# Don't understand this mentality



## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

I belong to another group which is divorce support for women over 40. One of the things I see there a lot is this tendency for middle aged men to leave a long term marriage, quite likely with children, because they are "so in love" with their AP that they can't live without her. She's totally worth throwing away everything he's built over the last 20 years with his wife and family.

And yet 3 months, or a year, or even another marriage later, that relationship is over as well, and he's moved on to yet another one. And another and another and another. Right until he reaches a point of being too old to attract another partner. Then all too often he's back to the first wife begging her to take him back.

I just don't understand the mentality. Is it just the novelty of changing sex partners every time you get bored with the one you've got that keeps this behavior going? Is it a failure to understand what true love really is so that the person is constantly looking for that new relationship high? I just don't get what on earth is worth throwing away a long term commitment and often ruining multiple lives just to spend the rest of your life in one short term affair after another.

My husband and I were together for 15 years. In the 10 years since he left he's had at least 3 other relationships that have lasted at least a year. He's abandoned every one of them when the woman has started pushing for commitment. He has kids with at least 1 woman other than me and has nothing to do with any of his children.

And yes, I do realize that women do this as well. It just seems to be more common for men to reach a point in their lives where commitment is actually repellant to them, a feeling that one should be getting out of their system BEFORE they get married for the first time!

Seems to me that we treat marriage/spouses like car these days. Get bored with one? Just trade it in for another. It's really quite sad. People shouldn't be used and thrown away like inanimate objects.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

The "grass is greener" problem is very real. When you live with someone for a long time its easy for frustrations to build up. In a good relationship those get fixed, but is a bad one, they can just grow and fester.

Then you meet someone else. They are new, you don't know much about them. It is so easy to fill in the unknowns with your fantasy of what you would like them to be. Then when you are with them for a while reality starts to set in, you discover that the unknowns were not your fantasy, but sometimes are just more problems.


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

uhtred said:


> The "grass is greener" problem is very real. When you live with someone for a long time its easy for frustrations to build up. In a good relationship those get fixed, but is a bad one, they can just grow and fester.
> 
> Then you meet someone else. They are new, you don't know much about them. It is so easy to fill in the unknowns with your fantasy of what you would like them to be. Then when you are with them for a while reality starts to set in, you discover that the unknowns were not your fantasy, but sometimes are just more problems.


Grass is greener, which only gets further pushed thanks to social media (i.e. Facebook, etc...)


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## Herschel (Mar 27, 2016)

I think it tend to be the "grass is younger". It's not just about your partner's age, but your's as well.


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

So what things did you stop doing/start doing that caused your husband to look elsewhere?


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

It's about the addiction chemistry of infatuation and love. The initial infatuation is addicting and creates new neural connections while suppressing existing ones with the spouse. Usually the infatuation/love, based on dopamine and serotonin, transforms into a long term feeling which is oxytocin based. It may be that the spouse transitioned to the long term love while married and if they come to their senses the newer affair addiction will wear off leaving the older long term love. The withdrawal from this infatuation can take three to nine months depending upon when they stop feeding the addiction.


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## Kivlor (Oct 27, 2015)

Hellomynameis said:


> I belong to another group which is divorce support for women over 40. One of the things I see there a lot is this tendency for middle aged men to leave a long term marriage, quite likely with children, because they are "so in love" with their AP that they can't live without her. She's totally worth throwing away everything he's built over the last 20 years with his wife and family.
> 
> And yet 3 months, or a year, or even another marriage later, that relationship is over as well, and he's moved on to yet another one. And another and another and another. Right until he reaches a point of being too old to attract another partner. Then all too often he's back to the first wife begging her to take him back.
> 
> ...


Uhtred put it quite well. The grass is greener is a huge issue. There's other stuff that feeds into it. Mentality is a large portion of the culprit. People focused on short term rewards I would wager aren't as likely to stay in their marriage. There are some physiological aspects... the "7 year itch" as it is sometimes called does exist... the endorphins your endocrine system was pumping into your brain have worn off and then if you happen to find someone who piques your interest, they start causing similar effects, and like a druggie, you may just chase after them and stray from your marriage. Changing partners helps keep those endorphin levels up. 

Add in communication issues; boredom from years of complacency and familiarity; resentment from poor communication etc and you now have a situation that is just waiting for the catalyst to encourage someone to seek extramarital attention.


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## GuyInColorado (Dec 26, 2015)

The majority (not all) of women let themselves go once they get their man to commit. A man can only put up with this for so long before he looks elsewhere. A man's brain is wired to be physically attractive to a mate. That's how the world keeps continuing. 

I honestly don't see anything wrong with a guy switching up his mate when he gets bored if he isn't going to commit. The main issue is if he's doing it because he can't be alone and needs a caretaker. If he's living the bachelor life and taking care of everything himself, then let him have fun. I seriously doubt most men beg their ex wives to come back. I just could never see that happening with me, there are way too many single women out there to experience.


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## jorgegene (May 26, 2012)

i think this type of behavior can often be attributed to lack of understanding what love is.

we want to 'fee' love. and when we don't for long enough, we crave it so much we look for it somewhere until we think we find it.

but it's not real love; we mistake infatuation for love.

when we leave a marriage for reasons other than severe abuse or infidelity (which i guess is abuse), then we show that we don't understand what real love is.
you may not agree with that paradigm, but when you took your wedding vows, that's probably basically what you said.

probably nobody told us how to love, and even if they did, i doubt we understood. if we didn't have good role models, then we are fighting an uphill battle.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

I got pregnant at 33 years old. He found my pregnant body disgusting (he was around 280 pounds at the time - hypocritical much?). So he started an affair with his secretary. Then I had serious health issues after our son was born and he couldn't cope with a newborn and a disabled wife so he basically walked out and left us. He also told me he was ashamed of having a wife who couldn't work and more than once accused me of faking my health issues - as if you can fake heart failure so bad the doctors put you on the heart transplant list. I tried for years to win him back if only so my son would have a relationship with his father but by then he had settled quite happily into a new woman every 12 months lifestyle. While refusing to let me go because he enjoys making my life difficult and he doesn't want to pay alimony.

There were also issues with spiritual beliefs not jiving and his mother interfering on a regular basis because she hated me from the beginning because I wouldn't put up with her constant abuse.

I know it's partly my fault for missing the signs. I was 19 when I met him and only had one prior long term boyfriend. He was 21 and had already had at least 5 girlfriends since he was 16.

What I've never understood is why he married at all - me or anyone else - considering he seems to enjoy being a player. And once he had married, why leave? He did a pretty good job of hiding his cheating over the years so I probably never would have left him.


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

MAJDEATH said:


> So what things did you stop doing/start doing that caused your husband to look elsewhere?


You never fail to entertain, sir.

