HARD COLD FACTS

Why Women Leave Men

by Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D.

“I hurt all the time because I feel alone and abandoned.”

“My husband is no longer my friend.”

“The only time he pays attention to me is when he wants sex.”

“He is never there for me when I need him the most.”

“When he hurts my feelings he doesn’t apologize.”

“He lives his life as if we weren’t married; he rarely considers me.”

“We’re like ships passing in the night, he goes his way and I go mine.”

“My husband has become a stranger to me, I don’t even know who he is anymore.”

“He doesn’t show any interest in me or what I do.”

Women tend to be more concerned about their marriages than men. They buy most of the books on marriage to try to improve them and initiate most marriage counseling. They often complain about their marriages to their closest friends and sometimes to anyone who will listen. And they also file for divorce twice as often as men.

Why do women seem so dissatisfied with marriage? What do they want from their husbands? What bothers them so much about marriage that most are willing to risk their families’ future to escape it?

Why do women leave men?

Each day I am confronted by women who are extremely frustrated with their marriages. They usually express no hope that their husbands will ever understand what it is that frustrates them, let alone change enough to solve the problem. From their perspective, marital problems are created by their husbands who do little or nothing to solve them. Wives tend to see themselves as the major force for resolving conflicts, and when they give up their effort, the marriage is usually over.

When I talk to their husbands, they usually have a very different explanation as to why their wives feel the way they do. They often feel that the expectations of women in general, and their wives in particular, have grown completely out of reach. These men, who feel that they’ve made a gigantic effort to be caring and sensitive to their wives, get no credit whatsoever for their sizeable contribution to the family. They feel under enormous pressure to improve their financial support, improve the way they raise their children, and improve the way they treat their wives. Many men I see are emotionally exhausted and feel that for all their effort, they get nothing but criticism.

The simpler role of husbands in decades past has now been replaced by a much more complex and confusing role, especially in their relationship with their wives. Some conclude that women are born to complain and men must ignore it to survive. Others feel that women have come to expect so much of men that they are impossible to please, so there’s no point in even trying. Very few men, these days, feel that they have learned to become the husbands that their wives have wanted, and the job seems to be getting more and more difficult.

Grounds for Divorce

Men’s perceived failure to satisfy their wives is punctuated by the fact that women file for divorce twice as often as men. In other words, their unhappiness with marriage often results in divorce.

The most common reason women give for leaving their husbands is “mental cruelty.” When legal grounds for divorce are stated, about half report they have been emotionally abused. But the mental cruelty they describe is rarely the result of their husband’s efforts to drive them crazy. It is usually husbands being indifferent, failing to communicate and demonstrating other forms of neglect.

Another reason for divorce reported almost as much as mental cruelty is “neglect” itself. These include both emotional abandonment and physical abandonment. Husbands that work away from the home, sometimes leaving their wives alone for weeks at a time, fall into this category.

When all forms of spousal neglect are grouped together, we find that it is far ahead of all the other reasons combined that women leave men. Surprisingly few women divorce because of physical abuse, infidelity, alcoholism, criminal behavior, fraud, or other serious grounds. In fact, I find myself bewildered by women in serious physical danger refusing to leave men that threaten their safety.

Simply stated, women leave men when they are neglected. Neglect accounts for almost all of the reasons women leave and divorce men.

I have little trouble convincing most men that verbal and physical abuse are legitimate reasons for their wives to leave. And there has been increasing social pressure on men lately to avoid hurting their wives physically and verbally, which makes my job even easier.

But neglect is a much tougher sell, and it is also much more difficult to overcome than abuse. While it is the most important reason women leave men, it is hard to convince men that it is a legitimate reason, something they should avoid at all costs.

Some of the common complaints I hear from women is, “He ignores me except when he wants sex, he sits and watches television when he could be talking to me, he rarely calls me to see how I’m doing, he hurts my feelings and then never apologizes: Instead, he tells me I’m too sensitive.”

Most husbands are mystified by these complaints. They feel that their wives demand too much, and that most other women would be ecstatic if married to them. Their wives have become spoiled, take their efforts for granted and have unrealistic expectations.

Do women expect too much of their husbands or are men doing less for their wives than they should? I’ve proven to husbands over and over again that their wives usually do not expect too much of them, and when they understand and respond to their wives’ frustration, the complaining ends and a terrific marriage begins.

What’s more, their wives are not expecting more effort from them. Instead, they expect efforts in a different direction. It isn’t more difficult to please women these days, it simply requires a change in the priority of effort.

