Sadly, the stories of men up and abandoning their families are not uncommon. Across cultures, we hear of the unique and still familiar ways men decide they no longer want to honor their commitments and responsibilities and walk away. A story currently circulating on Threads begins in a similar way. But in a delicious twist of fate, when the father announced that he was planning on leaving his family, his wife decided to turn the tables. He shared his story online, asking what he should do to get his life back on track.
A man told his wife that he wanted a divorce and would be moving out.
A Nigerian man living in the UK said his wife was “very irresponsible” and that he regrets marrying her because she left him with five children after he asked her for a divorce. He explained: “Some weeks ago, I sat her down like a man in our house. I told her that I wanted a divorce, that I had made up my mind and would be moving out that week.”
He explained that he planned to send money for their children. His wife seemed to take the news well. “She didn’t say anything, she said okay not a problem.” He continued: “She just nodded and said she understood like she had been planning this thing … She did not even beg.”
His wife beat him to the punch though.
The next day, the man was in for a surprise. “Without a single word, she packed her things the next morning grabbed her phone and texted me, ‘I’m going to Nigeria. I’m leaving the kids with you.’” She took the children’s passports so he can’t travel with them. The man was outraged. “She didn’t seem to care about what would happen to me raising these children … I was stuck there by myself where I had to pick up the responsibilities of a broken family that she didn’t seem to want to be a part of anymore.”
Although the man has tried calling his wife’s family in Nigeria, they don’t respond. The man concluded he married “a thief” and “a wicked soul.”
‘I could barely find a moment for myself,’ the father wrote.
The man was completely out of his depth raising five children alone. “I started to have a temperature like I’m falling sick,” he said. “It was like I didn’t exist outside of being their father. I can’t even watch ball or go out,” he lamented. “I could barely find a moment for myself. These children, it’s like my wife told them to frustrate me with tantrums, late night feedings, and constant messes.”
Eventually, this dad got some relief when his sister stepped in to help him. She stayed with the kids, cleaned, and helped the dad get some sleep.
The man is thinking about reconciling.
In the past two weeks, he’s been left wondering what type of woman could leave her children like this. “It’s like she never loved me or even cared about our children,” he wrote. “Her children keep crying and asking for her.”
Interestingly, the man said that although he’s angry, there are days when he misses his wife. He wondered if he should try to repair his marriage.
People had little sympathy for the man.
The people of Threads were tickled by this man’s predicament.
“Wait, he’s mad because she did to him what he was planning to do to her?” one woman surmised.
“The craziest part of this whole thing is that he has not even a drop of awareness or hint of remorse that what he’s experiencing is exactly what he was going to leave her with permanently,” another woman wrote.
“I love seeing women in male dominated fields,” another quipped.
Others felt it was time this father experienced what life was like for his estranged wife. “You know that ‘man’ didn’t do a single thing with/for his kids or around the house. She did it all. It’s his turn.”