LOL


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

jorgegene said:


> i think this type of behavior can often be attributed to lack of understanding what love is.
> 
> we want to 'fee' love. and when we don't for long enough, we crave it so much we look for it somewhere until we think we find it.
> 
> ...


That's right it's not understanding that love is a chemical condition that needs to be fed. If you don't feed love with spousal quality time, sex and fun then you risk withdrawal and falling out of love.

This then allows for the grass is greener thinking. I fell out of love with my wife and after a lot of work addressing issues, I fell back in love with her. And the infatuation stage is love, a particular phase of it. Now we spend time feeding it so it won't disappear again.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

MAJDEATH said:


> So what things did you stop doing/start doing that caused your husband to look elsewhere?


I think if I had to put my finger on one specific thing it's that I became "unattractive" (via pregnancy) and unable to work at the same time that he got an executive level promotion and felt I didn't fit the image of what an executive level wife should be. It was apparently very important to him to have a spouse who was his equal or near-equal not necessarily in earnings but in professional achievement level. He was also extremely ashamed of having a child on the autism spectrum which is why he doesn't want to see his son or be involved in his life in any way.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

meson said:


> It's about the addiction chemistry of infatuation and love. The initial infatuation is addicting and creates new neural connections while suppressing existing ones with the spouse. Usually the infatuation/love, based on dopamine and serotonin, transforms into a long term feeling which is oxytocin based. It may be that the spouse transitioned to the long term love while married and if they come to their senses the newer affair addiction will wear off leaving the older long term love. The withdrawal from this infatuation can take three to nine months depending upon when they stop feeding the addiction.


Yea, yea, the man or women cannot help themselves. "Their" chemistry forces them to do this. They are not responsible for their behavior.

This logic might work in marriages and excuses the dissolution of marriages...........but not with Criminal or Tort Law. Why is that?

Of course, you are right. We are chemical soup on the inside. My favorite is Italian Wedding soup. It has good texture, is a little salty and the meat is to die for!


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

SunCMars said:


> Yea, yea, the man or women cannot help themselves. "Their" chemistry forces them to do this. They are not responsible for their behavior.
> 
> This logic might work in marriages and excuses the dissolution of marriages...........but not with Criminal or Tort Law. Why is that?
> 
> Of course, you are right. We are chemical soup on the inside. My favorite is Italian Wedding soup. It has good texture, is a little salty and the meat is to die for!


I must disagree with this. They can help themselves they can stop. The chemistry doesn't force them to do it. The chemistry is there notwithstanding but it is not an excuse. We have the ability and obligation to not act on feelings that arise to jeopardize your marriage. Your sarcasm is misplaced with me as my story shows.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

This is I guess what I don't get. We are all human. We all presumably feel the same basic emotions. We all have to deal with the ups and downs of chemical attraction. And physical attraction when our spouse perhaps changes for the worse. Why then are some people able to stay and keep the flame alive for 50 years and others cut and run after 10 or 20?

My parents are in their early 70s. They've been married almost 50 years. They were both very attractive when they were younger. My dad still is - he regularly gets hit on by younger women. My mother has been overweight for years now and has had a double mastectomy. Dad has never cheated and never even thought about leaving. My MIL, much as I don't like her, nursed my FIL through 15 years and 5 different types of cancer and never left his side! My husband, OTOH, runs away only a few months into a difficult situation and blames it all on me no longer meeting his expectations.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

Hellomynameis said:


> I was 19 when I met him and only had one prior long term boyfriend. He was 21 and had already had at least 5 girlfriends since he was 16.
> 
> What I've never understood is why he married at all - me or anyone else - considering he seems to enjoy being a player. And once he had married, why leave? He did a pretty good job of hiding his cheating over the years so I probably never would have left him.


Well in your specific case the answer is he's a damaged person. He is incapable of having a serious LTR.

In general, divorced men over about 45 are unlikely to be looking for another wife. A lot of men get seriously burned financially, emotionally, and in child custody with divorce. Once burnt, twice learnt. Not gonna get burned again!

But men do want a good relationship in their life. So if a woman is willing to participate, that's fine with the man. But when she starts talking marriage and/or setting ultimatums, he's not interested in going there.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

Hellomynameis said:


> This is I guess what I don't get. We are all human. We all presumably feel the same basic emotions. We all have to deal with the ups and downs of chemical attraction. And physical attraction when our spouse perhaps changes for the worse. Why then are some people able to stay and keep the flame alive for 50 years and others cut and run after 10 or 20?
> 
> My parents are in their early 70s. They've been married almost 50 years. They were both very attractive when they were younger. My dad still is - he regularly gets hit on by younger women. My mother has been overweight for years now and has had a double mastectomy. Dad has never cheated and never even thought about leaving. My MIL, much as I don't like her, nursed my FIL through 15 years and 5 different types of cancer and never left his side! My husband, OTOH, runs away only a few months into a difficult situation and blames it all on me no longer meeting his expectations.


I don't know your story and I don't know your husband so I can't reliably speculate on his motivation. You are searching for an answer in the mechanism of love and it might be there and it might not.

I have a relative that grew up in the finger lake region who got married and then initiated divorce in under a year. They thought they loved each other and perhaps they did but they also got married because it was the thing to do, the next and expected step. They didn't really know each other enough to know what each other wanted from life. He blamed her change but I don't think he really knew her. 

I was engaged to a woman after dating for a few years. A few months after we went to different schools she broke it off. I dont really know why she broke it off. I think she didn't know what she wanted out of life and was following transient feelings but it doesn't really matter to me. 

What helped me heal and move forward is figuring out what I wanted and how to recognize it. Through this I was able to identify my current wife and though it's had ups and downs we are 27 years.

So my advice is to look within and understand yourself and what you want more than trying to understand why did did what he did. Then apply this in your future relationships.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

Thor said:


> Well in your specific case the answer is he's a damaged person. He is incapable of having a serious LTR.
> 
> In general, divorced men over about 45 are unlikely to be looking for another wife. A lot of men get seriously burned financially, emotionally, and in child custody with divorce. Once burnt, twice learnt. Not gonna get burned again!
> 
> But men do want a good relationship in their life. So if a woman is willing to participate, that's fine with the man. But when she starts talking marriage and/or setting ultimatums, he's not interested in going there.


So from this I can take away that as a 45 year old woman with a religious based belief in not having sex outside of marriage, I can pretty much expect to be alone the rest of my life, unless I can find a man who shares my beliefs. I think I need to move out of NY of that's the case. Most of the churches around here are made up of women in similar situations to my own. And absolutely zero single men over 25.