What are women looking for in men? They want a soul mate, someone they trust who is there for them when they have a problem, who takes their feelings into account when decisions are being made. Someone to whom they feel emotionally connected.

A Man’s House

I use a house as an illustration to help husbands understand how their wives feel. Each room in the house represents one of the husband’s roles in life. There is a room for his job as a production manager, there is another for golf, another for his new sports car, one for his garden, one for his children, one for church, and, yes, one for his wife.

As he makes his way through an average day, he visits various rooms when he is faced with the role the room defines. And when he’s in a certain room, the others are blocked out of his mind so that he can focus his undivided attention on the role he plays at the time. He does his best when he’s not faced with distractions, and prefers to deal with each problem with all his energy and creativity so that he does the best he can in each role he plays.

The wives of most men are only one of many rooms in this imaginary house. It represents the “husband” role. When they are in that room, they usually try to give their wives undivided attention and make a special effort to meet their needs. They also go to that room to have their own needs met, particularly the need for sex.

What frustrates wives most is that they are relegated to only one room in their husbands’ imaginary house instead of every room. In other words, they want to be integrated into a man’s entire life, not relegated to one corner. Without such integration, there can be no emotional bonding, no uniting of the spirit, no feeling of intimacy and, in many cases, no sex.

To help husbands learn to avoid this unpleasant outcome, I have tried to show them how to become and stay emotionally connected to their wives by inviting them into each room of their house. They learn to become more than the role of “husband” to their wives. They learn to integrate their wives into every aspect of their lives.

When I counsel a husband, I explain that he is to invite his wife into each room of his house. Regardless of his role or responsibility, his wife should be considered in each decision he makes. Once the invitation is made, the results are startling!

When a husband invites his wife into each room of his house, she helps change his priorities. She reminds him that her feelings are very different from his. As a result, he begins to live his life in a way that is compatible to her needs and values.

He learns how to avoid habits that cause his wife to be unhappy, and he learns how to meet her most important emotional needs. He also learn how to give his undivided attention to her and schedule time to be alone with her.

The Policy of Joint Agreement

To help men integrate their wives into each room, I have encouraged husbands to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement: Never do anything without an enthusiastic agreement between you and your spouse.

This policy helps men take their wives’ feelings into account whenever they make a decision. They avoid thoughtless habits, learn to meet emotional needs with mutual enjoyment and resolve their conflicts. All of this creates marital compatibility and emotional bonding.

The word “anything” in the policy applies to all the activities of a husband that go on in each of his rooms. So whenever he follows it, he learns to think about his wife’s reaction to everything he does, not just what goes on in the “husband” room.

Some argue that just an agreement would be a big help, why insist on enthusiastic agreement? It’s because I want couples to avoid agreements that are coerced or self-sacrificing. I want couples to learn how to come to agreements that take both of their interests into account at once. I have encouraged couples to continue to negotiate until they arrive at an enthusiastic agreement because they’re the ones that stand up to the test of time.

Most men complain that if they invite their wives into every room of their imaginary houses, their wives will take over completely and they will lose all their peace and freedom. They imagine their identities shriveling away and finding themselves a shadow of their former selves.

But the Policy of Joint Agreement prevents that unfortunate outcome. Joint agreement means that both husband and wife must be enthusiastic together, and no one risks losing their identity or subjecting themselves to slavery when they themselves must be enthusiastic about each decision. The goal is to become united in purpose and spirit, not to overpower or control each other.

How Easy Is It?

Couples that are already emotionally bonded have little or no trouble following this policy because they have already learned how to behave in sensitive and caring ways in each of their life’s roles. But emotionally distant couples have great difficulty with the policy at first. They are accustomed to doing what they please regardless of it’s effect on each other, especially when they play certain roles. But if they follow the policy for even one day, they begin to see how their thoughtlessness has created emotional distance.

As couples apply the policy to each of their daily plans and activities, they begin to feel cared for by each other and are encouraged by each other’s thoughtfulness. Over time, their emotional bonding becomes more and more firm, and the policy becomes easier and easier to follow as they become soul mates.

Men who follow the Policy of Joint Agreement think about their wives throughout the day, because as they make decisions they ask themselves how their wives would feel. Phone calls are made whenever there is any doubt. As time passes, these men become increasingly sensitive to their wives’ feelings.

If men consider their wives feelings in each decision they make, asking their wives when there is any uncertainty, they create a compatible lifestyle. The Policy of Joint Agreement helps create understanding, emotional bonding, intimacy and romantic love in marriage. Men that learn to take their wives feelings into account meet their most important emotional needs. They also learn to overcome the selfish habits that make their wives so unhappy, because these habits do not meet the standard of mutual agreement. Over time, they experience what every couple hopes to create in marriage: A loving and compatible relationship.

