This is what it's called when a man suddenly has to escape like you're toxic to him - and, of course, there's someone waiting for him. These are mostly marriages of at least 15-20 years where the wife and children all thought they had a great marriage. Mostly these guys are professionals who have suffered some form of business failure or trama and have stuffed all that guilt, shame and disappointment way down deep. Well they just keep stuffing it until one day it explodes all over everyone. Suddenly he has to escape, run, because you, the wife, are toxic to him and if he doesn't get away from you it will further contaminate him. <P>This is what I've learned reading "Sudden Endings, Wife in Happy Marriage", by Madeline Bennett. It's at the library. She talks to at least 25 woman who have all experience the same bewildering shock of finding out that the marriage they thought was wonderful and forever is horrible and must be escaped to the husband.<P>I've searched the internet far and wide and can't find anything else relating to this, but it's a damn fine book. The main reason I'm reading it is to try to understand how/why this happened to my marriage.<P>I'm going to go say adios to the Marriage Builders site - because there is no possibility for my marriage with this kind of situation.<P>Anyone interested in corresponding with me on this subject, I'll be at Divorce Central.<P>Thanks for all your time and support!<BR>Teresa<P>

I replied to this somewnere else...please don't go, there may be so much more to this than that book seems to say to you!<P>Love and light,<P>Jacky

Teresa,<P>You are absolutely right. That book described my H pretty much to a T. I found it terrifying, especially because in some of the cases described in it the projection was so extreme. I wish she had followed the cases for a longer period of time, such as ten years, to see if it ever got better. My H has been gone for 2.5 years now.

Nellie1<P>Thank God! At least there's one other woman out there who doesn't believe her marriage can be fixed!<P>How bad did yours get? Mine has only been gone 12 days and hasn't got all his stuff out yet.<P>I'm scared that they all got physically violent (mine never has) and financially stingy - oh that one scares me. We've lived very, very well and I'm a stay at home mom with no profession. Needless to say I'm scared to death.<P>This morning he lied to our son - just blatantly lied - and we told him we knew it was a lie. Haven't heard from him since.<P>After 2.5 years, do you have any advice to offer me? I'm having a really blue blue day. <P>Please write back - I'm so desperate to talk to someone else who has experienced this mind-boggling experience.<BR>teresa

No, he did not get physically violent. He did get unpredictable financially, until there was a child support order in place. Since then, he has always paid child support reliably. The main problem financially is that he got laid off almost a year and a half ago from a very well paying job - but now that he does not have a job, the child support is far, far less. I had been a SAHM since our sixth child was born three years before he left. Even though I have a job now, the kids and I are living only slightly above the poverty level. <P>I think the one piece of advice I would give you is to protect yourself and your kids financially - forego future financial benefits like alimony for whatever you can get NOW. Don't count on him continuing to be well paid. It is so common for men in this situation to either lose their jobs or have their income decrease significantly. I don't necessarily think the unemployment is planned - but I do think that the aliens that take over their brains have a lot to do with the fact that they can't get another job if they are laid off. <P>

That one thought keeps going through my head - don't let him screw up his job! He's in a very high level of management - and the higher up you go the fewer jobs there are available.<P>I'm trying to figure out if I should contact him today or the lawyer tomorrow about money. He got paid Friday and the mortgage is due tomorrow - and I haven't got the money to cover it. I haven't spoken to him - at length - in quite a while, so I don't know what to expect. Apparently he's already let the OW in because my daughters boyfriend saw him with her at the grocery store - and then he passed up his son's football game to spend his birthday with his ow. When my son was there a few days before he commented to me that it was weird that Dad had champagne, strawberries and whipcream. Anyway, Dad and son had made plans to attend a concert together yesterday - but when son found out how dad spent the evening he called him and told him that since he couldn't spend his birthday with him, then he didn't want to spend his birthday gift with him, either. Dad tried to lie his way out of it - cause he was supposed to be out of town but that all got changed. He just didn't know that I'd found out about that change. He came back to town Thursday night and took the whole day Friday, his 48th birthday, off, apparently to play with his OW. My son screamed at him to stop lying - that he knew he wasn't out of town, that he'd been seen. <P>I think Dad's really ripped that one good. My daughter won't even speak to him. My son is 15 and my daughter is almost 18, so nobody is going to force them to see him.<P>At this stage all I want is fair. I don't really care if he ever wakes up from his fog. I ruined a perfectly good day by driving around and looking at what I'll be able to afford to live in. There's a big difference between $200,000 and $50-75,000. And I've got to go to school or figure out what I'm going to do to support myself - and it's really a ***** to go on a job interview and start crying. Jeez.<P>Anyway, email me if you want. Don't know how much more I'll visit here - not enough sold info, just mostly sad stories. I'm needing survival tactics!!<P>Teresa<BR>rdreher@mindspring.com