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## Kivlor (Oct 27, 2015)

Hellomynameis said:


> This is I guess what I don't get. We are all human. We all presumably feel the same basic emotions. We all have to deal with the ups and downs of chemical attraction. And physical attraction when our spouse perhaps changes for the worse. Why then are some people able to stay and keep the flame alive for 50 years and others cut and run after 10 or 20?
> 
> My parents are in their early 70s. They've been married almost 50 years. They were both very attractive when they were younger. My dad still is - he regularly gets hit on by younger women. My mother has been overweight for years now and has had a double mastectomy. Dad has never cheated and never even thought about leaving. My MIL, much as I don't like her, nursed my FIL through 15 years and 5 different types of cancer and never left his side! My husband, OTOH, runs away only a few months into a difficult situation and blames it all on me no longer meeting his expectations.


In the end, although the chemicals and struggles affect us (providing incentive to some degree) the rest is a matter of force of will, of personality, of integrity. 

I only ever describe the biological component to use as context. Either we are men or we are machines. If we are mere machines then it all doesn't matter, we are just running according to our programming and there is no morality to it. We are not responsible.

If we are men, born with free will, then we must choose daily how we will act, and either rise above these influences or fail and succumb. I choose to believe weverything are men. When we choose poorly it is our own poor judgement and lack of will. We are responsible despite these influences.


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## Kivlor (Oct 27, 2015)

Hellomynameis said:


> So from this I can take away that as a 45 year old woman with a religious based belief in not having sex outside of marriage, I can pretty much expect to be alone the rest of my life, unless I can find a man who shares my beliefs. I think I need to move out of NY of that's the case. Most of the churches around here are made up of women in similar situations to my own. And absolutely zero single men over 25.


You might try other churches. You might try the Internet and look for like minded people. 

I would presume you will either A) be alone B) find someone with similar beliefs or C) change your requirements.


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

How does a man who weighs 280 lbs keep finding women to date? It seems there would be a small market for such men.


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

GusPolinski said:


> MAJDEATH said:
> 
> 
> > So what things did you stop doing/start doing that caused your husband to look elsewhere?
> ...


Notice I said "look", not "go" elsewhere. And I am very entertaining.


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## soccermom2three (Jan 4, 2013)

GusPolinski said:


> You never fail to entertain, sir.
> 
> 
> 
> LOL




How come he only posts this **** on threads where the woman is the OP?


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

soccermom2three said:


> GusPolinski said:
> 
> 
> > You never fail to entertain, sir.
> ...


Because women generally control the narrative in a relationship. They have the most powerful force in the universe.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Hello,

Your ability to unflinchingly speak the truth is a real gift. I am sorry you got dealt such a difficult hand. 

Your son is lucky to have you. 





Hellomynameis said:


> I think if I had to put my finger on one specific thing it's that I became "unattractive" (via pregnancy) and unable to work at the same time that he got an executive level promotion and felt I didn't fit the image of what an executive level wife should be. It was apparently very important to him to have a spouse who was his equal or near-equal not necessarily in earnings but in professional achievement level. He was also extremely ashamed of having a child on the autism spectrum which is why he doesn't want to see his son or be involved in his life in any way.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

Blondilocks said:


> How does a man who weighs 280 lbs keep finding women to date? It seems there would be a small market for such men.


It's called money. And the status of being an executive in a major international corporation. And BTW he's well over 300 pounds now. However he is 6'4 so he does carry it better than a shorter man would. And well tailored suits hide a lot of figure flaws.

I feel truly sorry for his subordinates at work. He was fired twice while we were still together for sexual harassment. I know for a fact he's screwed his secretaries at each of his past 3 employers. Apparently that kind of behavior is considered acceptable to his current employer, he's been with them for almost 15 years now. It did NOT go over well in academia where he got fired for trading As for BJs.


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## VermisciousKnid (Dec 27, 2011)

People aren't as alike as you want to believe. I have this discussion with my wife often when she has encountered a work situation with a "difficult" person. 

It's not important to understand how or why only that it is, and learn how to deal with these people. The only one that needs to get to the how and why is their shrink.


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## MrsHolland (Jun 18, 2016)

You did not marry a prize catch, it was doomed from day one. 

Learn what is wrong with you that kept you with such a poor excuse for a man and then get on with your life.

You have your best years ahead of you if you do the work required of you to be whole again, mentally, physically and emotionally.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Hellomynameis said:


> And yet 3 months, or a year, or even another marriage later, that relationship is over as well, and he's moved on to yet another one. And another and another and another. Right until he reaches a point of being too old to attract another partner. Then all too often he's back to the first wife begging her to take him back.
> 
> I just don't understand the mentality. Is it just the novelty of changing sex partners every time you get bored with the one you've got that keeps this behavior going? Is it a failure to understand what true love really is so that the person is constantly looking for that new relationship high? I just don't get what on earth is worth throwing away a long term commitment and often ruining multiple lives just to spend the rest of your life in one short term affair after another.


It's the high. The PEA chemicals in your brain - which most people aren't aware of - make you 'feel' madly in love, that you can't get enough of the new person, that this one MUST be the one...until she isn't. It usually lasts 6 months to 2 or 3 years, tops, before the brain no longer produces the chemical. Long enough for the species to procreate in caveman days.

Think 'love is blind.' Once you've committed to someone and the high starts to fade, you start noticing all the flaws and then it's all downhill from there. Only with real commitment and real integrity and cognizance of what love really is can two people stay together. Unfortunately, many people are ignorant of this process and think they'll just find that real love if they keep looking.


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Hellomynameis said:


> Then I had serious health issues after our son was born and he couldn't cope with a newborn and a disabled wife so he basically walked out and left us.* He also told me he was ashamed of having a wife who couldn't work and more than once accused me of faking my health issues - *as if you can fake heart failure so bad the doctors put you on the heart transplant list.





Hellomynameis said:


> I think if I had to put my finger on one specific thing it's that I became "unattractive" (via pregnancy) and unable to work at the same time that he got an executive level promotion and felt* I didn't fit the image of what an executive level wife should be. It was apparently very important to him to have a spouse who was his equal or near-equal not necessarily in earnings but in professional achievement level. He was also extremely ashamed of having a child on the autism spectrum which is why he doesn't want to see his son or be involved in his life in any way.*


You have answered your own questions. He left you because you didn't meet his expectations as a spouse and childbearer. He did not want a wife with health issues and he didn't want a child that wasn't "normal", so he left. That simple. 

Some have fathomless depths. Others are about as deep as the puddles little birdies bathe in.




Hellomynameis said:


> So from this I can take away that as a 45 year old woman with a religious based belief in not having sex outside of marriage, I can pretty much expect to be alone the rest of my life, unless I can find a man who shares my beliefs. I think I need to move out of NY of that's the case. Most of the churches around here are made up of women in similar situations to my own. And absolutely zero single men over 25.


