A close family member in my wife's family did almost this exact thing 6 or 7 years ago now. She and her husband seemed like everything was just fine, then when their daughter graduated high school she rekindled an old flame with a guy she dated when she was like 14 years old. Things weren't exciting in her marriage and she had a late window to go be truly happy, yada yada yada... She divorced her husband, who was a great guy and was pretty devastated. Then new guy came swooping in to save her and ride off into the sunset for the start of the rest of their lives. Until he turned out to be kind of a dick. Turns out he was human and had all manner of flaws, too. Not to mention he left his sick wife and family several states away to run to Texas for the greener pastures, also. They were broken up and he was back trying to mend things with his ex-wife and moved away within a year.

BUT, the one silver lining to the whole thing was that her ex-husband took the time to reflect and realize that he wanted and deserved better. He took a healthy lifestyle and did some things he had been wanting to do for some time but never got around to doing. Bought a project muscle car and lost some weight. He traveled around a bit, and met an awesome woman that he eventually married and that he is crazy about. Now they have a really amazing relationship. Turns out he got the life she left him to find.

Yeah, that's some machismo BS, honestly. "Dudes just aren't good at showing emotions" and "Society is getting pussified" are just excuses to continue down an ignorant and head buried in the sand existence. The essence of life is not simply to take what you get or give what you want. There are as many happy endings as there are people willing to make actual strides and do actual work to grow and learn. Emotional scars and physical pains are issues that need and require the work to accept and overcome. And people actually speaking out and acknowledging stress, emotional battles, pain, and mental health issues isn't as a result of the "Karens" of the world taking over. It's simply people actually taking the time to find a healthier and happier way to go about the dim and black clouded existence that you describe so well. Someone wanting more happiness and satisfaction out of life and marriage isn't an affront to masculinity. But masculine insistence that you take what you get because I'm too tired is not an acceptable way to manage a relationship.

Yeah, I guarantee you that you wouldn't have to go very far to find opinions about not getting married after the telephone was invented.

I don’t know. I laughed.

Yeah, I don’t think that boiling something down to it’s very essence is making fun of it, necessarily.