Hi Teresa,<P><BR>I think you need to contact a lawyer asap. Don't tell your H anything. Also, ask around about attorneys....unfortunately you have to find a "hard a**" that will fight for you. You are going to be so manipulated & hurt by your H when you start proceddings that you really need & tough lawyer to help you see past your emotions & broken heart.<P>The worst part is seeing how really low your H can go. I feel that they ALL do. What's important to them is the 2 P's. Penis & Pocketbook.<P>Be strong. It's actually a good thing that the kids see him for who he really is. Love them & they will support you. He has no clue that what he has done effects them so deeply. He will have to earn back their respect.<P>I have been on MB for 8 months now....like you I only hear sad stories...even all those in GQ...they all act as if they are really working, Plan Aing etc...then a few days/weeks later they're back on crying about something. It's not easy & it takes 2. I feel like the Plan A sh** is about the BS kissing alot of a** just to convince the spouse to stay. Not realistic in my book.<P><BR>Haven't had a chance to get the book you reccommended, but I've mentioned i t to several friends that are where we are.<P>Yeah, I know it's scary. My H left his VP job 2yrs ago & now does consulting (about 1/2 the pay) I think it was all planned.<P>He has no clue about child support & alimony. He will go broke. And like you I'm afraid he really will. He can always go live with Mommy & Daddy and they'll take care of their poor son whose miserable wife threw him out. Theyb blame me (I wasn't a good enough W) HA!<P><BR>Keep in touch. We really need each other.<P>Lias

Lisa,<BR>I actually retained a lawyer and filed the day he moved out - beat him to the punch.<P>So far it hasn't been too bad, but we're only 13 days into it, too.<P>I've been very reasonable about letting him take "extras" - the only thing we didn't have was an extra bed. I've been so reasonable I even gave him a loaf of my home-baked banana bread. This may be making him think that I'm going to be a push over, but I'm not. I don't have a profession and I have two kids to care for. My whole life was taking care of him, the house and the kids.<P>Right now I'm going through the house and filling boxes with his stuff, stuff I know he'll want. If he doesn't want it he can get rid of it.<P>I hurt so bad and the meds really aren't helping that much. I still cry uncontrollably. I want that part to be over. A little crying I can accept, but not losing control.<P>Anyway, I'll keep coming back here or you can email me, too.<BR>We do need someone to share with who's not accepting all this Plan A & B cr*p - because you can't Plan anything if he won't even let you near him!!<P>Teresa<BR>rdreher@mindspring.com

I understand completely about your feeling that MB is sometimes full of crap. However, I promise you that most of that feeling is because you are seperated by less than 2 weeks. It's been 6 months for me and my emotions and thought process have ranged from anger, resentment, grief, denial, sorrow, utter despair, happiness, freedom, strength, revengeful, etc , etc.<P>This is a long process. I'm not going to tell you to do anything to save your marriage. Only you know the whole story and can decide that for yourself. What I will share with you is that you should not give up on MB so quickly. The knowledge base and life-lived experiences of the members here, new and old, is invaluable. These are simply great folks. <P>You need lots of opinions from all angles. It really helps to make sure you are totally comfortable and confident in your decisions and that you haven't reacted out of anger or pain. <P>Remember, you are looking at the long term here and you have 2 children to think about also. <P>Good luck to you. BTW I agree completely with the theory of wife rejection. It happened to me. No reason, no fighting, no warning, just the I'm not happy speech and I'm moving out. I eventually filed for divorce last week but like I said, this is a long process. Don't rush too much!<P>Hope I didn't offend you,<P>PP

