“My wife is leaving me but she won’t tell me why”
Dr Miriam Stoppard has some strong words for a self-centred man who can't understand why his wife is leaving him.
Dr Miriam Stoppard has some strong words for a self-centred man who can't understand why his wife is leaving him.
I am writing to you because I am shell-shocked. My wife and I are in our late fifties and she has just announced that she’s leaving me. Two of our three children have finished university and the other is about to. I was looking forward to retirement – in due course – but now it seems as if I’ll be doing this as a single man. This is not something I want.
It has come out of the blue. A few years ago she told me she was unhappy with the way things were – the usual things such as domestic tasks etc – but I thought we had sorted it out. I didn’t even complain when our sex life dwindled to almost nothing. This seems such an extreme reaction on her part I wonder if she has gone a bit mad, perhaps due to the menopause which I have read about.
She says she can’t stand living with me a moment longer but can’t give me a proper reason, and she swears she’s not having an affair. She’s moving out next month to a rented flat and I am devastated. How can I get her to change her mind? None of our friends can believe it.
Oh dear, I’m afraid you’re trying to close the stable door after the horse has gone. In fact, I think your wife has been “gone” for some time. You simply haven’t noticed it. As I read your letter, I find it depressingly self-centred. It’s entirely about yourself and contains no reference to being sensitive to your wife or trying to see her point of view.
You say she told you a few years ago that she was unhappy with the marriage but it was only to do with things such as domestic tasks, and you thought you had sorted it out.
Well, you were wrong. You had not sorted it out. You hadn’t given it the attention and priority that it deserved. In fact, to me it sounds as though you simply brushed it under the carpet and gave little credence to your wife’s unhappiness with your marriage.
You’re now reaping the unhappiness you inflicted on your wife by not sympathetically opening up the real source of her unhappiness with your marriage. Of course she hasn’t gone mad and of course it isn’t due to the menopause. It’s due to the fact that she finds you, your marriage and your carelessness intolerable and is not prepared to spend the rest of her life in such an unhappy relationship.
Thank heavens she has finally found the courage to decide to leave you and start her life afresh while there’s still time. I admire her. And I believe she only stayed in the marriage in order to see her children grown up and on their way.
She’s as selfless as you are selfish. She’s been an excellent mother. You simply didn’t pay enough attention to discover that she could be a wonderful wife.
If you have a problem for Dr Miriam, please email askdrmiriam@saga.co.uk. All emails are treated in confidence.
(Hero image credit: Alun Callender)
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