@100 --not just running off to find himself while abandoning his children...he ran off specifically in hopes that another woman would get into a relationship with him and when that didn't work out he behaved in a shitty manner towards his wife.

Flip the genders/take the clothes off the pandas and you still have a person who is acting in a manner that does not reflect well upon them at ALL.

@98:
The Modern: "Toxic Masculinity, it damages men too! Stuffing all your emotions down inside is bad!"

Some man: "So I've got this issue, I need help..."

The Modern: "GO GET THERAPY!!!!! While you're there, think really long and hard about why people here are upset with you for ditching your parental responsibilities to your children."

FTFY

Sportlandia, way to go, sneak in at the end. You needed to be there.

@102 but he's a man! He didn't get as much sex as he wanted when he was single so that means it's okay to treat his wife and kids badly because it's their fault hotties weren't falling all over him when he was a teen.

Telling someone to seek out therapy is the same thing as telling them to repress their feelings. That's a therapists job. To teach people to repress their feelings.

@104: "Telling someone to seek out therapy is the same thing as telling them to repress their feelings. That's a therapists job. To teach people to repress their feelings."

Eh, therapists are there to tell you when your "feelings" are myopic, self-destructive and harming the people who love you.

Of course, sportlandia believes that because he's a "man", that his feelings are good and just and to be encouraged, because he feels there's no such thing as "toxic masculinity".

His tantrums are grossss.

+ "it's their fault hotties weren't falling all over him when he was a teen"

It's okay, all their lives can sit idle while he flails to grasp what he's "entitled" to, as a totally not toxic dude who has his priorities set properly and is definitely aimed straight for happiness.

@100 great point. The correct response to women's inequality is to reinforce toxic masculinity. Everyone wins!

@103 my desire to engage with strangers on the internet waxes and wanes, what can I say? Dude sounds vaguely boring but probably a well-intentioned and somewhat oblivious guy who doesn't have the social tools to get what he needs out of a relationship and he has the unmistakable aroma of harmless-to-fuck-with which is why his work gf has no qualms stringing him along and his wife has no issue setting all the rules of their relationship on him. He's a "beta" guy or whatever you want to call it. And getting run over repeatedly by people with more forceful personalities and despite his claim, he actually has really low self esteem, which is driving the whole thing - ultimately he doesn't know that he's worthy of affection. This is a scenario for numerous LWs and generally i find it annoying/depressing that - you know, I'm also a man - you literally cannot get help in this situation without being considered a moral or ethical failure. All this talk about "Toxic Masculinity" by the same folks who are creating the conditions for it. Yech.

@100 you know, my last partner had two kids who lived with their father. She definitely felt like an outcast among the "mom club" and people would whisper that she wasn't a real mom and all this and that, and of course people don't know her whole story (Guess what - you're now that person! Congrats!) At the end of the day, she was still worthy of sympathy - she loved her kids just as much as any other parent, but life just didn't work out that way for her to have them living under the same roof. Unless you are trying to argue that all that shaming is appropriate? I mean, we have no idea about the custody arrangement or anything - it's not mentioned in the letter at all. But you've gone and assumed he "abandoned" his kids (despite, of course, zero evidence) and that therefore that is "revolting". So I guess my partner was equally revolting, is that what you are saying?

True for some therapists msanon, not all. Good therapists don't go straight to drugs, they talk. Hopefully helping the client understand their feelings and help lessen the charge with insight into the client's patterns, what might be triggering what in his life etc. A young child can reactivate one's own childhood imo, stirring up all kinds of weird stuff and feelings.
We don't live our lives though, just by feelings. Feelings come and go and it's the mind which needs to decide which ones to follow.

@108: "ultimately he doesn't know that he's worthy of affection."

Oh go fuck yourself. The issue is that he wants his wife as a fallback and whines passive-aggressively because he's not getting the women he feels he deserves.

Your "beta male" rantings belong on Reddit, 4chan, or wherever the creeps hang out.

The issue isn't that he's downtrodden, the issue is that he can't get past his own entitlement. And coddling his self-and-other destructive behavior doesn't make you a better person, and it certainly won't bring him happiness.

@110 how about you fuck YOURself instead?

Sportlandia, this man is all over the shop emotionally. I've been thirty five and found myself tending children. And no doubt thinking how the hell did I get here and why. Tough for me and tough for the LW. Realities though. My comments to this man was about shaking him up a bit, waking him up a bit. Not to ignore how he's feeling and what he's been seeing about his life, to put it in perspective. He's a father and that role until the child reaches maturity (and beyond), he can't just throw off. For sure talk with his wife honestly and give her the same room and both of them put their children's needs front and centre. If one doesn't want the big job of being a parent, then don't take it on.

Witty rejoinder.

