Imagine if, one day, your husband didn’t show up. You get worried because it’s not like him to just not come home. He rubbed your feet last night, you cooked for him, and the two of you were discussing a Disney trip for the kids.
There’s no reason to think that he’d just bail. After a lot of concerned calls to the police and family members, you find out the truth: he’s divorcing you and shacking up with someone else.
Spousal Abandonment Syndrome happens when one spouse leaves his or her seemingly happy marriage without any prior warning or indication that anything was wrong. More often than not, the guy who abandons his wife and kids has been with them for a long time and also has been having an affair with another woman. Vicki Stark, who coined the term, also pointed out other common factors that are associated with this “sudden collapse” of a marriage.
Here are 6 heartbreaking signs someone is suffering from Spousal Abandonment Syndrome:
1. You were completely blindsided when your spouse left
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He was good to his wife, and they had no visible issues in the marriage. Wives who have this happen are often fully blindsided and don’t believe their partner will leave. Why do some men leave women? One study from 2011 showed that 39% of men cited growing apart as a reason for leaving.
2. The news is usually broken suddenly
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In the middle of an everyday, normal meal, the conversation may go something like this: “How do you like dinner?” “I want a divorce.”
3. There’s no logical explanation for why a spouse suddenly leaves
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When asked about why he’s leaving, most men won’t give a very logical or coherent explanation. They usually won’t say it’s another woman. They will usually come up with an excuse involving logistics with work, or something similarly frivolous.
4. The spouse that bails usually turns incredibly cold and vindictive
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People who have experienced Spousal Abandonment Syndrome happen to them will often see their loving, doting spouse suddenly turn into a vicious, cruel monster. In many cases, the abandoner will not help the former spouse with money, emotional support, or even child support.
They show no remorse and will typically treat the person they abandon like a total stranger. It unfortunately happens all the time with census data showing that 29% of custodial mothers never received child support.
5. When a spouse reveal that they’re leaving, there’s no convincing them otherwise
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In other words, no amount of begging or pleading will convince them to stay, and in many cases, the abandoner will actually systematically devalue everything that he had with their wife.
6. The spouse who leaves shows zero remorse
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There’s often no sign of guilt, remorse, or even shame in most cases. In some rarer cases, he may start a smear campaign against his wife. When you have Spousal Abandonment Syndrome, you go from being happily married to being abandoned.
You won’t even recognize the guy who you used to be with, and he’ll act like a cruel stranger to you. It’s jarring. It’s scary, and yes, it does happen. What’s scarier still is that there’s often no way to prevent it short of discovering his affair before he leaves you for it. And that’s not always easy to do or even possible in some cases.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.