A woman doesn’t leave the man who has invited her into every room of his house. That’s because she doesn’t stand outside the rooms of his house feeling like a stranger. She is welcomed into his entire home as his cherished life partner.

Increasing Intimacy in Marriage
http://www.foreverfamilies.net/xml/articles/marital_intimacy.aspx

Intimacy is the closeness of your relationship with your spouse — emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, sexually, and in many other ways. Intimacy is not an end goal but rather a journey that lasts throughout your marriage. Marriage and family researchers Schaefer and Olson (1981) describe attaining intimacy as “a process that occurs over time and is never completed or fully accomplished” (p. 50). As you both grow and develop, each of you changes. If you neglect intimacy in your marriage, you will grow apart. The time to work on intimacy is now.

Benefits of Intimacy in Marriage

Studies show that marriage offers many benefits. According to Olson and Olson (2000), “Married people tend to be healthier, live longer, have more wealth and economic assets, and have more satisfying sexual relationships than single or cohabiting individuals. In addition, children generally do better emotionally and academically when they are raised in two-parent families” (p. 3).

The physical benefits are widely supported by research. Several recent studies, for example, found heart benefits that are particularly dramatic for men. At Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, researchers assessing the marital intimacy of 10,000 married couples asked the husbands: “Does your wife show you her love?” The husbands who answered yes reported having significantly less chest pain within the next five years than the men who answered no (Ornish, 1998). In another study of 119 men and 40 women, Yale scientists found that husbands who reported feeling loved and supported by their wives had less artery-blockage than those who did not (Ornish).

Mental health is also better for couples with healthy intimacy. Researchers Firestone and Catlett (1999) say, “In our opinion, love is the one force that is capable of easing [depression]” (p. 13).

(For a detailed discussion of marital benefits, see Making the Case for Marriage on this website.)

Forms of Intimacy

Intimacy can have different meanings for men and a women, however Stahmann, Young, and Grover (2004) note that “all human beings have the basic need to be intimate and close with another person” (p 13). Women are often portrayed as having the desire for emotional intimacy while men are portrayed as only having a desire for sexual intimacy. However, intimacy can take many forms, including the following:

• Emotional intimacy is the closeness created through sharing feelings. Because girls are encouraged to recognize and express their emotions from an early age, women generally understand emotions better than men. Unfortunately, society tends to discourage men from feeling or showing emotion. Men who didn’t learn how to be emotionally intimate while growing up can learn as adults. If they do, their marriages will be stronger and healthier.

  The first step to emotional awareness is to pay attention to your feelings, identify them, and think of possible reasons for them. Work on noticing the differences between strong emotions such as terror and fury and the differences between more subtle emotions such as anxiety, insecurity, and irritation.

  Emotional intimacy can occur once people know what they are feeling, convey those feelings to each other, and express concern and understanding of their feelings to each other.

• Mental or intellectual intimacy involves a mutual understanding about all the important issues in your marriage. Setting goals together is one way to further intellectual intimacy. For example, you might set goals to improve your intimacy, to save a certain amount of money, or to go for daily walks together.
• Spiritual intimacy involves sharing religious beliefs and observing religious practices together, such as praying and attending church. As you share spiritual experiences, you will become united in your attitudes and goals. Wheat (1980) suggests that couples become active in a church where they can learn, grow, and serve God along with others. (If you and your spouse struggle with differing religious beliefs, see the article on this website, Strengthening Interfaith Marriage.)
• Recreational intimacy is enjoying activities together, like running, golfing, or reading. Things as simple as popping popcorn and watching a movie or preparing a meal together can be good ways to build recreational intimacy.
• Financial or monetary intimacy comes with discussing and sharing your finances. If you have separate accounts and separate incomes, you probably lack financial intimacy in your relationship (Schaefer & Olson, 1981; Stanley, Trathen, McCain, & Bryan, 1998; Wheat, 1980).
• Sexual intimacy is one of the most important dimensions of healthy marital intimacy. Healthy sexual intimacy includes sexual frequency that both partners are satisfied with, sexual activities both partners enjoy, and an open dialogue about sex. Olson and Olson (2000) say, “A major strength for happily married couples is the quality of the sexual relationship” (p. 126). They found in their research that the most common sexual concern is differing levels of interest in sex. Happier couples tend to agree in their definition of sexual satisfaction and have fewer worries about their sex lives than unhappy couples. More than half of all married couples, they note, have trouble discussing sexual issues.

