# Why would a man stay who wants to leave?



## sfguy (Jan 13, 2010)

Someone asked me about my situation over PM. I'm anonymizing and paraphrasing what she wrote, to protect her privacy, but I wanted to post my answers on the public forum because I haven't completely figured all this out myself yet. I'm working on it.



> Why do men do that?


Guilt, don't want to disappoint, feel like a failure, deal with the hassle and mess, fear of being alone and never finding anyone better, there are lots of bad reasons to hang on to something that isn't right.



> We don't want the men to be unhappy.


I know, my wife doesn't want me to be unhappy either. The problem is that she basically needs to be a completely different person before I would be happy, and that's just too much to ask of anyone. I can't "accept her the way she is", I tried putting up with her, I tried molding her to more like the person I wanted to be, but I realize now that all of those efforts were futile and unkind.
In my case, I want someone with a higher IQ, more interesting things to talk about, more similar hobbies, an easier time going with the flow and not fighting me about every little thing, and a physical attraction that I've never felt for her. It's just something different than who she is, and it's not because there's anything wrong with her.



> He is going to marriage counselling just to 'look good' to his family. Why is that?


Anyone who watches TV knows that men who walk out are the "bad guys". It's superficial, but there's a sense that I want to make every effort to make leaving look like a "last resort", instead of just admitting that getting married was a mistake in the first place.


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