I live in the midwest and am Catholic. It's not any better here. I have been to multiple parishes over the years and one thing is the same. The vast majority of parishioners are elderly and single women with a few middle aged married couples and their children thrown in. 

Considering how important sexual compatibility is in a marriage, I'm not sure how many men would be willing to date long term or marry a woman who wouldn't engage in premarital sex. There have been a few threads here and on another forum that is similar with most respondents saying sex needs to happen within either the first few dates or first few months otherwise they move on. Most believe that a woman who doesn't want to have sex is either asexual, has an unhealthy view of sex, or is just simply sexually incompatible and not a good prospect.


I suggest looking for prospective mates through religious based singles groups and dating websites. If you can, widen your search to other faiths. Another religious person is much more likely to understand no pre-marital sex.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

MrsHolland said:


> You have your best years ahead of you if you do the work required of you to be whole again, mentally, physically and emotionally.


I wish I could believe that. My health is so poor right now that I can't imagine ever truly recovering it. My cardiac condition isn't something one usually recovers from. It's something that gets steadily worse and most people who have it don't live to see 60.


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

MAJDEATH said:


> So what things did you stop doing/start doing that caused your husband to look elsewhere?


So, what things did you stop doing/start doing that caused your wife to look/go elsewhere?

BTW, how's the divorce coming along?


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

My brother had a heart attack in his mid forties. He was 6'4" and when he got up to 240 in his sixties, I had a little talk with that man and he dropped 20 lbs pronto.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

Hellomynameis said:


> I belong to another group which is divorce support for women over 40. One of the things I see there a lot is this tendency for middle aged men to leave a long term marriage, quite likely with children, because they are "so in love" with their AP that they can't live without her. She's totally worth throwing away everything he's built over the last 20 years with his wife and family.
> 
> And yet 3 months, or a year, or even another marriage later, that relationship is over as well, and he's moved on to yet another one. And another and another and another. Right until he reaches a point of being too old to attract another partner. Then all too often he's back to the first wife begging her to take him back.
> 
> ...


For your husband, yes, it does seem that his primary need is to have new sex partners. I assume that you did your best to sustain a relationship in which sexual needs were fulfilled. The fact that he doesn't have much to do with any of his kids speaks to the type of shallow person he is.

Before we lament about the good old days, keep in mind that affairs for men were just as common, but in those days, the wives had to tolerate it.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

Blondilocks said:


> How does a man who weighs 280 lbs keep finding women to date? It seems there would be a small market for such men.


As long as a man or woman is able to accept quantity over quality, there's always someone willing....


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## jb02157 (Apr 16, 2014)

Sometimes it's not all about sex though, sometimes it's the way the spouse's family treats you and the way you're treated at home. My wife's family has always treated me terribly and never made me feel welcome at all, I was never good enough. I think my wife learned it from them because she does the same thing. No sex just makes it worse. For me, it's not about trading in a wife for new one for new and different sex, I just want to be treated in a civil manner.


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Blondilocks said:


> How does a man who weighs 280 lbs keep finding women to date? It seems there would be a small market for such men.


You'd be surprised!

My mom died when dad was just over 40. At the time, he stood 6 ft 1 in and weighed in at about 280-320 depending. He is a social man, can be very charming, and has a great sense of humor and is highly intelligent with more than his fair share of confidence. He's the life of the party. You would not believe how many women tried dating him. I couldn't take him to a bar without him collecting 3-4 phone numbers, an invitation to coffee or movies, and at least one chick who wanted to take him out to breakfast after bar close. God forbid we go out to eat, the waitresses would do the same things! Even taking him to office Christmas parties netted him a few offers. A lot of the women were younger, too! He married 2 years after Mom died and his wife is just a year older than me!

I've seen a lot of "big men" like that. Most of his male family members are built similarly and they all have been married at least once. A lot of the guys he worked with were either the same size or bigger and all of them were either married, remarried, or playing the field successfully, too. 

Hell, DH is 6 ft and weighs about 255. I think he's hot and can't get enough of him. 




Steve1000 said:


> As long as a man or woman is able to accept quantity over quality, there's always someone willing....


There are a lot of women who actually like big men. Good, quality, women.


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

The "grass is greener" is not always about the other person being new and exciting. It is about the other person not knowing your flaws and vulnerabilities. One's long term spouse knows all of one's weaknesses. When they don't want to do something, they can always justify their refusal by referencing some aspect in which the wayward spouse falls short. The affair partner doesn't know enough to realize all the ways that the wayward spouse does not really deserve their time and attention. Sometimes a person is not looking for someone new and different. Sometimes a person is looking for someone who views them as new and different.

Remember, most people have affairs because of the way the affair makes them feel. Part of that is how their partner feels and views them. If you, deep down, view your current spouse as "less than" in one or more important ways. Then they might be looking to spend time with someone who views them as "more than enough" in some way. If I were ever to have an affair, that is what I would be looking for most of all. And that is what I fear my wife would find most enticing about an affair if she were ever to consider having one.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

Steve1000 said:


> For your husband, yes, it does seem that his primary need is to have new sex partners. I assume that you did your best to sustain a relationship in which sexual needs were fulfilled. The fact that he doesn't have much to do with any of his kids speaks to the type of shallow person he is.
> 
> .


We had a good sex life until I got pregnant. I almost miscarried at 12 weeks and was told to abstain until after the baby came. It didn't really matter because by the time I was actually showing he found me disgusting. Let me just say, I am 5'5 and was 125 prior to pregnancy, and topped out at only 153 during pregnancy. My OB was actually concerned that I hadn't gained enough weight because he said I was underweight prior to pregnancy.

His weight never really bothered me until it started affecting his health. He was about 220 when I met him. About the time he hit 280 he was constantly complaining about backaches. But rather than trying to lose weight, he just kept gaining - and complaining. In what I now know is a typical cheater move, he managed to drop down to about 190 during his affair while I was pregnant. Didn't keep it off long. Last time I saw him (10/2014) he was sitting around 330 and looked like hell. Not just obese but puffy, even in his face. Looked like he was on drugs but he swore that he wasn't.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

MJJEAN said:


> You'd be surprised!
> 
> My mom died when dad was just over 40. At the time, he stood 6 ft 1 in and weighed in at about 280-320 depending. He is a social man, can be very charming, and has a great sense of humor and is highly intelligent with more than his fair share of confidence. He's the life of the party. You would not believe how many women tried dating him. I couldn't take him to a bar without him collecting 3-4 phone numbers, an invitation to coffee or movies, and at least one chick who wanted to take him out to breakfast after bar close. God forbid we go out to eat, the waitresses would do the same things! Even taking him to office Christmas parties netted him a few offers. A lot of the women were younger, too! He married 2 years after Mom died and his wife is just a year older than me!
> 
> ...


