Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    Speaking only from my own experience, I did instigate the end of
    most of my "courting" relationships.  The reason:  usually I was
    treating the man better than he was treating me!!  
    
    G

I have broken up my fair share of relationships too... but usually
out of a fear of getting involved when I was not ready to do so.. or
even more letting someone give of themselves to me before I was ready
to give back...  so you break and run!

but when the right one came along I did not run.. infact I was down
right pushy!!!!!!!!!! :-)

gailann

    
    
    	I always thought the girls had it easier a number of years ago.
    	It seemed to me that they almost kinda ran the show. "Girls
    	always are the ones to break it off" I thought. It seemed so
    	easy to them! But then about 3 years ago I was dating someone.
    	We got along very well but "it" just wasn't there. I wanted
    	to stop the relationship before we got too involved and feelings
    	would be deeply hurt. I broke it off. For the first time I felt
    	in control. It was really weird!!  Now, after several more
	relationships in which I broke it off I find it almost (but
    	not quite) gets easier. Thinking about my own happieness and
    	the fact that I won't settle for unhappieness helps alot.
    
    	Breaking up is hard to do.
    
    						mike

    Andy.......
    
    Maybe more women take the first step toward court action but, did
    you ever stop to think that maybe it was the man that drove them
    to it?  I know a lot of women that asked for the divorce.........
    after they found out that their husband was cheating on them with
    a younger woman, or any woman for that matter.  Do you expect us
    to live with a man that can't be true?
    My husband didn't want a divorce but, he didn't want to give up
    his girlfriend(s) either.
    Please don't stereotype women, some of us fall too easily and too
    quickly also, I know I do.  I never see any wrong in a person until
    it's too late.  I think there has only been 3 or 4 people that I
    have disliked on first meeting in my whole life.
    
    Fran

    I AM NOT TRYING TO STEREOTYPE ANYONE.
    
    Statistics are just saying that n% of the time something happens
    and (100-n)% of the time, something else happens.

I don't think that women end relationships because men give them cause to.

At least half of the time, being unfaithfull is a symptom of a deeper problem.
Ask yourself, why does a/your man want another women?  What is it that he is not
recieving from you, or that you are not giving him, that he wants another women?
I am not implying that it is the women's problem/fault.

Jim.

Re .0

> In several recent studies, 80% of 'courting' relationships were
> broken up at the instigation of the woman.

> ... Men, on the other hand, fall in love quickly and
> hang on in desperation when love dies. 

I don't think that it is obvious that the men are hanging on in
'desperation'.  I think that in a lot of cases the man has no reason
to break off the old relationships.  He may be very willing to love
more than one woman at a time.  It is the woman that finds the addition
of new women in her men's life are cause for a breakup.  Thus the
statistic the women instigate the break-up 80% of the time.

No pain on the men's part is necessarily implied.

						MJC O->

    My Opinion: It IS harder for men to let go of a relationship than
    women.  I also believe that more women do break off the relationships,
    mainly because they are also the ones that are working harder to
    keep them going (the old concept of home, husband and family).
    
    Being married the first time for 17 years, it seems obvious that
    the idea of letting go wasn't exactly foremost in my mind either
    and yet I, the woman, was the one to initiate the breakup. It may
    have taken me longer because, I was brought up to believe that the
    marriage SHOULD be forever, we have five kids and I did not see
    a way that I could support them on my own (believe it or not the
    concept of child support never occured to me), maybe I thought that
    this marriage was what I deserved.  In retrospect I really can't
    explain why it lasted so long.
    
    I have been away from my ex for four years now, have been with my
    present husband for three and feel that I have become "healthy"
    in that period of time.  My ex on the other hand still hangs on
    to the anger and hatred that he holds for me because "I broke up
    our happy home" even though he has lived with another woman for
    the last couple of years.  We do not speak, mainly because I will
    not accept from him the pain and punishment that he wants to dish
    out, and made this very clear to him in a letter last year.  Since
    then he has pretty much left me alone for which I am very grateful.
    
    He also has a very rocky relationship with the kids (I have full
    custody from the court because it was determined that he was so
    angry that he needed psychiatric help) and tries his best to undermine
    my relationship with them when he does see them.  If I could see
    any kind of improvement in his attitude possibly I might relax about
    the situation, but so far there has been none.  It is very difficult
    at times to hold my tongue about the way he acts, but I feel no
    real need to make him look bad.  His actions and words speak for 
    themselves.         
    
    Also I might add that in the interim period between divorce and
    remarriage I had a couple of relationships that could have become
    permanent with some encouragement, but I shied away if it looked
    like it was becoming too serious as I knew I wasn't ready and they
    were not the right people.  When I met my present husband, instinct
    alone told me it was the right one.

    In my opinion, I think .11 clearly illustrates the reason married
    men with children would be more reluctant and angry about the ending
    of the marriage.  She gets the kids and the child support, he gets
    the shaft.  Take it from a man who has been there, there is no justice
    when it comes to the courts.  And of course since she gets the kids,
    she also gets the house and the furniture and etc.  
    	I am also tired of hearing how women lose in a "traditional"
    relationship.  My wife stayed home while I worked two jobs to support
    the family.  Who was it that enjoyed the lions share of the environment
    I worked to provide?  Education occurs when people want to learn,
    not just in college, and who was it that read the encyclopedia and
    the classics while I was at work teaching electronics, a subject
    I had to focus on for eight hours a day whether I wanted to or not,
    or selling stereos at night, regardless of what else I wanted to
    do.  After a while I felt I had an investesment that I saw crumble
    when we were divorced.  By the way, child support is not tax
    deductable, nor does she have to claim it as income.  My support
    payments were 60% of my income, and after taxes I had 20% left to
    live on.  I rented a room in a communal house in Newton, while she
    had her own house in Memphis.  She took the one car while I hitchiked
    for months till I could afford a used motercycle.  I stayed while
    she eventually left the state for Tenn. guess what I heard from
    the kids?  Why did you leave us!  Women break up more often because
    they have less to lose.  
    

    re .13: that's a sad and too-common story, and I feel for you.
    
    When my first husband moved out and moved in with his girlfriend,
    I kept the house - but I had paid for it, and done all the repairs
    on it.  I even continued to pay the payments on his car (I had paid
    cash for mine) after we got divorced.  It is the partner with the
    MONEY that gets shafted in a divorce, and because of the way our
    society works, that is usually the man.  In my case, it wasn't.
    It's a good thing I didn't have children!
    
    The funny thing about my story is that the girlfriend married my
    ex, divorced him three months later (he had gotten a good-paying
    job; in fact, he told me he was leaving the day the job offer came
    through!), and got alimony from him!  Sigh.
    
    There are rotten things in the world.  Don't let them get to you.

    I ended my first engagement because he wanted his mothe to live
    with us when we got married. His mother was a young strong healthy
    woman at the time and very opinionated. I didn't feel a new marriage
    could survive that so I ended it.
    I ended my marriage because he had several open relationships with
    other women and couldn't understand why I was upset.  The children
    and I were no longer a priority. 
    I am sure that my ending two relationships affects the stats., but
    do you really think that the percentages tell the whole story?

    RE: .15
    
    	For what it's worth, You did the right thing..
    
    							mike

The awful court stories might explain why more women than men instigate the
broken *marriages*, but what about non-marriage non-children situation.

Certainly in my case last Feb., it was my woman partner that finally decided
we should break up, not me, even though we both agreed we were floundering.

So I'm wondering about some other reasons than those given so far.  For instance,
maybe something about the way females are trained as children vs. males???

/Eric