Characteristics of Intimacy

Relationships with healthy intimacy have several factors in common, including the following:

• Mutual trust builds a sense of security for both spouses. You can show it be having no desire to injure your spouse in any way. Though you might unintentionally cause hurt, you won’t hurt one another on purpose.
• Tenderness includes g entle expressions of caring. Through touch you can express your love to your partner. This affectionate contact “is absolutely essential in building the emotion of love” (Wheat, 1980, p. 184).
• Acceptance is unconditional approval in a relationship. No one is perfect, but acceptance means not holding weaknesses against one other. If you find yourself frequently pointing out your spouse’s faults, work on focusing instead on the qualities you fell in love with.
• Open communication is the ability to discuss anything with your spouse. It includes sincere expression of thoughts and feelings as well as careful listening. Signs of poor communication include feeling reluctant to tell your spouse about the events of your day or being unwilling to listen when your spouse is explaining how he or she feels.
• Caring is genuine concern for your spouse’s well-being. If you do things you know hurt your spouse, you cannot have healthy intimacy. You can develop a more caring heart and mind by learning to think of your spouse’s feelings before your own. Always ask yourself before acting or speaking, “If I do this or say this, will I hurt my spouse?”
• Apologies are the remedy for mistakes that spouses inevitably make. Recognizing mistakes, taking responsibility for them, expressing remorse for any hurt caused, and making a commitment to change the hurtful behavior are all essential to mending the relationship after a mistake. For spouses who have created a chasm of hurts that separate them, offering a sincere and humble apology is the first step in building a bridge over that chasm. Even if you believe that your partner made the mistake, you can begin the healing by finding something you did that calls for an apology.
• Forgiveness is the process of letting go of anger, desire for revenge, and obsessive thinking about times your spouse has hurt you. It includes giving your spouse permission to have weaknesses, make mistakes, and change. Seeing the goodness and strengths of your spouse along with the weaknesses can open up emotional space for good will to build toward your spouse. Forgiveness does not automatically create trust or reconciliation, nor does it mean you approve of bad behavior. But it is an important early step toward rebuilding a fractured relationship.
• Appropriate boundaries are the limits you place on a relationship. The limits can be created individually or as a couple. These limits include saying “no” when your spouse asks you to do something that goes against your values or is more than you can handle. Setting firm, clear boundaries for yourself and respecting the boundaries of your partner create feelings of safety and trust. If your relationship is in trouble, one or both of you might decide to write a “Bill of Rights” that clearly defines the conditions necessary for staying in the relationship. For example, one woman told her husband that she would stay in the marriage only if there was (1) mutual respect, (2) no drinking/drugs, (3) no hitting or emotional abuse, (4) no name-calling, and (5) no cheating/affairs.

Can There Be Too Much Togetherness?

When we think of intimacy, we might think we can’t get too much of a good thing. But sometimes spouses forget the need for separate time and may spend too much time together. If a spouse feels guilty about spending any free time alone or with friends, he or she might begin to feel constrained in the relationship. Usually this feeling doesn’t mean love has diminished, only that a healthy sense of self has gotten lost.

Most intimacy needs can be met through a spouse or significant other, but no one person can meet all of our needs. A husband, for example, might find his wife a wonderful confidante for his insecurities and dreams but not a good companion for sports events. For a night at the hockey rink, he’ll need to go with a brother or friends. A wife may need a regular night out with friends so she can do things that don’t interest her husband, like shopping or scrap-booking.

Healthy intimacy includes pursuing some of your own interests independent of your spouse and encouraging your spouse to do the same. These pursuits should not get in the way of building intimacy or involve inappropriate relationships with members of the opposite sex. Spending reasonable time on personal interests helps each partner be happier and a more interesting and well-rounded companion.

Interdependence

Imagine for a moment that you and your spouse are standing with the palms of your hands together and leaning against each other with all of your weight. Together, you look like an upside-down “V.” If one of you becomes tired and stops leaning, the other topples over. Similarly, a spouse who depends completely on the other person runs the risk of exhausting the partner and causing him or her to back away. Without the other spouse’s support, the dependent spouse would crumble to the ground. Now imagine that you and your spouse are standing up straight and holding hands. You lean in a little, but only enough that you support a portion of one another’s weight. If one or the other or you moves, you won’t fall. You’re responsible for most of your own weight, but you’re still connected to your spouse and lean in for extra support from time to time.