@111 Toxic Masculinity is 90% of this guy's problem. I agree he has low self-esteem but the main problem is that he felt he was entitled to wild love life with dozens of women and it didn't happen. He's still nursing resentment from that because he's been told his whole life that's what being a man *is*. Having lots of sex with hot women.

Even if he and wife divorce he's not going to be any happier as long as he carries that entitlement around. It will poison every relationship he has. He needs to find better ways to build he self-esteem other than chasing women. I get the feeling he's still trying to impress those high school friends he hasn't talked to in years.

That's why I agree with getting therapy. He needs to break out of that mindset and develop compassion and empathy for other people.

Apologies msanon, I misunderstood part of your post above.

@114: Exactly. This guy deserves to be at peace with who he is, and what place "a man" has in this world (not being promised whatever score of women he feels he "deserves to have been with by this point in life but is not attractive enough to pull" he (paraphrasingly) angrily stated. The illusion needs to be worked through with a professional, not reached out to in loneliness to distract from the kids produced and an otherwise supportive partner who is taking the brunt of this all.

I feel for anyone who has been sold a lie of who they are and the extent/limitations on who they can be, male and female. But discounting the toxicity of the perspective that he and Sportlandia romantically cling to, that's just douchebaggery.

You know, the only thing I watch on TV is The Murder Channel, a.k.a. Investigation Discovery.
This dude verbiage sounds like all the serial rapists I seen on that channel.

I realize this is a small thing but -- "she asked if I had watched the video, which is about a woman pretending she isn't in love with some boy (or that's what I took from it). I said yes, of course I had. She wondered what I thought of it, and I just said I didn't understand why Selena Gomez still looks like she's 12."

THIS IS NOT WHAT THE SELENA GOMEZ VIDEO IS ABOUT. It is literally about a high school girl who is in love with her hot female gym teacher. There is no "some boy" -- the only "man" involved is her character's FATHER. There is a red herring, in that the girl is worried that her father is having an affair/flirting with the gym teacher, so at first the audience probably assumes that she is after the MAN in the equation - but if you watch to the end, the facts are crystal clear.

Either he is (badly) lying about having watched the 3 minute video, or he willfully misunderstood it because he is not completely self-absorbed and not paying attention to things outside his own skull, is not a good listener or communicator, ETC.

I can't say for sure why the other-other woman would have quizzed him about this video in the first place, but I'd guess either she was subtly indicating that she wanted to try some h.s. student role-playing with dude, OR she is telling him that she's actually into blonde ladies. (Or maybe it's just her jam, which fair enough, it IS catchy!) ANYWAY... UGH to this entire saga.

"Dude sounds vaguely boring but probably a well-intentioned and somewhat oblivious guy"

It's not who you are, it's what you do that counts.

Again, flip the genders and what you have here is a person who deliberately ran out on their spouse, causing tremendous pain to said spouse, leaving spouse with ALL of the work of taking care of a young child and an older child, trying to explain to both kids why Parent left, and managing the household finances/the work of running a household...because if Person "didn't have a Spouse anymore," then maybe Love Interest would be willing to get into Person's pants.

Regardless of good intentions and whether or not the person is boring or easy to fuck with, good intentions don't excuse bad behaviour and this is BAD behaviour.

It would be bad behaviour if the only two people involved were Person and Spouse. But because there are additional people involved who *do not have a choice in how the relationship will play out,* and who because of their age need additional care and additional work, it's doubly bad. This would be true if it were a wife who ran out on her husband, or a lesbian who decided that she'd go ahead and chase the Sweet Young Barista and leave her poor wife to pick up the pieces.

(And I didn't see any evidence from the letter that Work Wife was ever interested in dating/fucking/having a relationship outside the office with LW. He left his wife to try to get her interested. She wasn't interested and started dating someone else AND GEE I WONDER WHY).

"And getting run over repeatedly by people with more forceful personalities and despite his claim, he actually has really low self esteem, which is driving the whole thing"

You can be a very passive person with not-all-that-high self esteem who lives in and around people with very forceful personalities and not act like jackass to people who are in your life, forceful personalities or no. He has had the power all along to Not Act Like A Jackass...and that includes if he doesn't want to be married, or doesn't want to be married to his wife, then honestly and tactfully leaving/divorcing his wife! Instead, he complains that just getting back together with his wife (after ditching her physically, emotionally, and in terms of their mutual responsibilities) didn't make her happy and he doesn't understand how he got into this mess.

"This is a scenario for numerous LWs and generally i find it annoying/depressing that - you know, I'm also a man - you literally cannot get help in this situation without being considered a moral or ethical failure."

You and I must not have been reading the same set of comments. For every set of comments where folks washed their hands of the letter writer, there were 4 or 5 that stood on the rooftops and encouraged the LW to get help in dealing with this situation from a professional who is trained in helping people deal with their emotional issues/personal problems in a safe and effective way AND, critically, who is not so involved in their day-to-day routine as to not be unbiased enough to help LW unpack.

