Divorce, Finances and the Spiral Men Don't Talk About

It Wasn't the Separation That Nearly Broke Me. It Was My Finances.

A note before you read: this post talks openly about suicide and the period after a separation. If you are in a hard spot right now, the support numbers are at the top and the bottom.

If you need someone right now: Lifeline 13 11 14·Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636·MensLine 1300 78 99 78·In an emergency call 000.

It's Men's Mental Health Month. And this is an incredibly difficult thing to voice. To say out loud, even when you're past it. Explaining how hard it is when you're in the middle of feeling your lowest is near on impossible.

When I separated, the hardest part had nothing to do with being a dad. Ask anyone who knows me. I'm a good dad. Not perfect by any stretch, but a good one. That was never the part I worried about, it was more about my ability to provide everything they needed from me felt like it was falling apart.

The biggest cause of mental distress for me, looking back at that time…. It was the financial instability. It took me to some dark places I had never been and never want to go to again. Not being able to provide for myself, let alone my kids. That is a specific kind of weight, and at the time I didn't even have words for it. I just felt it.

Then on top of that, I went from seeing my kids every day, to seeing them every other day, to eventually only a few times a week, whilst I tried to focus on rebuilding my life and being a provider for them again. It's dark, it's isolating, it's lonely, and it has a spiralling effect on your self-worth that feels impossible to escape.

After all, how can you rebuild from a place where you feel lost, your world has crumbled around you, and you have no idea what the next steps are, or what your life should look like. Now let me be clear. I'm not a victim of my world crumbling. Looking back, I was more the cause of it than anything. But regardless of whether you caused your own spiral or not, it doesn't get any easier. It's a tough spot for a man who has always been so sure of his decisions and capabilities.

It nearly destroyed me. There were nights I didn't know how I'd come out the other side of it.

Men account for more than three quarters of all suicide deaths in Australia. Around seven men a day, most of them working age [5][6]. And here is the part that kept me in that hard place. Men are about a third less likely than women to reach out for help, and almost one in four won't go to anyone at all [7][8]. I was in that group. I didn't know where to go, or who to talk to. The isolation was real, and a lot of it was of my own doing.

What I know now, and wish I had known then.

I got through it. I'm still here. And the day I finally spoke to someone, just one person, was the day it started to feel a bit more hopeful.

If you're a man sitting in this right now, the finances, the kids, the silence, you are not the only one. There is absolutely another guy near you carrying the same thing and saying nothing. Same as I did.

This is a big reason I'm so passionate about helping couples in blended families. It's stressful. There is very little support out there, and the support you can get, often isn’t from their own experience. I'm a practical person, a critical thinker. What I needed was something tangible and practical. Not just someone who was a good listener, but someone who had been through it and knew an approach that actually worked. The more I searched, the more alone I felt when it came up short. So, I decided to create what I needed. For couples that are struggling. For my wife, who I love endlessly. For my kids, who need me and need stability. And most of all, for the other men out there struggling with no idea where to start.

This post is for you.

If you’re struggling today, start here: Lifeline 13 11 14·Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636·MensLine 1300 78 99 78·In an emergency call 000.

The research behind this, in one place

•Men account for 76.5% of suicide deaths in Australia. In 2024 that was 2,529 men, around seven a day, and the number of working-age men (25 to 64) reached a record high. [5][6]

•Separated men are about 4.8 times more likely to die by suicide than married men. Divorced men, about 2.8 times. Separated men under 35, close to nine times. [4]

•Intimate partner problems (breakup, separation, divorce) feature in the path to suicide for one in three Australian men aged 25 to 44. [4]

•Problems in a relationship are consistently among the top three recorded risk factors in suicide deaths. [5]

•Cost of living and personal debt is now the leading driver of distress among Australians reporting suicidal behaviour (58%). [1]

•Unemployed Australian men have more than four times the suicide risk of employed men. [2]

•Financial stress is one of the leading sources of relationship tension and separation, with around seven in ten couples saying it causes tension. [3]

•Men are about a third less likely than women to seek help. Almost one in four Australian men say they would not seek help from anyone. Only around 40% of men with depression, anxiety or suicidality saw a mental health professional, even though more than 80% had seen a GP. [7][8]

References

[1] Suicide Prevention Australia, Community Tracker (2024). Record cost-of-living and personal debt distress, and its link to suicidal behaviour. https://www.suicidepreventionaust.org/record-half-of-all-australians-in-cost-of-living-distress/

[2] Review of unemployment, financial hardship and suicide, drawing on Australian National Coroner's Information System data (unemployed men over four times the risk of employed men). PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9298506/

[3] Relationships Australia (2019), relationship indicators on finances as a source of tension and separation, as cited in a submission to the Parliament of Australia. https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=20bb1ab4-c4c9-4cfa-bfb9-ec2a764cf70c&subId=730060

[4] Wilson, M. and colleagues, Orygen / University of Melbourne. "Separated men are nearly 5 times more likely to take their lives than married men." The Conversation (2025). https://theconversation.com/separated-men-are-nearly-5-times-more-likely-to-take-their-lives-than-married-men-258196https://www.orygen.org.au/About/News-And-Events/2025/World-first-study-reveals-heartbreaking-risk-facto

[5] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Intentional self-harm (suicide) deaths and Causes of Death, 2024 (released 14 November 2025). 3,307 deaths, 76.5% male, male rate 18.3 vs female 5.5 per 100,000, relationship problems among the top recorded risk factors. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/intentional-self-harm-suicide-deaths/latest-releasehttps://mindframe.org.au/suicide/data-statistics/abs-data-summary-2024

[6] Australian Men's Health Forum, "10 new facts about male suicide in Australia (2025)." https://www.amhf.org.au/10_new_facts_about_male_suicide_in_australia_2025

[7] Australian Institute of Family Studies, Ten to Men: The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health. Help-seeking, depression, suicidality and loneliness in Australian men. https://aifs.gov.au/tentomen/insights-report/mental-health-australian-males-depression-suicidality-and-loneliness

[8] Coates and colleagues (2021), men's reluctance to access mental health services, University of Melbourne, supported by Movember (men a third less likely to seek help). PMC. https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8165839