That's true. Point taken.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

meson said:


> I must disagree with this. They can help themselves they can stop. The chemistry doesn't force them to do it. The chemistry is there notwithstanding but it is not an excuse. We have the ability and obligation to not act on feelings that arise to jeopardize your marriage. Your sarcasm is misplaced with me as my story shows.


Oh, I do agree with you. It does not excuse infidelity. And by your's and Jehovah's Witness; this, my short shrift of words, my sarcasm, did miss the mark.....but did not Miss or excuse.....Miss Hester Prynne.

Was she too, affected by chemicals, by Rye born Ergotamine? Did these toxins cause the itch that only a man could scratch? If so, her innocence was coated in tar and feathered for posterity. The Red A for life.

Baboons might suffer this malady also. Our Creator has bequeathed them a life long Red Azz for their carnal frailties. Store that in a mason jar in a damp cellar.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

Hellomynameis said:


> We had a good sex life until I got pregnant. I almost miscarried at 12 weeks and was told to abstain until after the baby came. It didn't really matter because by the time I was actually showing he found me disgusting. Let me just say, I am 5'5 and was 125 prior to pregnancy, and topped out at only 153 during pregnancy. My OB was actually concerned that I hadn't gained enough weight because he said I was underweight prior to pregnancy.
> 
> His weight never really bothered me until it started affecting his health. He was about 220 when I met him. About the time he hit 280 he was constantly complaining about backaches. But rather than trying to lose weight, he just kept gaining - and complaining. In what I now know is a typical cheater move, he managed to drop down to about 190 during his affair while I was pregnant. Didn't keep it off long. Last time I saw him (10/2014) he was sitting around 330 and looked like hell. Not just obese but puffy, even in his face. Looked like he was on drugs but he swore that he wasn't.


Now that you're older and wiser, if you could go back in time to begin dating him again, you would probably notice red flags pretty quickly. Some people get lucky in the marriage lottery and have a long happy and drama-free life together. 

If you do not want to have sex prior to marriage, you probably can find a man who is ok with that. However, for your sake, you need to fully understand why he is ok with that. It could mean that he has no sex drive and he will remain that way after getting married. I strongly advise anyone to not get married if you cannot EASILY talk openly about sex. 

Finally, sometimes the problem is the other way around. I once met a lady who I was extremely fond of. I wanted to be a gentleman and show her that I really wanted to get to know her before having a sexual relationship. However, it turned out that she thought I wasn't really into her because I wasn't trying to sleep with her. At the same time, she starting screwing an older businessman who just wanted sex. 

I hope you can meet someone right for you. In the meantime, I hope that you can enjoy life and completely not care about your ex-husband.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

Holdingontoit said:


> Remember, most people have affairs because of the way the affair makes them feel. Part of that is how their partner feels and views them. If you, deep down, view your current spouse as "less than" in one or more important ways. Then they might be looking to spend time with someone who views them as "more than enough" in some way. If I were ever to have an affair, that is what I would be looking for most of all. And that is what I fear my wife would find most enticing about an affair if she were ever to consider having one.


I wonder if it's also about trying to find someone who makes you feel better about yourself. And constantly moving on because the validation you're looking for can't come from another person, only from within.

It never occurred to me when I was younger, but I have found myself wondering if my husband is ashamed of or even disgusted by his weight issue even though he doesn't seem to want to deal with it. I remember how he was NEVER willing to have missionary position sex (even our first time together, when I was a virgin, he insisted I be on top), and very rarely even willing to have sex in ANY face to face position. He always wanted it doggy or spooning. Which felt good because he was good at fingering, but I missed kissing and it definitely blocked emotional intimacy. There were times when I wondered if that meant he wasn't attracted to me, but nowadays I wonder if it wasn't because he was ashamed to have me see him naked because then I would realize exactly how heavy he was. As I think about it I remember how he always went into and came out of the bathroom fully clothed when he took a shower, and he not only never initiated co-showering, he actually rejected the idea the few times I brought it up.

Late in our marriage, he seemed to prefer porn and masturbation to actually having sex with me. Which pissed me off since we were fighting a 6 year battle with infertility at that point. Considering there were also other women by that time, I've always assumed he lost attraction to me. This started about 6 years into our marriage and he left at year 9 after approximately 8 months without sex.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

Steve1000 said:


> Now that you're older and wiser, if you could go back in time to begin dating him again, you would probably notice red flags pretty quickly. .


Red flags? Oh yeah. Unfortunately who at 19-20 years old knows enough to recognize them?

- total momma's boy
- smoked 2 packs a day even if he had to go without food to buy cigs
- bragged about his past bar fights
- threw the couch out the window during a fight our first year, lied to the landlord to get out of paying for it
- threw our Christmas tree out the same window our first Christmas together
- actually admitted to putting another guy in the hospital when he caught him screwing his (at the time) fiancé 
- had a diet of primarily beer, pizza, and fast food 
- got upset if my grades were better than his (we were undergrads at the time)
- lazy and played video games in most of his free time

I was 19, naive, and stupid. I'd never been exposed to a dysfunctional relationship. I also thought I was in love. So I foolishly made excuses for every single one of his inexcusable behaviors.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

Hellomynameis said:


> Red flags? Oh yeah. Unfortunately who at 19-20 years old knows enough to recognize them?
> 
> - total momma's boy
> - smoked 2 packs a day even if he had to go without food to buy cigs
> ...


Yea, there's definitely some flags.  Unfortunately, at age 19, we have the freedom to make life-long choices without realizing how clueless we are. Some of us, including me, at a much older age ignored red flags because we were in love.


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## katiecrna (Jan 29, 2016)

I really appreciate this post, and your observation from your other support group. 

The problem is, we are in a ME generation and people think strictly about their own well-being and make decisions off that. 
I deserve to be happy.
I deserve to have a healthy sex life.
I should have a beautiful skinny wife.
I...I...I.

I am like you, Christian and I subscribe to the notion of marriage for life. "Marriage makes you holy not happy". I believe your suppose to do what's (morally) right, not what's easiest, and not what benefits you most. 
It disgusts me when people trade in their spouse for a "better newer model". It blows my mind how marriage has become, so selfish. What happened to for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part? 

People think marriage is this equal give and take thing. It's not. If your spouse is going through a tough time... depression, death in the family, loss of job, health problems... it's your job to suck it up and put your "wants" on the back burner and support your spouse, and make it all about your spouse and get through their hard time, and getting past that hard time together, stronger. Then when something bad happens to you, you'd expect the same treatment. I've heard men complain about how their wives don't have sex with them anymore and people are like divorce her divorce her!!!! Come to find out she's getting chemo for her breast cancer. How selfish are you!!!' This whole thing of if you aren't meeting my "needs" which are never really needs they are wants, then I'll divorce you because I deserve to be happy pisses me off.
People forget to check in with their spouse. How are you doing. Am I being a good spouse, what can I do better? Are you happy with our sex life? People should be more worried about their spouses well being and happiness and what they can do more to help them.


