‘Tis the season for heartache
Divorces, breakups can be especially painful at this time of year
It appears festive party crackers won’t be the only things exploding over the holidays.
It’s a prime time for marriage breakup, says therapist Vikki Stark, and “wife abandonment syndrome” to prevail. Likely you won’t see it coming.
According to Stark’s research of 400 women, 44 per cent of men choose to leave between November and January. “I hear more and more frequently of men who abandon wives. It seems to be everywhere and some people have even described it as an epidemic.”
There’s a distinct pattern of behaviour and it goes like this: A husband leaves a seemingly happy marriage out of the blue. He becomes an uncaring stranger, often moving directly in with a girlfriend, leaving behind a bewildered spouse, says Stark, a marriage and divorce counsellor who shares stories of heartache in her new book Planet Heartbreak: Abandoned Wives Tell Their Stories.
It’s the companion volume to Runaway Husbands: The Abandoned Wife’s Guide to Recovery and Renewal.
Julia T. can attest to the heartache and heartbreak. Her 17-year marriage suddenly ended two weeks before the gifts were opened — “it was the nightmare before Christmas. Out of the blue he drops the bomb on me. My heart broke into a million pieces.”
According to Stark, the holidays can bring on breakup because “first, the husband feels the pressure of having to appear to be the happy host at holiday social events and just can’t face it. So he ends it.
“Second, the husband’s girlfriend doesn’t want to endure yet another holiday while her boyfriend is celebrating with his family, so she puts pressure on him to make up his mind.”
Seasonal depression may also play a role — the dreariness outside pushes people to look elsewhere for some human warmth, adds Stark, of vikkistark.com.
Infidelity expert Dr. Bonnie Weil agrees more marriages fizzle over the holiday: “There’s more stress, feelings of loss and separation.”
They get disillusioned and leave. Add to that more people have affairs — 65 per cent of couples break up from affairs, Weil adds. Many self-medicate with alcohol, sugar and affairs; others throw in the towel. “Women’s adultery is also higher at this time of year for same reasons,” Weil says.
Stark adds that women too leave marriages out of the blue but with men there is an eerily consistent pattern to their behaviour — “from the way they inform her they are leaving, to where and when and the subsequent way in which they then turn on their wives, seeming to have no regard for her welfare.
“When women leave men, there is not a pattern in the same way. Women actually leave men more frequently than vice versa, but the method and reasons are much more diverse.”