Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Why Women Initiate Divorce

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Why Women Initiate Divorce · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  So I can Mom show today. As promised, I'm going to talk
• 0:11
  about why women asked for divorces.
• 0:14
  And look, there's a million reasons that relationships end
• 0:18
  but what I'm doing in this episode as well as in the one
• 0:22
  about why men ask for divorces is trying to give you a summary
• 0:26
  and overview of the patterns that I see based on my clinical
• 0:30
  experience working with couples and individuals for over a
• 0:34
  decade. In private practice.
• 0:36
  So by the way, even if you can't get an appointment with me or
• 0:41
  you can't afford me and you want therapy.
• 0:45
  I do have a group practice, best life Behavioral Health, and that
• 0:50
  is in the description of this podcast and I have a lot of
• 0:53
  therapists working for me, more all the time.
• 0:55
  So you can always get therapy there.
• 0:57
  If this podcast is really peaking your interest, in what
• 1:02
  it would be like to be in therapy and to be really
• 1:05
  Actively working on some of the things that you're trying to
• 1:08
  address by listening to this. So that is always an option
• 1:12
  because I can't work with everybody that wants to work
• 1:15
  with me, which is why I expand it.
• 1:17
  So anyhow, what are some reasons that women ask for divorces?
• 1:22
  Well honestly women ask for the majority of divorce and it's
• 1:26
  usually when the kids are a little bit older and they can
• 1:28
  think straight and or when the kids are out of the house and
• 1:31
  the number one reason that I see that women ask for divorce.
• 1:35
  Is because of unresolved empathic ruptures that they just
• 1:39
  could not get over in their history with their husbands and
• 1:44
  eventually over time, they start to think that these will never
• 1:49
  be resolved and and that there's just too late that there's too
• 1:53
  much water under the bridge. So what are examples of some of
• 1:56
  these empathic ruptures that I see most commonly a lot of them
• 2:00
  have to do with the earliest stages of the relationship and a
• 2:05
  lot of them are in the early stages of the relationship, even
• 2:09
  before kids, and then many come when the children are young.
• 2:13
  So this is why I have my, I wrote an article, the young,
• 2:16
  mother stage, and why you should come home early from work, where
• 2:20
  I discuss the fact that for many women, really all women
• 2:26
  biologically. When you have tiny little
• 2:28
  children, you're pregnant, your nursing to have a tiny baby.
• 2:31
  This is a very biologically, vulnerable time.
• 2:34
  You feel very Posed to danger evolutionarily, and your mood is
• 2:39
  going to be more all over the place.
• 2:40
  You're going to struggle with postpartum depression, whether
• 2:42
  or not that is diagnosed. Many women have it or postpartum
• 2:47
  anxiety. 80% of the women have the baby blues, which is like a
• 2:51
  little version of postpartum depression for a couple weeks
• 2:54
  after the baby's born. So, anyway, during this time is
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  when I hear about a lot of women feeling like their husbands just
• 3:01
  weren't there for them, and this can range from Um, the guy did
• 3:06
  not stay overnight at the hospital during the birth to.
• 3:10
  He never got up with the baby at all.
• 3:12
  Even when she was deeply struggling and or he did not
• 3:16
  protect her from interactions with in-laws, are other people
• 3:19
  at that time that you found very painful or difficult or
• 3:22
  stressful. So, if you're thinking why would
• 3:24
  a woman wait like 15, 20 years to divorce.
• 3:27
  And man, when that was the problem that she had, why can't
• 3:30
  you just get over it? Well, people don't just get over
• 3:32
  shit. I mean that's things that are
• 3:35
  more. Traumatic and deeper cutting are
• 3:37
  very hard to just get over and in most situations by the way,
• 3:41
  these people have not tried to quote get over it.
• 3:44
  So if you're listening to this podcast it's either because you
• 3:47
  were already divorced and trying to understand it or you're
• 3:49
  trying to inoculate your marriage against the possibility
• 3:53
  of future divorce. In which case this is a super
• 3:56
  important point if you have empathic ruptures about the
• 4:00
  young mother time or any other time in your life, with your
• 4:05
  husband and you don't want to get divorced eventually then try
• 4:09
  to work on that stuff now and couples counseling, right?
• 4:12
  Because you're not doing yourself.