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## katiecrna (Jan 29, 2016)

GuyInColorado said:


> The majority (not all) of women let themselves go once they get their man to commit. A man can only put up with this for so long before he looks elsewhere. A man's brain is wired to be physically attractive to a mate. That's how the world keeps continuing.
> 
> I honestly don't see anything wrong with a guy switching up his mate when he gets bored if he isn't going to commit. The main issue is if he's doing it because he can't be alone and needs a caretaker. If he's living the bachelor life and taking care of everything himself, then let him have fun. I seriously doubt most men beg their ex wives to come back. I just could never see that happening with me, there are way too many single women out there to experience.




Women let themselves go after their husbands stop dating them many times.


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## Daisy12 (Jul 10, 2016)

I have never heard of any man or woman leaving a healthy marriage where they were loved, respected and getting all their emotional and physical needs met because they were bored with their spouse. I think if you leave a marriage after many year you probably just got sick of the other persons crap. Now if you left that marriage and then moved onto another marriage and then another one I would have to question that maybe you are just a damaged individual and sometime people are just damaged and with no inner dersire to fix them self they are destined to make the same mistakes again and again. 

I think a lot of men leave because they are tired of the way they are being treated and once the kids are raised they feel no obligation to their wife. I think a lot of men would say that if their exwifes had of changed and treated them better they would have stayed. And the same can be said for the woman who leave men. I know a dozen people that have gotten divorced and at one point in time each have regretted not putting more effort into it or that their spouse would not realize tha damage they were doing and try to fix it.

Anyone who leaves a healthy marriage and destroys a family because they are "bored" or wants to play the field probably should not have gotten married in the first place and are probably immature and selfish.


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## AVR1962 (May 30, 2012)

Lady, I was thinking of the very same thing and didn't know where to post it. I DO NOT understand the male brain. I married my high school sweetheart and we were so close you could not get a piece of paper between us....we worked together, we were constantly entwined with one another, we talked, we fought, we had fun, we shared each other's family, had 2 children together.....oh yeah, there were things he wanted me to do that I didn't do like having 3-somes. Even when he mentioned 3-somes my heart wasn't broke, it was just something I was not interested in and I thought that would be the end of it. Nope! I found out years later that he'd never been faithful to me and come on to my friends.....thought it was strange they weren't coming around anymore! When he admitted he told me he was in love with another woman and he wanted to marry her. I was crushed beyond belief. This man was my everything. His leaving literally took my heart right out of my chest and our daughters suffered too, it tore us all up. The lady he was having an affair with broke up with him, he found another girl, they married and had a child, he did the same with her and she divorced him.

I did remarry and was married for 24 years, sadly! I did love my second husband but he was emotionally unavailable....I was always trying to connect with him and trying to get him to engage.....complete opposite of my first husband. There was no honeymoon, we were not over-the-top "in love." He had an emotional affair the first year we were married and more followed as the years past....porn addiction, alcoholism....it was obvious to me he was not interested in me or his/our children. He was spending his spare time consumed by interacting and chasing, gacking and lusting after other women. It was like I was nothing to him.

Now as a single lady....and I have kept myself up.....men look, they show their interest....as soon as old friends knew I was single I started getting IMs from them on social media all making themselves great heros and just so loving caring individuals. I liked the friendship but made it clear it was friendship which was ignored so I stepped it up and made it real clear i was not interested in a relationship and oh, all of a sudden no contact, so I guess they did not appreciate the friendship like I did which i had suspected and that's why I stepped it up. Online dating is SERIOUS joke!!!!!!! Men seem to be looking for hook-ups or women half their age even though they are balding, old and fat!!!! 

I am a private music instructor and have adult male students. Two are married but very flirty, I do not reciprocate. one is 94, bless him, and gave me this very nice bouquet of flowers for Christmas and told me he wanted to give me roses but he felt roses meant love. He told me he does love me but he wanted to show me respect. I don't think it ever dies in men. I just turned 54. Does this 94 year old man really think he stands a chance? He is a student and I will be professional but men have no problem crossing that line, married or not.


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## AVR1962 (May 30, 2012)

Daisy12 said:


> I have never heard of any man or woman leaving a healthy marriage where they were loved, respected and getting all their emotional and physical needs met because they were bored with their spouse. I think if you leave a marriage after many year you probably just got sick of the other persons crap. Now if you left that marriage and then moved onto another marriage and then another one I would have to question that maybe you are just a damaged individual and sometime people are just damaged and with no inner dersire to fix them self they are destined to make the same mistakes again and again.
> 
> I think a lot of men leave because they are tired of the way they are being treated and once the kids are raised they feel no obligation to their wife. I think a lot of men would say that if their exwifes had of changed and treated them better they would have stayed. And the same can be said for the woman who leave men. I know a dozen people that have gotten divorced and at one point in time each have regretted not putting more effort into it or that their spouse would not realize tha damage they were doing and try to fix it.
> 
> Anyone who leaves a healthy marriage and destroys a family because they are "bored" or wants to play the field probably should not have gotten married in the first place and are probably immature and selfish.


Statistics show that a larger majority of divorces are initiated by women over the age of 40. 

Women too stay in unhappy marriages until children their children are raised. I was one of them. The obligation to family is immense. When my lady friends learned I was leaving there was many of them that told me they had thought, or wanted, to do the same but their children or finding a job that would support them stopped them from leaving.


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## AVR1962 (May 30, 2012)

katiecrna said:


> Women let themselves go after their husbands stop dating them many times.


Yes, they do, I have seen it and I am a woman. I have seen it in my own adult children actually. I asked my counselor about this as I did not understand and was told that women will put all others first, to a point of not caring for themselves. Sad! Truly sad as this leads to depression and self-esteem issues.


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## Hellomynameis (Dec 16, 2016)

AVR1962 said:


> Yes, they do, I have seen it and I am a woman. I have seen it in my own adult children actually. I asked my counselor about this as I did not understand and was told that women will put all others first, to a point of not caring for themselves. Sad! Truly sad as this leads to depression and self-esteem issues.


This is so true! I know so many women who absolutely baby their husbands through anything from a bad cold to cancer, only to have him refuse to lift a finger to help out, or even desert them, when they are ill. I can't remember where I saw them, but I saw stats a few years back that showed that a very pathetically high percentage of marriages fail when the WIFE becomes seriously ill. Unfortunately high when a child becomes critically ill as well, which pisses me off. The last thing a kid with cancer needs is for dad to take off because he can't handle it. Happened right in my son's school community. Little girl got leukemia at 7 years old, father walked off and left her and her mother and sister high and dry. Didn't even show up for the funeral 5 years later.

