Preventing “Sudden Divorce Syndrome”

written by Jim Duzak |

The figures vary a bit from state to state, but, in general, about seventy percent of divorce cases are filed by women. Does that mean that wives are less happy in their marriages than husbands are? Not necessarily, but women are more likely todo something about their unhappiness, especially when they feel they’ve been talking to the wall for far too long. And husbands are more likely to say they never saw the divorce coming: that everything seemed to be going fine until they were blind-sided by divorce papers that “came out of nowhere”. When one spouse files for divorce, and the other spouse has no idea why, you have what lawyers and marriage counselors call Sudden Divorce Syndrome.

Not surprisingly, Sudden Divorce Syndrome tends to occur in marriages where the communication breakdown was severe and long-lasting. It doesn’t mean that the two spouses weren’t speaking, but, rather, that they probably weren’t speaking the same language.

The wife who says she’s been expressing her frustrations every day for ten years is undoubtedly telling the truth. But most likely her husband is also telling the truth when he says she never made it clear that what she was complaining about was serious enough to terminate the marriage over.

Women have to understand that they need to be as explicit as possible with men if they want their message to get through, especially if they’re talking about difficulties in their marriage. Most men would rather walk barefoot over broken beer bottles than have a conversation with their wife about “our relationship.” I’m not saying men are right, but I am saying that’s the way it is. Men typically tune out women when they bring up relationship issues and, ironically, the more the woman raises the issue the more the man tunes her out. “Oh, you know the way women are”, a man might say. “They love to have something to talk about, even if it’s a complaint. But it’s no big deal.”

It’s no big deal until he hears from her divorce lawyer.

In my opinion, women tend to be better communicators than men. They’re better at reading body language and reading between the lines of what someone says. They have more ways of expressing a thought. In general, women tend to be more subtle than men. But a subtle and sophisticated communication style may not be what’s needed in addressing a relationship problem.

My advice to women in dealing with men is to say what you need to say, simply and directly, but without losing your composure. If you break down in tears, a man will say whatever it takes to stop you from crying—a man hates to see a woman cry, especially if he knows he’s the cause of it—but he’ll conveniently forget what he promised as soon as the tears have stopped.

You don’t have to use threats or ultimatums—men don’t like to feel pushed around—but just say something like, “I’d hate to see our marriage end over this.” That’s...

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