• 4:14
  Any favors, trying to swallow a bitter pill of misery and
• 4:18
  resentment because this is just going to pop up later.
• 4:21
  So yeah, that is a big reason that I see is unresolved
• 4:25
  empathic ruptures such that the woman started to feel
• 4:28
  disconnected at the time. She usually tries very hard to
• 4:31
  say that she was upset but the man at that point can't hear it.
• 4:35
  He Self is stressed or he just stopped feels defensive or
• 4:39
  whatever and eventually gets put under the rug but it comes back
• 4:43
  out with every major fight and then eventually she just says to
• 4:46
  yourself. Why should I be with somebody
• 4:49
  that I have this much resentment toward?
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  This isn't good and she leaves another reason that women leave
• 4:56
  their marriages after a while is sex.
• 4:59
  And this isn't because she wants somebody sexier far from it.
• 5:04
  This is because she's tired of Having sex with somebody that
• 5:06
  she's not attracted to. And that's always making it a
• 5:08
  problem. Particularly if she is kind of
• 5:12
  ramping down hormonal e and she's either in perimenopause
• 5:17
  menopause or post menopause, and she just doesn't feel like it
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  anymore. She just really does not feel
• 5:23
  like having sex anymore with somebody.
• 5:25
  That's just really not bad attracted to and that and
• 5:28
  everything has to be kind of a fight.
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  And at this point when you have really no sex hormones to speak
• 5:34
  of And you're not really super in love with your husband, then
• 5:39
  really does start to seem quite ridiculous that you are being
• 5:42
  forced to do something physically.
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  Not that the man is forcing you, but that you are being cajoled
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  or entreated to do something that you find kind of absurd.
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  Because that's how it feels when you no longer have the hormonal
• 5:54
  push and most women than kind of don't want to do it anymore, you
• 5:59
  know? And so this is a major reason
• 6:02
  that some relationships and in fact I get a lot of couples.
• 6:05
  Owls in there like late 50s and the woman just doesn't want to
• 6:09
  have sex anymore and she's trying to go in to couples
• 6:12
  counseling and some sort of hope that this that that maybe he
• 6:15
  will understand our perspective or he'll stop asking.
• 6:17
  He's not going to stop asking nor do I believe he should.
• 6:20
  And so this is kind of a reason that people should end on both
• 6:24
  sides is when one person doesn't want to have sex anymore and I
• 6:28
  actually wrote a post about that and I can link to that for you
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  so what is another? That women initiate divorce
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  because of parenting issues. So women are usually super
• 6:40
  committed to their kids. And when they feel like their
• 6:44
  spouse is, is a bottleneck is in opposition to them.
• 6:48
  It's making everything difficult is too hard on the kids,
• 6:51
  whatever. And this has been going on for
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  years and years. Sometimes it just reaches the
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  point where they no longer feel any connection with this man at
• 7:01
  all. And at that point, they are kind
• 7:03
  of ready to go. And so there's something called
• 7:06
  The Walk Away wife syndrome that I talked about and I didn't come
• 7:09
  up with it. Michelle wine or Davis?
• 7:11
  Who wrote the sex-starved? Marriage came up with it.
• 7:14
  At least. I think she did.
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  I heard her speak many years ago and she talks about like this
• 7:18
  time where women are trying really, really hard in the early
• 7:23
  or mid marriage to make the man understand them and to pay more
• 7:27
  attention to them and hang out with them and whatever and to
• 7:31
  resolve empathic ruptures and work on the marriage and all of
• 7:34
  this. Then it's some The woman just
• 7:35
  stops and the man. Thanks man.
• 7:38
  She finally came to her senses. She probably can't just calm
• 7:42
  down. Like I've been telling her to
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  and now we're going to live happily ever after.
• 7:47
  Then she leaves in like, 10 years or five years or one year,
• 7:51
  either way at that moment where she stopped being so
• 7:54
  problematic, from his perspective, it really wasn't a
• 7:57
  good sign. It meant that intellectually and
• 7:59
  emotionally, she had detached and realized that the problems
• 8:03
  were insurmountable and she was Going to stay to keep it intact
• 8:06
  home for the kids, and then she was going to get out.
• 8:09
  And so when she makes that plan, that is when she quote calms
• 8:13
  down, but that's not a very good sign.
• 8:16
  There's a bad sign, bad sign, because what that means in
• 8:21
  reality, is that she's no longer in it to win it at all and she
• 8:25
  is making her emotional and, or pragmatic plans to leave.