Teresa:<P><BR>I finally went off the meds (paxil) I felt they were just masking what I was really feeling. It is better with out them & a couple of glasses of wine seem to do the trick once and a while.<P>Are you going for counseling. Don't worry I'm not going to suggest it. I find "therapy" for me is talking with other people who have been through this. Actually I prefer someone that is going throught it same as me. The people that are all ready over it seem to have forgotten how scary & depressing this really is.<P>I still cry...8 months later. Wake up every damn day wondering who the hell I am & where my life is headed. It scares the heck out of me. Just like you, I thought I knew where my life was headed. I was really looking forward to the kids being able to sit themselves, go out whenever, maybe start going on business trips, spending more time alone. What a fool I feel like...sitting home all these years baking that same f***ing banana bread while he did his dirty deeds. It really stinks & the worst part is when will we ever get over this betrayal, this mockery of our lives, the knowledge that someone we made a commitment to could be so senseless & uncaring? And blah,blah,blah.<P>Thanks for letting me vent.<P>Respond soon,<P>Lisa

billbailey,<P>I bought this book - since I thought it might have something of interest.<P>I'm sorry to say that I found it to be of no value at all.<P>First, the author is not a psychologist, marriage counselor or other professional - and has no scientific training - but instead is simply a lady who's husband had an affair and divorced her. In my opinion, she was struggling to find an explaination that would leave her blameless and the best she could do is say that he must be crazy. By her own report, several psychologists and counselors refused to pursue the idea with her - but she finally found one (an old friend) who would tell her what she wanted to hear. She grabbed a few psycological terms (she seems very fond of "transferance") and wrapped them up into a theory. Then, to "prove" her theory, she rounded up 25 other women who had experienced similar divorces - and then "studied" them and ... guess what - big surprise, found their experieces to be "remarkably similar". Duh... She looked for similar cases, then claimed that the similaries verified her theory. The book was completly one-sided. There were no surveys of the men - apparently no attempt to interview them and hear their side of the 25 divorces - no attempt to find the truth - but only an attempt to find those things which supported her theory. There didn't seem to be any point to the book but to prove that her husband "suffered" from some kind of mental health problem which led him - while "happily married" to her - to reject her.<P>While I in no way support a man (or woman) who rejects a spouse (except in cases of abuse) - I don't think we can learn anything from such a completely non-scientific "study" of the conditions leading to divorce. BTW - My W looked at this book - and more-or-less agreed with my point of view. If you don't believe that, you shouldn't believe this book either - because that's all we had - one woman telling her side of the story of her marriage failure - mixed in with bits and pieces of other ladies reports of theirs.<P>Just my 2 cents.<P>-AD

AbandonedDad,<P>I disagree. She never claimed that she had conducted a scientific study. I agree the author was struggling to find an explanation - but not one that necessarily left her "blameless" - just an explanation of how a man who loved her for so many years could turn against her so suddenly and completely. Other authors, some well-respected like Frank Pittman as well as a psychiatrist from McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, have also commented on the uniqueness of affairs that occur after many, many years of seemingly happy marriage. The psychiatrist from McLean went so far as to say that whenever a man suddenly leaves his wife of many years, depression is involved. <P>Unless you have gone through it, you can not possibly comprehend the projection that the author of Sudden Endings in talking about. It is enough to make you feel like you are going crazy, when not only is history rewritten but you are accused of doing things, saying things, or feeling things that didn't happen, that make absolutely no sense, but often correspond to things your spouse has said to you. For example - in the past, my H had complained a few times that I was too academic-achievement oriented - yet after he left, he actually accused me of not valuing education. Unless you have gone through it, you can not grasp the depth of the hatred that they display when you become, in her terms, the "bad object." She did not invent these terms - they are established psychological constructs. <P>The reason she found all these women with similar stories is that there are a lot of us in this boat - women who had been in long, apparently happy marriages, man goes through a business failure, and then suffers serious depression, which he self-treats with an affair. These men feel a huge sense of failure - and I say this not just because of what I have read, but also because of personal experience - my H has said that he was afraid that he messed up his life so badly that it could never be fixed. <P>There are other symptoms of serious depression as well - in my H's case, he admitted complete loss of interest in all activities that he once cared about, he displayed sudden and alarming memory deficits (not related to issues of our marriage), and most significantly, he was suicidal to the point of planning the method and the location. A major characteristic of this scenario is the degree of rage that the husband directs at the wife - it is far greater than in other sorts of affairs, including those that occur earlier in marriage. One of the former posters here was actually told by her husband that he felt, inexplicably to him, a huge amount of rage toward her, even though, rationally, he could not understand why. All these symptoms can NOT be explained away by theories of "unmet needs." <P>

Nelly,<P>My W has rewritten history too - but I have other explanations for that. I just didn't feel that this particular book was balanced or useful. The simple fact that the husbands were not interviewed or represented - except by the claims of their wives, invalidated it for me.<P>It might just as easily be that these wives were rewriting the history of a very troubled marriage - ignoring all the warning signals of the past. If one can rewrite, the other can too - which is why I would only consider a study of this theory if it had an unbiased author who gave both sides the opportunity to tell the story as they saw it.<P>-AD

I don't think the author was trying to write a scientific study - this was supposed to be anecdotal. However, Wallenstein's study, which was "balanced" found many results that were consistent with those in "Sudden Endings".

