A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
We’ve all heard of a man having a “mid-life crisis” during which he does things like buy a sports car and try to look and act younger in an (ultimately futile) effort to stave off feeling like an old man. This happens to middle-aged men all the time, but lately there is a new phenomenon that affects women who are in mid-life: the Walkaway-Wife Syndrome. I have been seeing more of this recently in my marriage counseling practice. (The term “Walkaway-Wife Syndrome” was coined by Michelle Weiner-Davis.)
Walkaway Wives usually initiate divorce within a year or two of the youngest child’s graduation from high school, when the home has become an “empty nest.”
Remember that during the early years of a marriage, the wife is typically the primary caretaker of the relationship. As the years go on, if she is unhappy, and her husband is unresponse to her concerns, she may eventually give up on the relationship and “check out” emotionally. However, she keeps this decision a secret because she wants to hold on until all of the kids have left home.
Then one day, “D-Day” in a way, she tells her husband that she wants a divorce. He is taken by surprise: “I had no idea you were unhappy. Why didn’t you tell me?” In fact, she had told him many times, but eventually gave up because he was unresponsive.
At this point, a lot of men will spring into action in an attempt to save the marriage. He’ll get in shape, losing weight and going to the gym. He’ll start to go church. He’ll read relationship books. He becomes very attentive and responsive to his wife for the first time in years.
Now the wife has a dilemma. Are these changes genuine, and will they last? Or will her husband go back to his old ways once she decides to stay in the marriage?
This is a very delicate time in the relationship, and marriage counseling can help the couple navigate through it.
Tags: divorce, mid-life crisis
This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Marriage Dynamics.
2 Responses to “Walkaway Wives”
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July 9th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I in this crap right now. Always HATED divorce with a passion. BUt , now, I see WHY I hated it. It is amazing to me that people ACTUALLY THINK and SOCIETY ACTUALLY THINKS divorce is a reasonable “solution” to problems.
How ONE person can think that THEY can BREAK A PROMISE,and CHANGE ANTHER PERSONS LIFE SO DRASTICALLY, without any say from the other person,is beyond me.
You PROMISED to NEVER stop trying. You AGREED, ON YOUR OWN, to entwine our LIVES TOGETHER. ANd now, you want to change that. And you want to NOT FEEL GUILTY about it. You want society and others to see your pain and see the reasons why you left.
Well others can say all the nice things you want to hear.
You broke your promise. You ruined someone elses life, and maybe CHILDRENS lives (regardless what the pro divorce crowd says)simply because you are not A PERSON enough to work through WHAT you HAVE to work through.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
This has happened to me. I am not able to contol the crying.
! week after my STEP-daughter turns 18 and we pay off most of our bills from a law suit where I was pinned betweened two cars.
I saw a bank”error”. She had closed a savings account. I caught her walking away and she kept walking. I’m sitting here close to our 18 wedding anniversary.
I’m disabled and unable to work. Now I have to live on nothing.
So I sit here.