Somewhere along the line "for better and worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer" turned into "until things get hard or I find somebody I like better." And they wonder why our society is failing.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Hellomynameis said:


> This is so true! I know so many women who absolutely baby their husbands through anything from a bad cold to cancer, only to have him refuse to lift a finger to help out, or even desert them, when they are ill.


My H is always having work emergencies. And because he wastes time on trivial stuff, the emergency always occurs at 9pm, 11pm, midnight...and he always expects me to drop everything or stay up (sometimes all night until the morning) to help him avoid the catastrophe. I usually do it because the backlash is worse than staying up late. But in almost 40 years, he's almost never stepped up and done what I needed. MY projects never get done. 

Last night, I was up until 1am helping him yet again, we go to bed and he thanks me for helping him. I reply 'that's ok, I'm going to call in all my favors one of these days.' 

You'd have thought I was cursing his mother, judging by the attitude he gave me. How dare I expect something in return?

I ALMOST told him, around 5pm when he wasn't working on the project like he was supposed to, that I wasn't going to stay up late to help him. Almost. But I chickened out, to avoid the backlash just for saying that. Had I done that, I would have felt 'ok' just going to bed at 11 and leaving him to it. But I didn't.

That's my next stage of my progress to work on.

Sometimes, it's not just women being women and putting everyone else first; sometimes, it's women protecting themselves.


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## Good Guy (Apr 26, 2016)

In your case, you had a selfish ******* for an ex husband. Selfish *******s never seem to be short of female attention. In fact, when women say they like a "confident" man, I mentally replace "confident" with "selfish *******" and am rarely wrong.

In my case, (I'm still married, but went through some really rough times) I loved my wife, helped her through various illnesses, real and imagined. Turned down several chances at some no strings attached sex and affairs. She claimed to love me, but stopped having sex with me and treated me like crap for years. Claimed she had lost interest in sex. Then I found out she was writing sex fantasy diaries about another younger married man. We worked through it but it did a lot of damage.

Sooo ... if I had gotten divorced, why would I want to make an "emotional" connection? I would get a more sincere emotional connection from a prostitute - at least she would be genuinely happy to get paid. All that would happen in a marriage is that my new wife would go progressively colder towards me and eventually leave. The more I deal with women, the more I see it's all a power and money struggle with a lot of them. They don't care about you as a person - they only care what they can get FROM you.

I would become a selfish ******* - actually I am much closer to that now than I was before, and my life is so much better than it was. I say no a lot. I cancel things that don't suit me. No way in hell I would ever get married again. What's in it for me?

This is probably coming across very cynical, but I think a lot of 40+ men think like this, married or not.


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## Good Guy (Apr 26, 2016)

Hellomynameis said:


> - actually admitted to putting another guy in the hospital when he caught him screwing his (at the time) fiancé


I wouldn't blame him for that!


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## toblerone (Oct 18, 2016)

Dude was probably more mad that someone got to his property than her having sex with someone else.


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## Good Guy (Apr 26, 2016)

turnera said:


> My H is always having work emergencies. And because he wastes time on trivial stuff, the emergency always occurs at 9pm, 11pm, midnight...and he always expects me to drop everything or stay up (sometimes all night until the morning) to help him avoid the catastrophe. I usually do it because the backlash is worse than staying up late. But in almost 40 years, he's almost never stepped up and done what I needed. MY projects never get done.
> 
> Last night, I was up until 1am helping him yet again, we go to bed and he thanks me for helping him. I reply 'that's ok, I'm going to call in all my favors one of these days.'
> 
> ...


Seems a recurring theme on here. Back when I was single, I've never dated a woman like you. I fancied plenty of them, but they never fancied me. A woman who actually puts what I want first, at least once a year, of her own free will!!!! I would love to try it sometime. I actually respect women, or at least I used to. 

Women like you are never attracted to me. I only ever get the ball busting types. The only person I know who has dated women like you is a miserable a$$hole who only thinks of himself. Maybe that's the problem?

Even now with my current wife, she is nice to me, but only because she's afraid I'll leave her. Not because she loves me. I see it as plain as day - her struggling not to put herself first all the time. Sometimes the mask slips.


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## Daisy12 (Jul 10, 2016)

Good Guy said:


> Seems a recurring theme on here. Back when I was single, I've never dated a woman like you. I fancied plenty of them, but they never fancied me. A woman who actually puts what I want first, at least once a year, of her own free will!!!! I would love to try it sometime. I actually respect women, or at least I used to.
> 
> Women like you are never attracted to me. I only ever get the ball busting types. The only person I know who has dated women like you is a miserable a$$hole who only thinks of himself. Maybe that's the problem?
> 
> Even now with my current wife, she is nice to me, but only because she's afraid I'll leave her. Not because she loves me. I see it as plain as day - her struggling not to put herself first all the time. Sometimes the mask slips.


 @Goodguy. 

That's so sad your wife makes you feel that way. I think alot of woman take for granted a good man until he's gone. I want my husband to wake up everyday happy and thankful to be married to me, as I wake up everyday thankful and happy he is mine. 


Sent from my D2206 using Tapatalk


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Good Guy said:


> Seems a recurring theme on here. Back when I was single, I've never dated a woman like you. I fancied plenty of them, but they never fancied me. A woman who actually puts what I want first, at least once a year, of her own free will!!!! I would love to try it sometime. I actually respect women, or at least I used to.
> 
> Women like you are never attracted to me. I only ever get the ball busting types. The only person I know who has dated women like you is a miserable a$$hole who only thinks of himself. Maybe that's the problem?
> 
> Even now with my current wife, she is nice to me, but only because she's afraid I'll leave her. Not because she loves me. I see it as plain as day - her struggling not to put herself first all the time. Sometimes the mask slips.


Sounds like you might have an issue with understanding relationships. Either that or your picker's broken. Have you read His Needs Her Needs? It explains what a good relationship is supposed to look like and how to get it. The book Getting The Love You Want talks about why we pick - and attract - the kind of people we do. And how to fix it if that's a bad thing.


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## She'sStillGotIt (Jul 30, 2016)

GuyInColorado said:


> The majority (not all) of women let themselves go once they get their man to commit. A man can only put up with this for so long before he looks elsewhere. A man's brain is wired to be physically attractive to a mate. That's how the world keeps continuing.
> 
> I honestly don't see anything wrong with a guy switching up his mate when he gets bored if he isn't going to commit. The main issue is if he's doing it because he can't be alone and needs a caretaker. If he's living the bachelor life and taking care of everything himself, then let him have fun. I seriously doubt most men beg their ex wives to come back. I just could never see that happening with me, there are way too many single women out there to experience.


