Thoughts on study that concluded that men are far more likely to leave their wives if the wives are seriously ill than vice versa?

duhhhh · 2024-02-16T03:05:54+00:00

I keep seeing that RETRACTED 2009 study that men leave their partners when they get sick quoted and heavily upvoted on most of reddit.

Someone tried to reproduce the study a few years later and couldn't. it turns out the original study was ~~propaganda~~ "flawed". The study recorded any couple that separated or that stopped participating in the study as the husband leaving the wife. Wife died? Husband abandoned her. Focused on her care and stopped answering surveys? Husband abandoned her. Moved away and stopped getting the letters? Husband abandoned her. Wife filed for divorce? Husband abandoned her. Husband died? Husband abandoned her. Couple make a mutual decision to divorce to protect assets from medical bills? Husband abandoned her. ANYTHING other than the couple was still together was counted as the husband abandoning the wife. The second team of researchers caught them.

https://www.deseret.com/2015/8/4/20569426/study-that-found-husbands-prone-to-leave-sick-wives-was-flawed-researchers-say#a-coding-error-created-a-false-conclusion-in-a-study-that-found-men-may-be-more-likely-to-bail-on-a-marriage-if-the-wife-becomes-sick-compared-to-if-shes-well-researchers-retracted-the-study

Reality: Around 6% of partners break up during cancer treatment. It isn't that much different than typical over those time-frames. Men abandon sick wives slightly more often than wives abandon sick husbands. No one has studied why the (minor) disparity between the sexes.

But typical redditors would much rather quote that "flawed" 2009 study and claim the reason is that men are uncaring bastards and women are compassionate. (Then explain why so many women abandon their partners when they are laid off for more than a few months.)

This much larger not retracted study even shows the rate of divorce goes down while someone is being treated for cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8959852/

Cheap_Camera2412 · 2024-02-16T03:11:19+00:00

Women don’t leave men as much money when she dies , many women stay for the bag

sorebum405 · 2024-02-16T03:56:16+00:00

I made a post about this topic two years.This is actually a great example of how propaganda can be created.

There are two things wrong with people using this study to support the claim that men abandon their sick wives 7x more then women abandon their sick husbands.

1.The study is an outlier compared to other studies on this topic.They cherry picked this one study which has a smaller sample size than many other studies, to make this sensational claim.In my post I show studies that find a much smaller difference,no difference at all,and a difference in the opposite direction.However,those studies are inconvenient for those who wish to demonize men,so they get overlooked.

2.The study is correlational,so we don't know what caused the disparity,and the study also doesn't say who intiates the divorce.There are multiple reasons why this disparity could exist,besides men just abandoning their wives.Medical divorce,the wife initiating the divorce,prior marital issues,etc.

So this is really an unfounded claim.The only thing that I am pretty certain about is that the vast majority of couples stay together when their spouse gets sick.

slipkid556 · 2024-02-16T03:43:48+00:00

Women initiate 80% of divorce, 90% if she college educated.

The study is bullshit

cozmickid80 · 2024-02-16T15:24:12+00:00

I was married for 16 years. Started having health issues. Wife left. Because of the kids, we still talked sometimes. She remarried and when she started having health issues of her own and he left her.

She was crying to about it on the phone and seemed to miss the irony.

"It hurts, don't it?" I asked.

After a few moments of silence she said. "Yes."

Not gonna lie. It felt great.

WeEatBabies · 2024-02-16T03:38:51+00:00

When the opposite happens(man gets sick)...

Either wives stay to get the inheritance.

- Or -

They already left a long time ago, ... see the 80% of women initiate divorce stat!

gabriel-kornilov · 2024-02-16T05:13:23+00:00

Anything goes when it comes to ~~shit on~~ vilify men. Business as usual.

NinjaSelect3581 · 2024-02-16T03:04:18+00:00

How is a study going to help me in my particular situation?

It’s a great question though and I hope you get intelligent answers. My wife told me right after we got married that I’d better not get sick because she does not intend to take care of me. That gave me even more of an incentive to stay healthy and very far away from junk food and doctors.