• 8:30
  If you feel that this is disingenuous this happens with
• 8:34
  both genders, all the I'm where people stay together for the
• 8:37
  kids and then they have their escape plan and which could be
• 8:40
  more or less fleshed-out. Sometimes it's only a very
• 8:43
  fuzzy, Specter in the distance but they know that they cannot
• 8:47
  keep this up forever. And they do not Envision growing
• 8:49
  old with this person, but they do not want to put their kids
• 8:51
  through a stress of a divorce. So, you know, that is an
• 8:54
  individual decision. All right, and what else is a
• 8:58
  reason that women initiate divorce, sometimes I fall in
• 9:01
  love with somebody else, or they are they?
• 9:05
  To become attracted to somebody else.
• 9:07
  And so this is whether or not that relationship is
• 9:09
  consummated. Women will especially if they
• 9:13
  feel that they have never felt anything like this before.
• 9:17
  And they are newly in love in a different sort of way that can
• 9:20
  frequently make them leave. Now if you're thinking that this
• 9:23
  is, you know, immoral or something, let me reassure you
• 9:27
  that this happens across gender through all people, through all
• 9:30
  history of the world and it's really not a moral To fall in
• 9:35
  love with somebody will be immoral as to cheat.
• 9:38
  You know, it could be considered a moral to get yourself into a
• 9:41
  position where you could fall in love with somebody.
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  But most of these women aren't actively trying people out on
• 9:47
  Tinder. It's more like they're working
• 9:49
  with somebody and they fall in love with them or whatever.
• 9:51
  So I have seen that happen with women.
• 9:53
  Particularly it's interesting because men more frequently have
• 9:57
  had more Partners than women prior to marriage.
• 10:01
  So for women sometimes, like the guy that they marry is Kind of
• 10:05
  the only guy they've really been with and then if they fall in
• 10:08
  love with somebody else, it's like oh wow this is what
• 10:12
  everybody's talking about. I didn't have this kind of love
• 10:14
  in my marriage. That was really.
• 10:16
  The only man I was with and I want to have this sort of
• 10:18
  connection with somebody before I die.
• 10:20
  And usually this most happens to women that are in emotionally
• 10:24
  disconnected, marriages, you know, that are very emotionally
• 10:28
  unfulfilling, they may even be in the walkaway wife, kind of
• 10:31
  waiting it out stage and then, bam, they fall in With somebody
• 10:35
  and then they that puts a timeline and an urgency to the
• 10:40
  need to leave, which was previously just kind of floating
• 10:44
  around in the back of their mind.
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  So that is another reason that women choose to leave.
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  Now if you recognize yourself in any of these descriptors you
• 10:56
  know it is really incumbent upon you.
• 10:58
  If you want to give your marriage a fair shot to
• 11:01
  recognize, some of this is happening if you're here and In
• 11:05
  it now and then to get you and your husband and two couples
• 11:08
  counseling. Honestly.
• 11:10
  Couples counseling, does it always work?
• 11:11
  As I talk about many people, wait until the relationship,
• 11:15
  basically is like in a do not resuscitate mode and there's no
• 11:18
  possible way that I could come in there.
• 11:20
  I'm not Harry Houdini and I cannot fix something that has
• 11:23
  deceased previously, but if you can get in during the window of
• 11:29
  time, where your marriage may still recover.
• 11:33
  So like if you're younger I've some couples in their 30s.
• 11:37
  Awesome. Great.
• 11:38
  You got a really good prognosis, you know, but if you're waiting,
• 11:41
  till you're in, you're like late 40s, 50s.
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  Usually, people are like, man. I spent half my life doing this
• 11:47
  shit. I'm not even gonna do it
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  anymore. This is just a Hail Mary just so
• 11:51
  I could basically tell myself or the kids are somebody that we
• 11:55
  did it. Don't wait until that point
• 11:58
  tried to get into couples counseling when things are not
• 12:00
  quite. So, you know, horrible.
• 12:03
  And then you can Actually move yourself out of these scenarios.
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  Now, what about in that last case scenario?
• 12:11
  If some if you're already having an affair or an emotional
• 12:15
  affair? Well in this case couples
• 12:18
  counseling only works. I should probably do a podcast
• 12:20
  about this itself but couples counseling doesn't really work.
