Leaving Your Wife Isn't Cool

The following is the transcript of my troop deployment (i.e. ending rant) from episode 95 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast

Last week on Twitter, Rachel Clifton asked:

men:

you're in a LTR w the woman of your dreams.

you have an AMAZING life together. 

you're deeply in love w one another & the sex is great. 

one day, she comes to you & asks if you would entertain the idea of one-sided monogamy.

what goes through your head?

what do you say?

The replies were, in a word, insane. People who otherwise have reasonable opinions were advocating an on-the-spot breakup. When other people pointed out that she was just asking, and that the relationship was otherwise near-perfect, they doubled down. I understand that this is Twitter, so at first I thought this was just a quirk of the internet where “break up immediately” means something non-crazy like “have a long conversation where you clarify exactly what’s being asked and if break up if it turns out you have an irreconcilable incompatibility.” But Jacob Falkovich had a better explanation. He said:

everyone is replying "divorce ASAP" but I don't think this means anything. actually visualizing an "amazing life together, deeply in love" is really hard, and everyone intuitively wants to signal in public "I'm a high status mate and so will dump a partner for a minor infraction"

I guess maybe this is true, but what the hell? This is not what high-status mates do! What you’re actually signaling here is that no woman should ever invest anything in a relationship with you because you are incapable of sustaining a long-term relationship. If you’re willing to leave your long-term, amazing, loving partner merely for asking a question, however inartfully phrased, you are completely unsuitable for any kind of relationship with anyone!

To the people who have this attitude, do you understand how hard it is to find a good relationship? If you’re ever in a relationship with anyone you could plausibly call “the woman of your dreams,” who facilitates an amazing life, who you are deeply in love with, and have great sex with, for gods sake don’t let her go! Especially not for something as stupid as asking a question in a way that you disapprove of. 

Again, I know this is Twitter, so I’m confident that these people are just posturing and wouldn’t actually behave this way, but what I find disturbing is that they think talking like this makes them look good. It doesn’t. It makes you look like an asshole. Don’t do it.