I love interesting terminology that explains things without explaination. One of my favorite is the walkaway wife. The walkaway wife is a woman who has given all she can to her marriage with little or no results and after a period of time she runs out of steam, so she gives up trying and literally or figuratively walks away from engagement in her marriage. Unfortunately most of the time when she is at this point the husband is usually relieved that she has relaxed from her former pressured position. He erroneously thinks things are much better in their marriage.
The "Walkaway Wife" is a term coined by Michelle Weiner Davis, who wrote Divorce Remedy, Divorce Busting and The Sex Starved Marriage. A wife in this frame of mind is done trying and usually headed out the door of her marriage. 75% of divorces today are filed by women. I was a walkaway wife a few times in my marriage, but never carried through with divorce. One time I was dead to my marriage as I was preparing myself to leave by getting all of my ducks in a row. I was getting my career geared up, financials in order, and going to counseling to work on my issues. By the time I was "prepared" to leave, I was in a much better place and no longer wanted to walk away. There are legitimate reasons to leave a marriage, but as Michelle says in her Divorce Busting book, we often get stuck doing the same thing over and over with the same negative results. What we really need to do is examine what we are doing, ask ourselves if it is working, and if not, learn some new approaches to get what we want. Zig Ziglar says "If ya keep on doin' whatch been doin', y'all keep on gettin' whatcha been gettin'! Ladies, we need to get smarter about how we do marriage. Being a walkaway wife is lonely and over rated.
Have you ever felt like a walkaway wife? If so, what did you do about it?
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