Ep. 204 - Walkaway Wife Syndrome Part 1: The Quiet Exit Most Men Never See Coming

[MUSIC] >> Hi, and welcome back to Monarch for Love, the podcast where we talk about the real work of real love. I am your host, Michelle Hayes, and today we are peeling back the layers on something that so many couples experience, but few fully understand. The walkaway wife syndrome. If you're a wife who's felt emotionally exhausted, unheard, or like you've been carrying the weight of the relationship for far too long, this conversation is for you. And if you are a husband who's confused about your wife's growing distance, maybe even shocked about how angry or disconnected she's become, this is for you too. Joining me is a very special guest, Chuck Chapman, a therapist and men's relationship coach who helps married men restore trust and reignite intimacy in their marriages. He is also the author of the married man's guide to solving his wife's biggest complaints and his insights today are game changing. We're diving into why women shut down, how resentment and lack of emotional safety slowly erode connection, and what men can do, not to fix her, but to truly understand and rebuild from the inside out. This is a raw, honest and hopeful conversation. Let's get into it. Welcome Chuck. How are you today? Thank you Michelle for having me. I'm great. How are you? My pleasure. So tell us what is walkaway wife syndrome? Well, something that I started to see. Well, first actually I experienced it. I was married for 20 years and then out of the blue one day my wife said she was done and she had already scored away money and had rented an apartment and I had no idea that it was coming. Wow. Yeah. So and then as I started working with men, I started to see this happening more and more with the men that I worked. They've been married, you know, 10, 15, 20 years. Right around the time the kids started leaving the house. All of a sudden the wife started complaining about them not listening. For years, I've tried to tell you what's going on and you haven't listened. So now I'm done and they move out and it's a problem that as I started doing some research is actually a trend that's happening in marriages today where the wives at this point and it again, it happens around this age of when this sort of menopause starts to happen. It also starts to happen. So it's a bit of a, you know, the correlation between these things where she's just not feeling happy, she's not feeling her, she's not feeling connected and she's done. And by the time that happens, he's running around trying to figure out how to get her back, but it's always too late. Yeah. Well, I think that what happens is that women emotionally check out long before they ever really leave physically. Okay. I think I was a walk away wife. Okay. So I also have a very I can empathize with women who do this. You keep saying to your husband and you keep begging and you say, you know, I need more of you. I want more connection. I want to feel seen and heard and important to you. And many times as women, we feel unloved. And I always say this just because you feel unloved ladies doesn't mean you are unloved because when I left my first husband, I found out years later that he cried like all the time for me, but he never, ever told me that. And I guess what happens is that men think that it's just going to go away and that they'll realize that they're loved. And and we don't understand. And if we're not feeling it, part of it is that, you know what, we're going to be like, I start resenting you for all of these things. And that resentment is really unresolved bitterness. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think, you know, the the thing that happens when the wife comes to the husband and says, you know, I don't feel connected. I don't want you to see. And I don't feel like heard. I don't feel loved. He has no clue what to do. Because I believe that. And it also comes as a shock to him, right? Because I always think everything's fine. And like, what are you talking about? I go to work every day. I provide for you. I take care of the kids. You know, I'm, you know, I clean up around the house. I do all the things that I think you want me to do. But that's not what she really wants. What she wants is to feel that connection, that sense of closeness and intimacy. And the thing I sort of say is, is like the men that I talk with, including myself, my dad taught me how to be a father in terms of modeling that for me personally, but he didn't teach me how to be a husband. He didn't teach me how to have handle conflict, how to have conversations, how to create connection, how to keep the sexual passion going year after year after year. I had no idea what the hell I was doing being a husband, but you know, you get married and all of a sudden you're given this title of love. Yeah, we just turn into the fire. Same thing for wives. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And so we get we know we're supposed to. Two people trying to figure out how to do a relationship that weren't really ever taught how to do that. And so that's become sort of my passion is to be able to teach men how to be a husband, how to actually connect, how to actually be present with her, how to actually create that sexual spark and an ongoing connection. So that it's a preventative thing, right? So that when she comes to you and says, I'm not feeling hurt, I'm not feeling connected, I'm not feeling, you know, understood. That's like the check engine, like going on in your car. Oh, great analogy. It's something about this. Yeah, I know what it is, but we need to do something about it. Okay, and so that's where, you know, the preventative maintenance comes in when you learn how to do these things. It's like, okay, I know actually what she wants when she says she wants to feel connected means she needs my presence. She needs me being here next to her, listening, empathizing, and giving her my love, essentially giving her my validating her, which is a validating thing. She needs, yes, absolutely, absolutely. She needs to hear that validation that she is loved and that she is, you know, wanted and needed and all of those kind of things. Absolutely. So it is a big communication part of it, but like I said, I don't think husbands or wives were really taught how to be calm husbands and wives. No, I agree with you completely. I very often say we are not taught the skills that are required to sustain a happy marriage and create something fulfilling. We're not, we're taught many things in our lives. We're taught math and this and that, but to me, and I mean, you might feel this way as well. Our relationships are the most important thing in our lives because what happens in that, what happens with our relationship is it kind of has the ripple effect. If we're not happy in our marriage, it affects our job, it affects our relationships with our children and it's just, it encompasses so much so to create something beautiful, takes mindfulness and intention. I always say love is a decision. We are very often, you know, especially when you're in the beginning of a relationship, you know, as well as I know, it's all hot and exciting and all this and then, you know, it's status quo and guys are pretty satisfied with status quo, I think. Well, yeah. If she's not complaining, that's good. The thing I say is like, the warning sign is she goes quiet. She stops complaining. She stops saying, I want to connect with you, you know, and he kind of feels like, oh, she's not complaining anymore. Everything must be fine. And he doesn't realize that's actually the symptom of she's checked out. Right. Silence replaces connection. Ooh, I like that. That's good. Yeah. Okay. So then now, there's also a little bit of thing that comes with this, which I think is loss of respect. I think that when a wife starts to lose respect, her affection for her husband is often following. She no longer feels like she wants to be connected physically with him. And then that is, of course, detrimental to the husbands because they're very visual and physical connecting. That's what they need most of I'm not almost. How does that happen when does a man feel when his wife starts being disrespectful for him to him? Is it a conscious thing or is it a subconscious thing that loss of respect? Do they feel it? Yeah, I think he feels it, but I don't necessarily know that he has a name for it. Right. Okay. And so he's not thinking, well, she doesn't respect me anymore. He's thinking, well, you know, she rolls her eyes when I talk. She signs of contempt, you know, signs of, you know, exasperation, those kind of things. And he doesn't see it as loss of respect. He sees it as, he doesn't see it as something he's doing wrong. He sees it as something that she's doing wrong. And one of the things I teach in my work is like, as humans, we want the same thing. We want connection. Okay. Our number one, emotional needs as humans is to feel connected to other people going back to your point about how important relationships are. And I absolutely agree with that. The quality of your life is really based on the quality of your relationships. You can have all the money in the world, but if you're lonely and you're in a marriage where you're not feeling connected, that, you know, it's not going to do anything for you. So, so if we all want to feel connected, there's some things that are important for that. And there are a couple of other emotional needs. And I think they go like this. I think safety and respect, if I feel safe and I feel respected, I'm going to feel connected. Now, I think for women, it's, it goes in that order of safety, respect. They need to feel safe and they need to feel important. And then they'll feel connected. And I think with minutes, the other way around, men need to feel important and then safe and then connected. And so what happens is when she loses respect for him, she disconnects. Right? And so if she's in her relationship and she's asking for connection, bids for attention and that kind of thing, she's actually asking for intimacy or connection. And when she doesn't get it, she feels unsafe. She feels, yeah, she definitely doesn't. She starts contouring up these things in her mind. He doesn't love me. Right. And what's wrong? You know, we used to be so close. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I hear people saying, oh my gosh, we used to be able to tell each other everything. We talked for hours and hours and hours and now in their relationship. They have nothing to say. I have nothing to talk about. We've talked about everything. Yeah. Or what happens is it all becomes basically logistical kind of kind of conversations. You know, you have a couple of kids, right? And this is also, I think, the thing that I teach is that you know, you have this relationship. You get married and you become husband and wife. Right? And then you have a couple of kids and you have this new role that comes in mom and dad. And oftentimes what will happen is because of the connection starts to kind of go away, the primary relationship becomes mom and dad instead of husband and wife. Yes. Okay. And so then what happens is the husband and wife starts to deteriorate. Mom