As this analogy shows, over-dependence in marriage can lead spouses to become tired and resentful of carrying the burden for the other’s happiness. Over-dependence creates feelings of powerlessness and weakness because your happiness is in someone else’s hands. Complete independence is also unhealthy because it causes spouses to feel unneeded and lonely. Interdependence is a balance between over-dependence and independence. In an interdependent marriage, spouses feel needed without being overburdened. They feel a sense of freedom and power, understanding that their happiness is in their control and not in the hands of another person.

Conclusion

Intimacy is an important part of a vibrant, loving marriage. Intimacy can be experienced at many levels, including physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, financial and recreational. Intimacy is nurtured through mutual trust, tenderness, acceptance, open communication, caring, apologies, forgiveness and respecting boundaries. Couples can work together to increase their intimacy in each area as they build their marriage through the years.

Written by Derek Willis Hagey, Research Assistant, and Amber L. Brewer, Graduate Research Assistant, edited by Rachel V. Jamieson, Graduate Research Assistant, Robert F. Stahmann and Stephen F. Duncan, professors in the School of Family Life, Brigham Young University.

References

Firestone, R. W., & Catlett, J. (1999). Fear of intimacy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Olson, D. H., & Olson, A. K. (2000). Empowering couples: Building on your strengths. Minneapolis: Life Innovations Inc.

Ornish, D. (1998). Love and survival: The scientific basis for the healing power of intimacy . New York: HarperCollins.

Schaefer, M. T., & Olson, D. H. (1981). Assessing intimacy: The PAIR inventory. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 7, 47-60.

Stahmann, R. F., Young, W. R., & Grover, J. G. (2004). Becoming one: Intimacy in marriage. American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications.

Stanley, S., Trathen, D., McCain, S., & Bryan, M. (1998). A lasting promise: A Christian guide to fighting for your marriage. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Wheat, E. (1980). Love life: For every married couple. Grand Rapids, MI: Pyranee Books.

Taken in part from Marriage and Individualism
http://dyske.com/?view_id=919

The article said in part:

For me, marriage (or any committed long-term relationship) is a symbiotic relationship where 1 + 1 becomes 3. Together you form a new organism and co-evolve. In some instances of coevolution in nature, two separate species become so symbiotic that an analysis of one of them as its own specie becomes difficult, because it cannot survive on its own. It’s almost like trying to analyze our head as its own specie independent of the rest of our body.

We often consider dependency as a negative quality especially in the Western culture where independence is highly valued, but it is important to distinguish codependency and inter-dependency. On the facade, they look identical. Inter-dependency is a symbiotic relationship where 1 + 1 = 3 whereas codependency is a form of addiction where 1 + 1 = 1. If we can be addicted to drugs and alcohol, we can certainly become addicted to people. What is the difference between wine enthusiasts and alcoholics? Often it is hard to tell.

We humans are social creatures, and we are capable of doing powerful things when we work together in a symbiotic relationship. As obvious as this may sound, I did not understand this until quite recently. My parents fiercely defended independence, so they never learned to build symbiotic relationships with others. To them, independence was the highest virtue of mankind. The fact of the matter is that their worshipping of independence was a way for them to rationalize their lack of social skills. In their eyes, being dependent meant being codependent. If anything can be done on their own, they preferred to do so. Ironically, this is a typical Western trap where independence is touted as a virtue, and dependence as a vice, and my Japanese parents fell for it. They didn’t see that stanch individualism is destructive to meaningful human relationships.

In a symbiotic marriage, we become a compound being where we cannot analyze each part separately. “Individualism” can no longer be applied to individual parts of the compound being, because one does not make sense without the other. In order to unlock the true power of human being, we need to commit to co-evolving together. Co-evolution does not happen overnight. It takes a long time and a serious commitment. Once a marriage starts co-evolving, any analysis of one part independently of the other is meaningless. Indeed, his problem becomes her problem, and her problem becomes his. In fact, seeing problems in terms of “his” or “her” is counter-productive and meaningless for a co-evolving creature. It’s like your left hand saying to your right hand, “You take care of your problems, and I’ll take care of mine.”

The evolution of computer hardware and software are described as co-evolution because one is useless without the other. The same can be said for any art criticism that tries to separate content from form. Such an analysis would never succeed in seeing any artwork for what it is. Likewise, any attempt to attribute the cause of unhappiness to individual parts in a coevolving relationship is futile and meaningless. When a few Jazz musicians are improvising together, what would be the point of analyzing who contributed how much to the overall success or failure? The music that comes out of the collaboration is indivisible. If they are interested in accounting for their own contributions, why play together in the first place? They might as well pursue their own solo careers independently. Marriage too works the same way. When you commit to a co-evolving relationship, you create a being of its own that is greater than the sum of its parts.