And my answer to that is that most men DON'T own mirrors.

They all think they're still good looking, desirable 'catches' at 45 and over and guess what? Most are not, trust me.

One needs only to walk through their local mall and take a good look at the middle-aged men out there - they're freakin' train wrecks. Most are bald (and not the 'good' bald), overweight, haggard, out of shape and dumpy as hell. When I was doing online dating in my 40's, I'd do a search of men from 45-55 in a 50 mile radius of where I lived, and the search results were what I fondly started referring to as "The Parade of the Damned." Most men looked like my grandfather for God's sakes. I turned down literally hundreds of them over the course of 6 or 7 months. Blech.

So if these guys are the ones who left their wives because they 'deserve' hot, fit women - they're going to be very, very lonely.


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## EternalPatriot (Jan 4, 2017)

She'sStillGotIt said:


> One needs only to walk through their local mall and take a good look at the middle-aged men out there - they're freakin' train wrecks. Most are bald (and not the 'good' bald), overweight, haggard, out of shape and dumpy as hell. When I was doing online dating in my 40's, I'd do a search of men from 45-55 in a 50 mile radius of where I lived, and the search results were what I fondly started referring to as "The Parade of the Damned." Most men looked like my grandfather for God's sakes. I turned down literally hundreds of them over the course of 6 or 7 months. Blech.


I actually just started reading this thread and thought your comments here were really funny! I love the "Parade of the Damned" assessment! 

Of course though, I'll admit that I'm 40 and bald. This is by choice though as I shave my head every other day. I've found it makes me more aerodynamic when running and helps to increase my "intimidation factor" to the younger Soldiers I have to deal with. Truth be told, the guard fell off my trimmers a numbers of years ago and so the only way to salvage what was left was to just take a Bic to the head. Now, after about three days, it itches so much when my hair grows back that I keep shaving it off. *shrug* Oh well... As for the rest, I frankly refuse to allow my age to dictate my health and physical appearance. Besides, no 20-year-old kid in my formation is going to do more push-ups and sit-ups than me... :wink2:

I also walked into my gym one day and saw a note on one of the trainer's desk that read something along the lines of "you can either spend time in the gym, or the doctor's office. Take your pick."


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

jorgegene said:


> when we leave a marriage for reasons other than severe abuse or infidelity (which i guess is abuse), then we show that we don't understand what real love is.
> .


I think this statement is incredibly naïve and ridiculously idealistic. It may sometimes be true, but I am sure that this does not reflect reality in the majority of cases. Please forgive my bluntness, but I feel adamantly about this.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

She'sStillGotIt said:


> And my answer to that is that most men DON'T own mirrors.
> 
> They all think they're still good looking, desirable 'catches' at 45 and over and guess what? Most are not, trust me.
> 
> ...


Sadly, I have to agree with your findings (of course there are many exceptions). I see _relatively more_ women who look great after 45 than men, but it is still relative. The rest of the women aren't bald, but many share the overweight, haggard, out of shape and dumpy as hell traits. However, once men get older - later 50s and beyond - demographics work in their favor as there are more available women than men in that age group, so men have an easier time finding someone (if they look in their age cohort). These women may not be younger and fitter, but average men do eventually have more options.

Thankfully, at 45 I was one of the exceptions. :grin2:


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## toblerone (Oct 18, 2016)

Most dudes and dudettes are all dumpy anywhere from 20-80. It's a sign of the times.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

toblerone said:


> Most dudes and dudettes are all dumpy anywhere from 20-80. It's a sign of the times.


Perhaps because so many overindulge in Toblerone?


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## toblerone (Oct 18, 2016)

Sorry I had a good response to that but my fingers were covered in chocolate so I had to clean them before posting and I forgot what I was gonna say. Just pretend it was hilarious and laugh out loud to yourself.


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## Itwasjustafantasy (Jan 8, 2016)

.


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## Livvie (Jan 20, 2014)

From reading this thread and other current threads, this doesn't hold true for many. It seems, from replies, that many men especially need their partner to have a very fit hot body in order to feel full partner love for them. They "want it all". That's fine, to each his or her own. I do hope these people keep this in mind if they ever suffer some physical setback and will completely understand if they get left behind for a more perfect model should that happen. For example, some older men suffer ED. They shouldn't feel badly then, and quickly understand if they get dumped by their partner for someone "hotter" because he doesn't have ED issues to deal with.


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

Married but Happy said:


> jorgegene said:
> 
> 
> > when we leave a marriage for reasons other than severe abuse or infidelity (which i guess is abuse), then we show that we don't understand what real love is.
> ...


I can name at least 10 friends who got Divorced for other than abuse or infidelity reasons. Mostly they were selfish and wanted to escape to a pretend world, while leaving behind a wasteland of impacted souls.

This is similar to the reason for the majority of abortions in civilized societies, IMO. It is just too inconvenient to have to work at dealing with a situation, vs escaping from it and pretending it never happened.


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## AVR1962 (May 30, 2012)

Hellomynameis said:


> This is so true! I know so many women who absolutely baby their husbands through anything from a bad cold to cancer, only to have him refuse to lift a finger to help out, or even desert them, when they are ill. I can't remember where I saw them, but I saw stats a few years back that showed that a very pathetically high percentage of marriages fail when the WIFE becomes seriously ill. Unfortunately high when a child becomes critically ill as well, which pisses me off. The last thing a kid with cancer needs is for dad to take off because he can't handle it. Happened right in my son's school community. Little girl got leukemia at 7 years old, father walked off and left her and her mother and sister high and dry. Didn't even show up for the funeral 5 years later.
> 
> Somewhere along the line "for better and worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer" turned into "until things get hard or I find somebody I like better." And they wonder why our society is failing.


Truly sad! and more than likely this man justified his actions some way. My mother-in-law had troubles with her heart from an early age, had her first stroke at 38 years old. She was a stay at home mom. Gave up her career as a teacher to be with her children and raise them. When father-in-law took early retirement his plan was to sell their home which they had owned for 40 years and buy a camper trailer and travel the country which actually was more like dropping in on family and living off them. He told family if his wife were to have health issues they would go into an assisted living apartment. Not long after they sold their house she started having issues which to me was no surprise. They sold their stability and started traveling to visit away from their children, I think this would be hard for any woman in their 60's who loved their home and loved her family. She had repeated strokes, to a point where being on the road was not wise. She was supposed to be exercising and going to physical therapy. Father-in-law put her in a nursing home while he continued to travel. he then went on cruises. A niece of his moved into the camper with him and they traveled all over. he came back to visit his wife every 3-4 months. I felt this was terrible. The family justified his actions, saying he could not see her in such bad health. REALLY????


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