If you fixate on the 12% who go NOPE and not the 88% who stand on the rooftops screaming at the LW (a straight man) to GO GET THERAPY, then you might want to think about why that is.

@119 I hope you'll be standing by your "intent doesn't matter" and "merely being criticized by 12% of (the population) isn't enough to be considered legitimate criticism" takes when the time comes. But we know you won't. It's convenient today, and that's what matters.

As far as if we're reading the same letter - we're clearly not. You have interpreted his statement about not being successful with women in his younger days as a statement about how he's angry and entitled to a more voluminous sex life. However, it's clearly written to set up his main point (made, conveniently, in the next sentence of the letter: "So I suppose my self-confidence and self-image were fairly compromised, and so when I met the woman who would become my wife, it felt pretty good.") that he has low self-esteem and that's why he allowed his demanding older girlfriend to control and his life and isolate him from friends through his twenties and that his interest in someone else is fundamentally rooted in a desire to have a not-controlling partner. There's no trace of entitlement to more sexual partners - I'd like to hear your case otherwise, because it looks like you spoke it into existence.

I nominate Slinky as the winner of this thread.

@120 The answer is in the first part of the sentence

*Between the ages of 18 and 23, when being successful with women is of the utmost importance for a heterosexual male, I was pretty unsuccessful. I had essentially managed to get laid like 1.5 times per year (on average, obviously).*

He did a goddamn average about how much he got laid. He basically says that he feels his worth was tied to how much sex he had and he feels he didn't get enough. None of this is his wife's fault or something that she can control but he seems to blame her anyway.

Look if wife is isolating him I agree that's a red flag. But I know too many guys who have their girlfriends act like their managers and secretaries. The Mother's Day cards don't get bought and plans don't get fulfilled if they aren't nagging/managing the social life.

Was she really isolating him? Or did she decided that since she was caring for two little people that he was a grownup and that if he wanted to go to the Sportsball game or call his Mom he could do that without her being his Jiminy Cricket.

He talks about how the relationship was unequal but never really gives examples aside from her not watching sports. Was she really controlling or was she just not acting the way he wanted her too?

Hell the whole affair with the married woman read more like something from a WB then from two married, working adults. I mean a Selena Gomez song? Really? At least break out the Taylor Swift girl! This clearly calls for 'I Knew You Were Trouble'.

Sportlandia, yes. An older woman, like two years older.
His grievances are not the issue here, Its How He's Gone About Sorting Them. That's where his sense of entitlement shows itself.
He doesn't mention anything about his children, with any sense of connection or responsibility. That's what he's been called up on here in this thread.
His grievances, her grievances can be looked at safely with a good couples therapist. That's where he needs to go, at the same time, stop behaving as if his sad and sorry life means he neglects his kids. That won't wash. All parents sacrifice and that's just how it is.

@119: "You can be a very passive person with not-all-that-high self esteem who lives in and around people with very forceful personalities and not act like jackass to people who are in your life"

That's such a douche move, conflating a "passive" person with a passive aggressive self-absorbed asshole. He's not downtrodden, he steps all over others to get where he wants to be.

But do you really expect to hear insight from the sort of Internet bro who unironically uses the phrase "beta male"?

@122: But her was PROMISED MORE AND BETTER from society! More chicks! Less ugly ones! The gift of gab! Happiness forever!

It's every woman's fault his expectations were set, kept, and maintained at unrealistic levels and it's up to the women around him to make things right.

@122 so his numbers were average - but the issue isn't if he had below or average or above-average number of partners, it's if he was "angry and entitled", or now that he "blames his wife" for his lack of previous sex partners. Neither are those are supported in the letter.

Now, of course, at the same time you are inventing things whole cloth, you're also denying things that are explicitly written: "Was she really isolating him?" you ask. Here's what he says about that: "The relationship has always been pretty one-sided on her part. For the first 10 years we were together, I had minimal contact with friends and family". Now you're asserting that, reading between the lines, the reason he didn't have contact with friends and family (a relationship aspect he directly ties to the relationship being "one-sided") was because his wife didn't go out of her way to make him? That's quite a significant leap of the imagination.

@124 Speaking of ranting - look in the mirror! You can't stop!

@126 You're right. I'm guessing but only because the LW is vague about what was going on. Why did he feel the relationship was one sided? Why did he spend so little time with friends and family? Was she actively preventing him from seeing them? Or was he just, like a lot of people, so wrapped up in his relationship, that he let things slide with them. You keep acting like she locked him in her basement when there's a good chance his own actions are at least partly to blame.

The fact that he *did the math* is what gets to me. That he sat there with a calculator and graph paper to figure out much sex he had doesn't sound a little odd to you?

@127: "That he sat there with a calculator and graph paper to figure out much sex he had doesn't sound a little odd to you?"

It's obviously her fault (the shrew!) that he's reduced their marriage to an excel spreadsheet.