I also refused to pay for her medical insurance after she (1) blew the entire annual budget for the two of us on exams in the first month of my new job, exams which proved to be not only unnecessary but leading to the wrong diagnosis (we’re in America, living in San Diego at the time going to some of the best educated doctors), (2) she got a license to work in the health care field which I paid for but refuses to work, (3) she has her own health insurance but refuses to use it.

What has been the fortunate consequence of this is that she weaned herself off the few medications she used to take and started taking the supplements I take. She had several chronic health conditions which have all been virtually completely eliminated. In an emergency we have coverage, don’t get me wrong. But my wife realized that she could not play games with me. To her surprise she is much healthier than any of her long time friends.

Neither of us is planning to get seriously ill but I’m not taking my chances.

ButWhatOfGlen · 2024-02-16T14:54:04+00:00

My evidence from personal experience, cohort of one... wife ghosted me one year into cancer treatment. Then had the nerve to call up my family members sobbing about how much she loved me. It's been 2.5 years so I'm good, but it about killed me. Good times, good times🤣

Acousmetre78 · 2024-02-16T15:44:18+00:00

My wife cheated on me when I began to have hip issues. I couldn't walk as well for a year or two before I had surgeries. She began to feel like I was less of a man and not as safe as a protector. It made me seem old even though I was 39. Then came more chronic illness and she became fully invested in her affair. I'm finding a place to move out now.

PristinePilot6599 · 2024-02-16T16:51:04+00:00

I think this illness situation has nothing to do with gender. If you love your partner you will stay. If this level of biasedness is shown in research then we can also say that she stayed for money she will get after his death, men usually don't benefit monetarily.

HotwheelsJackOfficia · 2024-02-16T18:05:50+00:00

Wasn't that study later retracted?

63daddy · 2024-02-16T14:48:02+00:00

“Researchers have retracted a study that seemed to show married couples are more likely to divorce if the wife gets sick, compared to if she stays healthy, citing discovery of a coding error.”

https://www.deseret.com/2015/8/4/20569426/study-that-found-husbands-prone-to-leave-sick-wives-was-flawed-researchers-say#:~:text=Researchers%20retracted%20the%20study.&text=1%20of%202-,A%20coding%20error%20created%20a%20false%20conclusion%20in%20a%20study,Researchers%20retracted%20the%20study.

https://retractionwatch.com/2015/09/10/divorce-study-felled-by-a-coding-error-gets-a-second-chance/

“A Common Internet Marriage Statistic Was a Programming Error How likely is a husband to divorce a sick wife?”

https://medium.com/a-microbiome-scientist-at-large/a-common-internet-marriage-statistic-was-a-programming-error-92b377d8f561

The other problem I’ll point out with the study is it cherry picked a few very rare sicknesses and interpreted these rare cases as being common to all illness. Why did they only include these rare cases in their study and not include more common illnesses?

Added: I think the real lesson here is how discredited information continues to be presented and believed even after it’s discredited.

NeoNotNeo · 2024-02-16T13:59:00+00:00

Women marry up financially. Men don’t.

If, and I mean if, there is a statical variance between men and women leaving it likely proves both genders have creeps who leave a partner when they’re are down, but among the creeps their exist those who stay for a widows benefits financially

Purebag3 · 2024-02-18T07:24:00+00:00

I've (male)been retired for ten years, and I've visited a lot of retirement communities over the years exploring the USA. What I've seen repeatedly is able-bodied men caring for women with disabilities NOT the other way around.

Title	Thoughts on study that concluded that men are far more likely to leave their wives if the wives are seriously ill than vice versa?
Author	Hp651
Upvotes	51
Comments	21
Date	February 16, 2024 1:26 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1arw8fp/thoughts_on_study_that_concluded_that_men_are_far/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/thoughts-on-study-that-concluded-that-men-are-far.1245534 https://theredarchive.com/post/1245534

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