Cultural Animal

How we find meaning in life.

Roy F. Baumeister is Eppes Eminent Scholar, Professor of Psychology, and head of the social psychology graduate program at Florida State University. See full bio

June 23, 2008, Parenting

Fathers Who Leave

How could a man leave his family for another woman?

On the one side, he sees sex and love. Society extols love as one of the highest good things. Sex may not enjoy quite as much official cultural prestige, but he doesn't need culture to tell him to want sex. He already wants it from his core. The downside of this choice is that he has to leave his wife and children. But remember, he has been told over and over that they do not really need him and will be OK without him. Looking around, it seems, everybody's doing it.

On the other side, he can stay with his family. He can cling to his role of father, which society disrespects. It is a familiar life that he knows well and may or may not find pleasant. It means giving up sex for the most part, perhaps almost a de facto vow of celibacy. Certainly his dalliance with the other woman will not have endeared him to his wife or made her seem more sexually desirable to him. He will be reminded of his affair and made to feel guilty on future occasions. Sad to say, this choice, which the culture would prefer him to make, may appear to him as being a sucker.

Again, I'm not moralizing, just trying to understand. But when you look at it from his point of view, we should perhaps not be surprised that some men opt for change.

It's worth adding that men who leave their families are often sorry later. The relationship with the new woman may follow the same pattern, with great sex and passion at first, but less over time. Perhaps the man eventually finds himself in the same position he was in with his previous wife. He thought it would be great forever, but often things do not go that way. One can see it as stupid or tragic that he causes suffering in the pursuit of happiness but the happiness eventually eludes him again. Still, at the time he is making the choice, it is his expectation that is decisive, even if the expectation may turn out to be wrong.