[Deleted. Off topic and poster is a spammer.]

Pfft.

I don't know the statistics, but do you ever ask why women instigate divorce?

If any of you who are divorced can truly say you were totally innocent and were the perfect husband and it was all on her - then you are truly a rare human being. Where are all these perfect men.

Fact is women and men are not perfect.

Marriage breakdown does not just come out of the ether. If someone is in a loveless marriage (women or men) or they are with an unfaithful partner and have already forgiven them a number of times, always with the promise that it will never happen again, there comes a point where someone might say enough is enough and seek something better.

Perhaps educated women are more self-sufficient and are less prepared to accept those attributes that some women seem to put up with. Forgiveness is worthy but how many times? Many women are now less likely to stay with an abusive partner? Why should she? How is staying a positive outcome for either party including children?

It is a natural human need to feel loved. It does not have to be a romance novel, but there has to be at least respect, at least a liking for their partner, friendship and companionship.

If those ingredients aren't there marriages will often breakdown even if some attempt to improve the relationship through counselling or other means, but it has to take two.

What happens when there is only one person vested in the relationship - it will break down.

Fact of life.

I'd say the main reason women initiate divorce is that the guy cant be assed filling out the paperwork.

If you relate the stat to stereotypes, as pelican has just done, I think men treat marriage more seriously than women. That's why men see 'til death to us part' as so scary. Women call these men 'commitment phobes'. Men really see the 'til death' part, and want to be sure before they are committed. Women I think are blinded a bit because the wedding day is ALL about the woman, and they have been brought up looking forward to being a princess for a day. Some either just don't think beyond that, or think that they will 'mould' their man as time goes by.

So, we have a few extraneous circumstances in a marriage.

a) It's just easier to keep men happy. It really is. If you leave a guy alone enough and don't nag when he watches sport and put out enough he's set. But with chicks, if you don't have deep and meaningful conversations every day and romantic walks along the beach and love visiting her mother and vacuum even when the floor is clean she'll never be truly happy. Well, certainly not as happy as the chicks in celebrity magazines and their friends seem to be. Although, if you don't do any of this and just compliment her once a week that works pretty good too until she catches on.

b) The *perception* of men is that they'll have more to lose when the marriage breaks up. The woman is more than likely assuming they'll be in the same house with the kids and be paid child support, while the man assumes they will be living in a 1 bed flat on their own seeing the kids on weekends and still paying the mortgage.

I don't think any of these divorced men here are claiming they were the perfect husband, just that they made a commitment 'til death do us part'. They took it seriously.

My ex and me swore ""til death us do part"" BUT she kicked me out anyway I dont know why to this day. After a while SHE divorsed me and i hear shes going to UNI now AND shes got the kids!

Houlley
You accuse me of relating stats to stereotypes and then continue to make broad genderalisations (stereotypes) about women and men. The biggest generalisation being that men take their marriage vows more seriously than women. That has to be a wind up, so I won't take that one seriously.

People are people first, gender second, marriage breakdown has nothing to do with gender. The only difference feminism has made to marriage breakdown is the opportunity for women to leave an abusive relationship. (As much as some of you like to pretend they don't exist except where woman is perpetrator)

These days men and women are able to access shared parenting arrangments, so there is no 'risk' for men in breaking up a relationship. The only caveat is of course where there is abuse on either side, where the husband or wife gets sole custody.