It’s a hidden danger in divorce.

Karen and Dieter Holman tried to support their son as he underwent what he experienced as the sadness, shame and isolation associated with separating from his wife, the mother of his child.

Things were not going well. The retired Metro Vancouver couple felt their son’s estranged stay-at-home wife had wanted their son to take care of her by bringing in the salary and doing the cooking. After the separation, he was barely seeing his child.

Their son kicked a hole in a wall and broke his foot one night. Karen Holman (not her real name) said he went to an emergency department, exploding with emotion, and was told, after receiving a cast, to come back later. He killed himself later that day.

Male suicide is a silent epidemic across the Western world, write Dan Bilsker and Jennifer White in a strong article in The B.C. Medical Journal.

The Canadian Mental Health Association reports men are likely to kill themselves at a rate 3-4 times higher than females. Marital breakdown is often a factor.

“Divorce is a tipping point for a lot of guys,” says Prof. John Oliffe, a University of B.C. psychology researcher who is part of a team fighting male depression and suicide. “Divorce is a classic factor in suicide. These men become socially isolated. There are so many examples of good men’s lives ending prematurely.”

North American men going through divorce are eight times more likely than divorcing women to commit suicide, reports Augustine Kposowa, of the University of California, Riverside.

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A ground-breaking examination of 27 different studies of suicide, conducted by the Samaritans organization, confirmed this grim trend is worldwide: “The majority of studies suggest that men are at a greater risk of suicide than women in the aftermath of relationship breakdown.”