• 12:23
  When you're having an active Affair, you know, and people get
• 12:27
  into this situation and the affair comes out sooner or later
• 12:30
  or they even say, like, I'm not ready to cut it off with this
• 12:33
  person but I'm willing to try couples counseling with Spouse.
• 12:36
  Well, if you're still talking your Affair partner, what's
• 12:39
  couples counseling gonna do you know?
• 12:41
  It's really not going to do much.
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  It doesn't even feel real. What feels real is the exciting
• 12:45
  connection. You have with this new partner.
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  So you're going to couples counseling walking through the
• 12:50
  steps, but you're not really present.
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  So I never recommend that people go to couples counseling.
• 12:55
  When one person is actively in Affair.
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  It's like trying to do therapy if the person is drunk because
• 13:00
  they are, they're drunk on the affair and I can't do therapy if
• 13:03
  somebody shows up with Cocktail and I also can't do therapy with
• 13:07
  a couple. If somebody is actively in love
• 13:11
  with and seeing somebody else. So both people have to have the
• 13:15
  commitment to work on things with the very lowest bar
• 13:19
  requirement to be that you cannot actively be in an affair
• 13:22
  with somebody else for it to work.
• 13:25
  Of course, like, you know, some people come in anyway and then
• 13:29
  they decide. I mean, I've not really seen
• 13:32
  this but then they decide to stop seeing their affair.
• 13:35
  Her. Okay, you know, sometimes that
• 13:38
  happens, but not usually. Usually if there is an active
• 13:42
  ongoing affair with, somebody couples counseling is going to
• 13:46
  be pretty useless. So you have to wait until you
• 13:49
  yourself want to get out of the affair?
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  Now, individual therapy can help you with that decision, you
• 13:54
  know? But if you are still seeing
• 13:58
  actively an affair partner or an emotional affair partner that
• 14:00
  could be even more Insidious because like, let's say, it's
• 14:03
  the situation where a woman is in love with her.
• 14:05
  At work, and she's not having sex with him and they're just
• 14:09
  like having these cute little text and stuff.
• 14:11
  I mean, that's even more Insidious because she's going to
• 14:14
  pretend she's not having an affair, but she is having an
• 14:17
  affair. And men do this to obviously
• 14:19
  emotional Affairs are super prevalent especially in these
• 14:23
  common, in this new era of text messaging and having your phone
• 14:27
  with you constantly. So that's allows An Affair to
• 14:31
  really flourish when it would not have necessarily flourished.
• 14:35
  That quickly in the past because you can be talking to the person
• 14:37
  constantly, all right? So, anyway, as the overview
• 14:41
  those are the main reasons that I see women and marriages.
• 14:43
  If you feel like those apply to you, then you can get yourselves
• 14:48
  into couples counseling as an initial, you know, attempt to
• 14:54
  salvage. What is left of your marriage?
• 14:56
  You should not let things go further.
• 14:58
  If you're listening to me talk and you think that this sounds
• 15:00
  like you? And if you are a man that's
• 15:03
  listening to this and you think That is applied to your wife,
• 15:06
  ask her, ask her, use all of my podcast to open up conversations
• 15:11
  with your spouse. This is why I'm doing this for
• 15:14
  is really, this is a resource. If you pass this on your
• 15:19
  listening to it together, it is going to start a conversation,
• 15:23
  many, so many women. Especially women have told me I
• 15:26
  forward your stuff, my written post to my husband, but he won't
• 15:29
  read them. He doesn't like to read things.
• 15:32
  Okay, cool. He doesn't like to read things
• 15:33
  that must work well for him at work, but but be that, as it may
• 15:36
  that, I think that that's kind of a load of garbage.
• 15:39
  The guy doesn't want to read it as the point and he won't then,
• 15:43
  but a podcast is much more male friendly.
• 15:45
  As I mentioned, half my listeners are men, which is a
• 15:48
  higher percentage, then my blog readers.
• 15:51
  All right? So hopefully this gave you some
• 15:53
  food for thought, which is my intent.
• 15:55
  Please like And subscribe to this podcast so that you get
• 15:59
  bonus paid content, and please write me on Spotify and Apple.
• 16:05
  And write in with any suggestions for episode topics
• 16:08
  and I will talk to everybody soon.
• 16:10
  Have a great day, guys.