Men lose half their emotional support networks between 30 and 90,...

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Thanks for sharing this, Manu. I’ve seen this pattern happen to a lot of men in my circle: As they cross into their early/mid thirties, their social circle narrows very quickly to just “my wife/spouse” as friends marry off and career demands an increasing amount of time and attention. At the same time, the wife’s social circle often widens as she downshifts to a more flexible career role and gains access to things like “mom groups.” In the extreme case, I’ve seen this end marriages.

It makes be a bit hesitant to marry and/or have kids, seeing the strain that such a change places on relationships by transforming them into something very different than how they got started.

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This is obviously just one study and situations can differ wildly due to a billion different factors but i still found the findings somewhat interesting. Personally I think it’s incredibly important to cultivate hobbies that are somewhat social otherwise the risk of being trapped in a lonely routine is incredibly high. But again, that’s just my experience.

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Oh that makes a lot of sense. I guess it’s worth noting the data seems to focus on men of the previous generation, I’m super curious what changes we’d see if we could look at today’s generation.

FWIW I’ve seen a lot of settled couples handling things very differently to what I grew up with. The new parents around me are doing a great job splitting labour of childcare and giving each other breathing room outside of being a parent / worker. In particular one of my besties and his partner (who both work) take turns having weekends off of parenthood to spend with friends / having me time. I always felt that was really great.