Who is more likely to leave for another partner, men or women?

Factual Questions
21

My impression is that women would normally not leave until they’d lined up another partner, because historically women were dependent on men for their lifestyle (with some exceptions). Of course, with the evolution of women’s rights and gender equity, this has been far less of a consideration in the last few decades.

Plus, women are probably more likely to consider the needs of the children. Not necessarily what’s good for them psychologically, but more that things like the children’s lifestyle, child care, housing etc. require one good income or two incomes. Guys are less likely to be thinking about practical things, more likely to be thinking with other parts. Monkeys do like to swing.

However, it is not impossible for either partner to actually drive the other away.

22

Anecdotally, based on my life and the life of a few dozen people I follow closely enough, it is usually the men who stick with relationships until another one is on the cards, while women up and leave when they are unhappy, to lead a single life, often blindsiding the men who had no idea. This applies to childless couples in their 20s, as well as to people with children in their 50’s.

But around where I live, women are more highly educated than men and have earned their livelihood independently for several generations now. In my age group, for instance, I don’t know anyone who lived in a housewife-type scenario.

23

I used to be active in a political party (until Brian Mulroney came along and disenchanted me of all that). I noticed the shift from stay-at-home mom to working housewife was about the 1980’s. At the beginning of the 1980’s the party campaign offices (all parties) were mostly staffed by volunteers who were otherwise stay-at-home mothers and so had free daytime for the month-long campaign now that kids were in school. By the end of the 1980’s a secretary to man the office was an additional expense, the only free volunteers during the day were quite old - husband was a well-paid exec or retired.

It’s my observation that a modern lifestyle requires two incomes, or one really good income.

My anecdotal experience was that way back, women left when they had someone else to go to. Men who initiated the leaving typically also had someone else to go to, but not as serious. Now, both leave regardless, depending on how unhappy the situation is.

24

Those “blindsided” men often, in my own experience, did not work, had addiction issues, did not take care of their children, etc. and their obliviousness and selfishness was why the relationship ended.

25

Don’t have a link, but before gay marriage was legal in the U.S., there was some published research into the rate of divorce in same-sex marriages, and it was much higher among lesbians than it was in male couples, so maybe it wasn’t “why should he care if he’s happy, as long as he has the live-in maid” after all.

26

I wonder what the average age of first marriage is for gays vs lesbians. The impression I get is that gays may not be as quick to get married as lesbians.

27

Don’t know if this study is along the lines of what you were looking for, but for what it’s worth:

28

Sorry to arouse a zombie, but I actually had a very recent conversation with someone about this, and my conversation partner happened to know a lot about statistics-- not these in particular, but had looked at these variables once for a problem for a class he was teaching.

This fluctuates a lot by social strata.

In the lower socio-economic classes, when there are young children, women, who know they are probably going to en up with the children most of the time, and will constantly be in court trying to get child support from their exes, may decided that remaining in the marriage is better than going it alone. However, if they have a chance to remarry right away, to someone who says he doesn’t mind helping support her kids-- or maybe even has kids of his own, and will be contributing to supporting hers, while she is often the one meeting his kids’ bus-- that doesn’t seem so bad. IOW, same situation, better man (from her perspective).

In the lower classes, the man might not be so anxious to be financially responsible for two households, which is his worst case scenario if he leave his wife for another woman, and if he leaves to be on his own, he loses his maid, cook, nanny, etc. If he lives in a house with his wife and kids, he knows that the wife and kids will probably stay in the house, because she will get custody. He will have to move, and pay for the move-- she’s not going to split the cost. He needs first and last month’s rent some place, van rental, deposit for cable, and maybe utilities.

In the middle classes, there are many of the same issues, just scaled up. Additionally, if the man, because he can afford a lawyer, sues for custody and wins, he now has to worry about the children, and she may have been the one making all the appointments, going to all the school conferences, etc., before. He has to learn all this from the ground up. He may also have to learn to cook, and how to make healthy meals kids will eat, not just a couple of times a month, but every day, day after day.

If he doesn’t sue for custody, he may get hit with a whopping child support bill, because often the burden is that “the child’s standard of living does not change.” It may not be common, but it is even within a judge’s power to order him to find an apartment where each child has their own room, if this is what they have always had. Again, not common-- but it does happen that father’s get told a 2 bedroom apartment for 4 children won’t work, even if the father plans to sleep on the couch and give up his room to two of the children when they visit.

In both the lower and middle classes, divorce tends to work out a little better for women-- but that’s because marriage tends to workout a little better for men, if that makes sense. So, men don’t want to divorce unless they can recreate the situation which favors them. The lowest classes may divorce less often, though, just because divorce itself, and splitting up, are both expensive. Once you start getting into the upper classes, you start seeing people hiring clever-- and expensive-- lawyers.

Rich people usually don’t leave one another for things other than another partner, and that goes for the men and the women. This is because rich people in bad marriages have other ways of dealing with their bad marriages besides suffering, or divorcing.

Rich people can afford big houses with separate bedrooms, and separate studies, even separate bathrooms. Or, they can afford an apartment, so they have a house in the suburbs, and an apartment in the city, and live in them at different times. They can take separate vacations. One can be home with the children while the other is at the yearly Yoga Spirit-fest in Prague, and then that one will return and stay with the kids while the other goes on a tour of anthropological digs in west Africa. One has season tickets to a sports even on Sunday afternoons, and the other has season tickets to a theaters performances on Saturday nights.

They may even do different things with the children: one takes them to a theme park in the spring, and the other for a weekend camping trip in the summer.

They can manage discreet affairs, and if their partners are also married to other people, divorce may never even come up. They have the resources to meet and be alone.

So, the answer to this will depend very much on the circumstances of the person you are asking.

29

Oh, you know my sister-in-law?

30

No. But she may have taken my mother’s seminar.

31

Of course, for rich people there are two different dynamics - there are those where they both have money, and those where only one has money. Different motivations in each situation.

When only one has the money, they have to assess whether they will be splitting too much of what they see as their personal assets while their partner calculates whether life will be better with split assets or with the status quo.

With poor people, there’s always the Kamikaze Defense - “go ahead and take me to court, I got nothing. I can’t even pay for my lawyer, let alone yours”.

However, in either case, for both genders - never underestimate the power of hate in driving highly irrational behaviour.