Why Women Want Out More Than Men

InfinitelyThirsting · 2011-01-26T02:44:00+00:00

And, sure, there are many, many "badly behaved" women out there. But at least if they cheat, most of them -- ... -- have the decency to leave.

Sure, if men got the kids and disproportionate property/alimony from divorce, they'd "have the decency to leave" too.

That article is just a woman trying to rationalize her own divorce.

AyeMatey · 2011-01-26T03:27:10+00:00

Women want out more, because more often they have no freekin idea what it takes to put them in the lifestyle they lead. They think it is just part of the air, it just flows to them, it's just what they deserve. They think the earth provides gasoline and vacations and car insurance and repairs, and college savings funds. When in reality somebody is working 5 days a week, fulltime, to make all that happen.

So they petition for divorce, thinking that life is nice, but how much nicer it could be to not have dirty socks on the floor at home. Then the new shoes stop arriving, and the college fund goes dry, and things get really unpleasant.

True story:

out of college, my GF and I both get jobs and move to the same town. She buys a new car, and goes in on renting a house, with some other recent graduates. She didn't know any of them. I go in on an apartment with a friend of mine, straight up guy. I didn't think I could afford a car, so I didn't buy one. I figured to wait and see how the finances would work out. Conservative, y'know.

Couple months go by, she is out of money. every freekin month she is broke, borrowing money from me. Can't figure out where her money is going. We do a little sit-down, add-it-up thing. Turns out her expenses are 15% higher than her income. My income is higher and my hard expenses (except for all the money I've been floating her) are lower than hers. All along I have been subsidizing her - to the tune of better than one car payment a month. The numbers don't lie. She sees this.

Hmmmm!

So I say "what are we gonna do about this?" She cries. She cries about living with strangers and having no money and boo hoo hoo. We're having a money conversation and she is giving me tears. She proposes to move out of her rented house, and drop her rent payment, and move in with me. See, then she can live rent-free, but she gets to keep the new car. And she doesn't have to live with those strangers.

This is how it works for some women. For my part, I actually took this deal. Big man, I was. Thought I was being responsible. Just helping her out. Anyway, we were a couple, right?

She eventually became my wife, and I was happy with her, until she started screwing my friend. She filed for divorce, I left the house, AND THEN in order to guarantee custody, she alleged I beat her and the children, and that's all for me. Protection order, loss of all custody, loss of all my belongings. She didn't stay with the ex-friend of mine that she was screwing. Good thing, too, the kids would have hated her for it. Anyway, he was unemployed, so that was bad planning on her part.

The months go by - She is now out of money, and asking for more. Too bad I am so depressed about losing my kids, my house, all my savings in a custody battle, that I cannot work. My major incentive to find work is to owe her less money. There's no practical way I will ever pay it off.

So now I am a beaten, broken man. I figure, "why try?" I tried hard, for a long time. A good honest effort. I didn't beat her or the kids, I didn't lie in divorce court. Stayed high road. Lost everything anyway. All along I was offering her deals, proposing settlement terms - telling her we both need to be strong for the kids, let's not destroy each other, the kids need us, let's preserve the savings, don't give it to the lawyers. She didn't see the wisdom in that. Why would she? She's never been financially independent. She never had to earn her keep.

This really didn't work out so well.

More of the story:
Be careful about subsidizing your woman. Whatever woman you hook up with, make sure she has and keeps a job. If you begin subsidizing her, married or not, you will never be able to stop, under pain of the law.

On top of which, a financially independent woman is a strong woman and a smart woman. Just tell her you refuse to give her money, in support of feminism. I'm not joking about this. If she has to keep her own budget and earn her own rent, pay for her own rent, groceries, gas, insurance etc, she will be much much wiser about money, much less likely to imagine it rains from the skies.

(Corollary: Your father was doing the right thing by not spoiling you.)

snoopyzanus · 2011-01-26T14:10:44+00:00

Having read about this study (and others) years ago, I knew something was off about the quote in the article, and a little digging showed exactly what that was.

The quote from the National Marriage Project referencing a "recent study" is from this (pdf). Scroll down to "Additional Myths."

You'll see in the pdf that there is a footnote number (which is removed in the article) just before the part that basically supports the whole article's assertions: "Also, the higher rate of women initiators is probably due to the fact that men are more likely to be "badly behaved." Husbands, for example, are more likely than wives to have problems with drinking, drug abuse, and infidelity."

That footnote number indicates two things. The source of the study being quoted and that the number has been placed after the last word of what is being cited. What comes after is not part of the cite.

In the whole pdf, this is the only time that the footnote number comes in the middle, rather than at the end of a paragraph. This is not a coincidence. It is because what comes after it is an unsupported assertion being made by the writers of the brief, unrelated to the study just referenced.

If you didn't read carefully or didn't understand the significance of the footnote number placement, you'd miss this and think that "Also, the..." was part of the study's conclusions.

It isn't. In fact, the study came to quite different conclusions. The study referenced is Margaret F. Brinig and Douglas A. Allen's “‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’: Why Most Divorce Filers Are Women.”

Because this post is getting long, I'll post more about the actual conclusions in a reply to this one.

Tweed_Jacket · 2011-01-26T14:27:21+00:00

I think a big part of the problem is that men are generally taught to "man up," to endure hardship head-on because that's just what men do. Women, on the other hand, are taught to be very introspective and very concerned with how they feel about things. When strife arises, men are more likely to head-down-power-through it, and women are more likely to seek whatever form of relief they can manage.

For the record, I'm actually very much in favor of the male approach to adversity. There's a certain proud nobility there. That being said, its this same mentality, where men endure and women are babied, that led to feminism being the cultural default while MR is a "fringe" movement.

Quazz · 2011-01-26T11:23:50+00:00

Was a nice read, until :

Husbands, for example, are more likely than wives to have problems with drinking, drug abuse, and infidelity."

Alcohol, maybe? Statistics would have been nice. Drugs? Doubt it tbh Infidelity? That's about 50/50 :/

Il128 · 2011-01-25T23:49:27+00:00

[permanently deleted]

2011-01-27T05:52:40+00:00

Feminist accuses most men of cheating in divorce situations, basing her argument on celebrity marriages and dodgy statistics.

Huffpo as usual.

AyeMatey · 2011-01-26T02:13:55+00:00

Men, evidently, don't leave.

That's true. In addition to getting screwed in divorce more, there's a more basic explanation. Men tend to polygamy. They don't want a different woman - they want an additional woman. Divorce would defeat that purpose. Women, however, tend to hypergamy. They don't want an additional man - they want a higher ranking man. Divorce facilitates that.

frostek · 2011-01-26T16:51:05+00:00

I find the cheating excuse used in the article to be interesting, because I'm certain it's the case that slightly more women cheat than men.

Title	Why Women Want Out More Than Men
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	5
Comments	40
Date	January 25, 2011 10:52 PM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/f8zuu/why_women_want_out_more_than_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-women-want-out-more-than-men.1043908 https://theredarchive.com/post/1043908

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