I'm in complete and total agreement with Nellie1.<P>This is a situation unlike divorces where the couples both know they've been struggling to make their marriage work. This comes straight out of the blue and blind-sides you.<P>Hindsight is always 20/20. Of course we can all look back and say maybe if I'd done this or maybe if I'd done that, but reality is that if he was struggling with his feelings of inadequacies he should have shared them with his wife, not stuffed them and then used another woman to deal with his guilt. Reality is that these guys all need professional help to learn how to handle the disappointments that occur in life. Turning to another woman is not solving anything, it's destroying other people's lives.<P>Only the people who have lived through the devastation of being walked out on with no warning and very little reason can possibly consider this real. We all realize that people must say, yeah, sure, she was probably a real bi**h to live with or withheld s*x, but none of that was true. My husband and I both discussed how our sex was even better now, 22 years later, than when we were first married. I sincerely enjoyed being his wife, pleasing him, taking care of him and making his life a little bit easier. He convinced me early on that he was trustworthy and I believed him. He has become an incredibly accomplished liar because I never, never knew that there was a problem.<P>And, to be honest, we who have been rejected really don't care what you think. We've been there and experienced it and don't need or even want your input. Sorry if that sounds cold, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.

Ladies,<P>I've been rejected too. I know how it feels.<BR>I stand by my evaluation. You don't learn much by listening to one side of a dispute.<P>-AD

Well, its hard to get much out of someone who's running away so fast that they barely say goodbye. Most of them flat refuse to discuss their "feelings" - that's how this whole mess gets started!@!! Unless you can find one of the women he turned to and ask her what he felt...!!!<P>Anyway, I really believe that depression plays a big part in all of this, and I also believe that depression in men is different than in women (I have personally suffered many years ago). If you want more information about male depression, check out this site. It's very informative. <A HREF="http://www.midlife-passages.com/newpage21.htm" TARGET=_blank>http://www.midlife-passages.com/newpage21.htm</A>

Wow,<P> billbailey, that was a bit harsh...what you said to ANB3.<P>Of course he was rejected, too, and I happen to agree with him on what he says on the book.<P>BUT, we can all go around in insane circles trying to work out WHY our spouses left us, and when a book or an idea we have read seems like the same thing we went through we start thinking, "That's it!!! It wasn't my fault after all!"<P>And the sad truth is this, and every one of us here has to admit it...<P>Whether we BS's or WS's like it, the marriage disintegrated by fault of BOTH people, and no rationalisation on earth will ever convince me otherwise. It is and always has been a two-way thing. And some of us, me included, thought things were fine before we discovered our S's didn't want to be married. But didn't we have a responsibility to NOTICE things weren't quite right...because in almost every case here, we can SEE in retrospect that there were problems.<P>Please, please don't try to tell someone else here that they don't know what rejection feels like. Because we all do, even the WS's.<P>Love and light,<P>Jacky

I wasn't saying that others (men) don't know what rejection feels like. Sorry if it sounded that way. What I am saying is that no one knows what goes on in anothers marriage and, personally, if I could understand how I was at fault in mine, I'd be the first to stand up and be counted.<P>I'm not stupid. Maybe I trusted TOO much - believed him because he had always been trustworthy. Maybe he was a just an excellent liar and enjoyed living two separate lives. He won't talk so I'll never know.<P>Anyway, I'm in a really bad mood because the bas*ard lied real big to our son this weekend and really hurt him. I'm not in the mood to talk nice and gentle so that I don't step on anyone's toes. Consequently, I'm going to stop posting here for a while. MB will NOT work for my situation, regardless of what anyone else thinks - so adios.

Nina,<P>I disagree. The marriage disintegrated because of DEPRESSION. <P>This is not the same thing as saying that the BS is anywhere near perfect, but the BS's lack of perfection, or the WS's lack of perfection for that matter, had nothing to do with it. The BS and the WS could have in theory been absolutely perfect, done everything right, for decades, and the depression would still have occurred. <P>Do you agree that clinical depression is caused by biochemical problems that can not be blamed on anyone? Is your opinion that affairs in long-term marriages are not caused by depression? I am trying to clarify what exactly we disagree on.