this have mental health issues, a personality disorder, trauma, adhd, autism.

Sometimes it’s just a sign of poor character, but I think more typically there’s a mental health issue underlying it.

She’s better off.

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.

Eh, the best part about being middle-aged is no longer having to GAF about what other people think. And people have a right to be happy.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It happens more often than you think .

+1

It even happens merely to avoid adult responsibilities- like having a wife, raising kids, maintaining a home.

Many would rather hit the Eject Button, than keep dropping the ball and getting reminded they’re a crappy spouse, parent and homeowner.

So they blame the wife and file for divorce. No other woman needed, at first.

+1

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 had a male colleague who did this to his wife. Oddly, his affair partner wasn't significantly younger, just really "physically exciting." His words, not mine. I'd say it was a classic midlife crisis combined with the fact he's probably somewhere on the autism spectrum and genuinely didn't seem to understand that blowing up his marriage would irrepreprably harm his relationship with his 3 kids (they were early to late teens at the time), his financial security (his first wife was a high earning professional who earned as much as he did, his affair partner shopped all the time and expected him to pay her credit card bills), and make things sort of awkward with a lot of his work colleagues who were very uncomfortable with the flamboyant nature of his new relationship. (Oh yes, it also damaged his relationship with his own parents because he opted to bring his affair partner to his parents' traditional post Christmas family snow country get away. People were storming out of the house and walking away into the woods.) A couple of years later I can say his ex wife does seem to be living her best life, kids seem focused on being more stable than dad. It was a traumatic disaster. But most of the innocent parties emerged ok after about 3 years of endless drama.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give that man a break.
He fell in love with a colleague. He doesn’t love his wife anymore.
You don’t control who you fall in love with. What should he do? Ignore his feelings and live a miserable life with someone he no longer loves?
He made the right decision for both of them. I bet that she doesn’t love him either.

He made the right decision for himself.

No, it's the right decision for her as well. Do you want her to stay with a man who doesn't love her anymore?

If kids are under age 20 and in the picture, yes.

DP

Sweat equity is not irrelevant. Talk with your lawyer OP. You have claim to future payouts and income streams of this marital investment.

If you were working fulltime, the default parent, propping him up as a Family Guy, and being neglected in order for your spouse to work 24/7 to own, run, build, or grow a company, and right before pay day (ie merger, buyout, IPO) he divorces you, you absolutely get a true up each year for years.

And can order things into the kids’ irrevocable trusts. They sacrificed too. By not having a real father. Not before or now.
They need to be protected from future step mothers and step siblings taking everything.

Anonymous wrote:"What about child support, if he’s 70% of the high income each year, then what?

And the sweat equity.c how does that carve up at their firms after 20 years of supporting everyone?"

In my divorce, his income was 60% of our joint income and mine was 40%. He had to "pay" about $450/month to account for his higher income. Same for the college expense ratio that we each were responsible for.

I can't tell what you're asking about sweat equity.

Sweat equity is irrelevant. I had a similar scenario was the previous poster and I was only going to get $300 a month from him so I just declined the child support because I was not going to piss him off for $300 a month.

Anonymous wrote:As a successful lawyer who divorced a high earning IT guy, there will be no great financial settlement for her. The divorce laws reward wives without successful careers. You have to have several years of not earning enough to support yourself for a court to even consider alimony. In general, if you earn enough to support yourself there is no alimony. You will split half the assets, so if he contributed more financially to those assets because he was making shitloads of money (more than you), you'll get half of a bigger pie than you would have if he'd just had a normal high salary like you. Hell, if she earns more than him, he'll be the one to walk away with a financial windfall. It only works well for the wife if she is a low earner.

Exactly this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give that man a break.
He fell in love with a colleague. He doesn’t love his wife anymore.
You don’t control who you fall in love with. What should he do? Ignore his feelings and live a miserable life with someone he no longer loves?
He made the right decision for both of them. I bet that she doesn’t love him either.

He made the right decision for himself.

No, it's the right decision for her as well. Do you want her to stay with a man who doesn't love her anymore?

"What about child support, if he’s 70% of the high income each year, then what?

And the sweat equity.c how does that carve up at their firms after 20 years of supporting everyone?"

In my divorce, his income was 60% of our joint income and mine was 40%. He had to "pay" about $450/month to account for his higher income. Same for the college expense ratio that we each were responsible for.

I can't tell what you're asking about sweat equity.