{"id":803,"date":"2013-11-18T11:12:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T18:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=803"},"modified":"2013-11-18T11:12:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T18:12:54","slug":"walk-away-wife-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/walk-away-wife-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Walk Away Wife Syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle Wiener Davis<\/a>\u00a0is one of the stars of the psychotherapy circuit.\u00a0 She has enjoyed a long, and well-regarded, career as a couples therapist.\u00a0 B\"\"<\/a>ack in the early ’90’s she came up with an approach to salvaging frayed marriages, wrote a book called “Divorce Busting<\/a>” and a cottage industry was born.\u00a0\u00a0 Among her excellent insights was the notion of the “walk away wife syndrome.”\u00a0 I love it because it so accurately describes a dynamic I have seen in my office many times over the years.\u00a0 It works like this:<\/p>\n

A woman in a marriage or intimate relationship is feeling disconnected from her partner.\u00a0 This distance is extremely lonely.\u00a0 She will reach out to him, trying to get him to understand her distress.\u00a0 He doesn’t get it, in her view.\u00a0 Over time, she becomes frustrated and even a bit desperate.\u00a0 This incredible, and legitimate, need<\/em> she experiences may never be acknowledged and touched.\u00a0 She may become more critical in her distress.\u00a0 He just withdraws.<\/p>\n

Then one day, it happens<\/em>.\u00a0 She decides she is done.\u00a0 She says to herself, “I am leaving when ________________.”\u00a0 Fill in the blank – “when I get a job”….”when the last child is out of the house”….”when I finish school.”\u00a0 Sometimes it might be, “when I find another man.”\u00a0 Once she has made that decision, though, she stops being so angry and frustrated…..because she….is…..done<\/em>.\u00a0 The criticism stops.\u00a0 Things overtly are more peaceful around the house.\u00a0 He, of course, thinks he has died and gone to heaven.\u00a0 Friends as how his marriage is and he’ll say, “Great.”<\/p>\n

Then the even she has waited for occurs.\u00a0 And with that, she leaves.\u00a0 He is shell-shocked.\u00a0 “What happened?” he asks.\u00a0 “How could this happen?\u00a0 We were doing so well.”\u00a0\u00a0 As Weiner-Davis notes, this may be the first time he really, really gets<\/em> the level of her desperation.\u00a0 He understands what he needs to do.\u00a0 However, usually it’s too late.\u00a0 She has moved on emotionally.\u00a0 She is done fire that represents her emotionally commitment to this relationship is extinguished.\u00a0 It is over.\u00a0 She has walked away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Wiener Davis\u00a0is one of the stars of the psychotherapy circuit.\u00a0 She has enjoyed a long, and well-regarded, career as a couples therapist.\u00a0 Back in the early ’90’s she came up with an approach to salvaging frayed marriages, wrote a book called “Divorce Busting” and a cottage industry was born.\u00a0\u00a0 Among her excellent insights was Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42],"tags":[13,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}