Have You Ever Played Russian Roulette?

First of all, I absolutely hope not (lost a friend to this in my youth). Now that I’ve thoroughly confused you, if you’re willing, I would like for you to imagine the following:

You’re a guy who has been married for a while and has become tired of the relationship. At the same time, you realize that you aren’t in the financial place that you need to be in order to live how you would like to, so you just wait it out for a few years knowing that you want to leave.

At some point a conversation brings up you having decided to leave your spouse, that there’s nothing they can do to make it work, and that you aren’t going to tell them anything about why…however, you want to wait until it is a good time for you to leave them because it would be inconvenient right then. When you’re finally ready to go you take your children with you and tell the spouse that you want them to pay you for leaving them, breaking up your family, and taking their kids away from them. Not only that, but you also arbitrarily decide the amount should be half of their wages…because…

After all of this, how would you feel/expect your (ex) spouse to feel about you, others of your gender, and finally the idea of marriage (doing it again)? Would you expect them to have warm fuzzies about any of the above?

I’ve reversed genders in this scenario because it is what many men dread about marriage. They know there’s a good chance they may be on the receiving end of this situation, and most are helpless to do anything about it. Socially, men are usually shamed for leaving their spouses while women are celebrated for literally the same thing.

Again, without speaking from “feelings”, what is there to gain from marriage, and is that potential reward worth the odds?

You tell me.