Why modern men are rejecting marriage and walking away

Let’s stop pretending we don’t know why men are done with marriage. They’re not “afraid of commitment.” They’re not “toxic.” And they’re certainly not “intimidated by strong women.” No, men have just finally figured out what the rest of us should’ve admitted years ago: It’s a terrible deal. Not for women — oh no, we’ve gamed it beautifully. For men.

And now, they know it.

Any man who walks away from marriage isn’t afraid of commitment. He’s just smart enough not to sign up for a state-sanctioned mugging disguised as romance.

According to research from the Marriage Foundation, between 70% to 80% of divorces are initiated by women. Among college-educated women, that number jumps to 90%. Translation: The more educated she is, the faster she realizes she can exit stage left with the house, the kids, the 401(k), and a monthly check. All she has to do is say, “I’m not happy,” and a judge will handle the rest.

And what a show it is! He loses his kids, his paycheck, and often his sanity, trying to keep up with court-mandated payments while living in a sad little apartment, granted visitation rights so limited he needs a calendar app and a court order just to see his own kids. Meanwhile, she’s posting #SingleMomStrong like the children are accessories she won in the divorce. How exactly is this empowering for anyone?

Women’s emotional garbage cans

It’s not just the divorce itself — it’s what leads up to it. Modern women have traded femininity for feral instinct, egged on by a culture that rewards emotional instability and calls it “empowerment.”

Think I’m exaggerating? Just spend five minutes on TikTok. You’ll find women screaming into their phones about “healing energy” and “divine feminine rage,” sipping boxed wine in a bathtub surrounded by crystals and court summonses. These women don’t want to love a man — they want to fix their daddy issues with a living, breathing human wallet.

They call it love, but what they really mean is trauma alchemy: “If you loved me, you’d fix me.” No, sweetie. You fix you. Then maybe, just maybe, you’ll attract a man who doesn’t have to call his therapist after every date.

This epidemic of emotional dysfunction isn’t accidental. Many of these women were raised in homes where masculinity was vilified, fathers were absent, and mothers were so bitter they could curdle milk with a glance.

These girls were handed generational rage and told it was feminism. They didn’t heal; they weaponized their pain and waited for the first man dumb enough to step into range. And if he’s not dumb? He’s the enemy. Because how dare he not offer himself up as a sacrifice on the altar of her unprocessed trauma.

Courts eat men alive

Family courts, of course, are the handmaids of this dysfunction. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that less than 20% of custodial parents are fathers, despite all evidence that children need both parents. But try telling that to a judge who thinks “fatherhood” is a weekend hobby and “child support” is a government-backed extortion racket.

Many states rake in billions through Title IV-D incentives, meaning the more money the state extracts from fathers, the more it receives from the federal government. It’s not justice — it’s a racket. It’s a taxpayer-funded kickback scheme that rewards broken families and punishes paternal love.

RELATED: Democrats can’t mock masculinity and expect men to vote for them 

  Ivan Rodriguez Alba via iStock/Getty Images

Worse, child support is often calculated not on what a man actually earns but on what the court believes he should earn. That’s called “imputed income” — and it’s how you turn a plumber into a felon because he couldn’t pay child support based on the fantasy that he’s a brain surgeon. If he misses a payment, he goes to jail. If she violates a custody order, she might get a warning. Maybe.

This isn’t equality. This is Turner v. Rogers in action. The Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that authorities can lock a man up for not paying child support without providing him a lawyer. Land of the free, indeed.

Here’s what’s wild: Women still don’t get it. Men aren’t angry at women — they’re done with them. Like this woman said, men are done negotiating with feral energy. They’re not trying to win an argument anymore. They’re exiting the game. Quietly. Permanently. And still, the same women who created the chaos stand around wondering, “Where did all the good men go?”

Honey, they’re over there — dodging alimony, living in peace, and thanking God they never married you.

‘Empowered’ women, depressed men

Here’s the kicker: We’re not even ashamed of it. We brag about it. We meme about it. Divorce glow-up. Trauma bonding. “Soft girl era.” Meanwhile, the men are just trying to stay out of court and off antidepressants. Feminism? Please. This is narcissism with a publicist.

Men want peace. They want loyalty, partnership, and respect. They want what their grandfathers had — a woman who had their back, not a woman who records their fights for social media clout.

But those women are rarer than ever. We’ve traded homemaking for hot-girl summer, traded character for chaos, and traded companionship for control. And then we expect men to marry us?

Newsflash: Men don’t marry liabilities.

We told them they weren’t necessary. We told them masculinity was toxic. We told them they owed us emotional labor, financial support, and full-time access to their phones. And when they refused, we called them weak. Now, they’re gone. And we still have the audacity to act confused.

Maybe it’s time we stop blaming men for not wanting us and start asking if we’re actually worth wanting. Until we clean up the emotional landmines, stop weaponizing the courts, and remember what being a woman actually means, we’re not a risk worth taking.

And any man who walks away from this mess isn’t afraid of commitment. He’s just smart enough not to sign up for a state-sanctioned mugging disguised as romance.