How Do You Mend a Broken Woman?

(Part 1)

"One of the hardest parts of being abandoned by the husband you've loved for more than 30 years is wrapping your head around how he could just simply walk away from his family, his obligations and his commitments. I doubt I will ever understand his choices and actions."

Maryann, age 62, worked part-time as a bookkeeper for her son, who owned a small construction company in Rapid City, Iowa. While she didn't make a large salary, she enjoyed contributing to the household finances maintained by her husband, Joe.

Living on a small retirement, Maryann and Joe had raised two sons and a daughter, and now counted six grandchildren who they adored. The couple regularly attended church, volunteered at the local library, visited their grandchildren every week, and had settled into their senior years with a quiet, unspoken satisfaction that their lives had been filled with purpose and that purpose had been achieved.

On an ordinary Wednesday, Maryann arrived home after work to find the living room strangely empty. Joe religiously watched the 5 p.m. news every day while waiting for Maryann's arrival. But today the television sat dark and silent. She called out Joe's name thinking he might be in another part of the house, perhaps changing the burned out light bulb she'd asked him to replace in the guest room. Joe didn't respond. Checking the couple's bedroom, Maryann saw something she never could have imagined. The closet door stood open. Joe's clothes, which normally hung beside hers, were gone. Two suitcases, usually stowed beneath their clothes, were no longer there.

In the bathroom, Joe's shaving items were also missing. After a few minutes of pulling out bedroom drawers, now devoid of her husband's t-shirts, socks and underwear, Maryann sat on the couple's bed in stunned silence.

The Runaway Partner

Three days passed before Joe phoned Maryann to tell her he was in Oklahoma and had no plans to return. "He couldn't put into words exactly why he no longer wanted to be married to me," Maryann recalls. "We never argued. We shared the same things in common. I thought we were happy."

A week later, Joe filed for a divorce leaving Maryann devastated and confused of her sudden abandonment by a man she thought she knew.

According to Vikki Stark, MSW, an expert and author on runaway husbands, the type of man who abandons often appears to be unusually moral and trustworthy. "This makes it even harder for the wife to accept that his words are empty justifications," Stark says. "In order to justify his decision not to include his wife in the process that led to the end of the marriage, he needs to come up with a compelling explanation for his actions. That explanation often has little to do with reality, causing the bewildered wife, who had previously trusted her husband's word, to wrack her brain trying to make sense out of something that is inherently nonsensical."

Stark adds that the torment, confusion and, ultimately, grief suffered by the deserted woman are a part of Wife Abandonment Syndrome. "Every woman who is subjected to Wife Abandonment Syndrome becomes deeply destabilized for some period of time," Stark says. "Many experience relentless thoughts as they struggle to make sense of what happened."

These thoughts often lead to obsessive mind games that cloud a woman's judgment and continue to torture her psyche. How did this happen? What did I do wrong? How can I get him back? How can I hurt him back? How can I afford to live?

In part two of How Do You Mend a Broken Woman, The Villa Voice will explore how abandoned women can learn to let go from their sudden desertion and move forward to experience an even more fulfilling life.