and dad also end up, you know, so when you split the husband and wife, then you split the mom and dad. And and I think that that's a kind of common thing that happens is that we don't know how to connect. So we create this logistical relationship when you pick up the kids, how it, you know, we need braces for junior, all those kind of things. And then the connection between husband and wife starts to re-road. And the problem is if you can't, if you don't make husband and wife a priority, then mom and dad, that relationship is affected. And it's also not giving your children a good role model. Right. Right. Because your kids are watching everything you do. And what they see you doing is what they're going to expect of their own marriages, right? And then that's not a good thing for sure. I think that men shut down and they get defensive, right? Or they go into that tighter flight remote and they don't really show up emotionally because they don't know how. It's not that they're a bad husband or a bad person or anything like that. I always try to share with everyone. They're, they're built differently. A men and women are very different and we need different things. And when women start doing the, I need more connection. I need more of you. I want you to participate and be present and all of these things. It's like you said, which was a very good point, is they don't know what to do. So they defend themselves. And then that comes off as being aggressive. And I know that sometimes in my relationship with my husband, Brian, I've had situations that have happened like that. Like I'll start talking to him about something that happened. And he'll start being very defensive. And I'm like, "Hun, because I of course have learned through the years." I say, "Hun, I'm not blaming you. I'm not attacking you. I just want to have a conversation with you so that you understand where I'm coming from and how I'm thinking. This isn't about you. This is about me. But I think what happens is guys take it very personally. They're wise, not happy. And they don't like that. And they don't know what to do. Like you said, they don't know what to do. So they get stuck and then they start looking at their phone and they start to playing video games and doing all of these things that escape from so tell us what do men need to do? And what do women need to do too? I mean, it goes both ways. It's not like it's one-sided listeners. It's not. I think what happens for men, I'm just kind of speak for myself in them and then I work with when she complains, I feel like it's a criticism. And here's the distinction between these two things. Right? A complaint is legit. It's just a preference. I don't like this. But a criticism is you never pick up after yourself. You know, you're all, you're just like someone so those kind of things. Those are actual criticisms when they're attacked on your character. But what happens for men is we hear a complaint as a criticism. I remember when my current wife and I were first dating and I was over at her house and I was helping put away, you put dishes in the dishwasher and we had this basket below and there was this big knife and I put the big knife in the basket below and she takes it out and she goes, big knives go up on top. What I heard was, you idiot, don't you know better than to put the big knife, you don't put the big knife in the basket, you put it up on top. You heard my way is the right way, is the correct way. Right. Yeah, yeah. And your way that you're completely ignorant, you know, for doing this. And part of that is kind of the tone and part of that is like, you know, reading that. But also part of that is my own interpretation. Oh, she doesn't think that I, you know, and for a man, incompetent, so when I'm feeling competent, right, I feel disrespected and then did this respect when I, when a man feels disrespected, he's going to react in one or two ways. He's going to get angry and he's going to implode or he's going to explode. And the implode is the shutdown. It's quiet. You know, stuff sit down. That's what my husband does. Yeah. He gets very quiet. Get very quiet. You know, and it's again, it's that check engine like, oh, he's quiet. What's going on? Oh, my wife will come to me and say, what's wrong? I'll be like, you know, I'm a trained professional and therapist and work with men all the year. So when she comes to me, it says, what's wrong? I'll say nothing. Yeah. I get that. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing's wrong. Right. And what's going on in my head is, I don't want to make this worse than it is. I don't, I don't want to tell you you don't feel emotionally safe to share with her. Correct. Which is really the crux of it, right? Because when we feel emotionally safe, you would be able to say, you know, hun, I, I got rubbed the wrong way when you were, I don't know. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I think by creating awareness of these kind of things and these dynamics that happen in relationships, then that gives you the opportunity to be like, okay, you know, you say nothing's wrong. But what I'm experiencing is you're really quiet. You're looking at your phone. You're not engaging with me. I feel like there's something wrong. You know, and I think in that way, it sort of gives him permission of like, oh, she actually sees me and hears me. Yes. So he has this, okay, well, let me open up to you. Yeah. What's going on is, you know, when you told me to put the big knife on top, I got upset because I think you probably think I'm really incompetent. You know, I like, I don't know how to load a dishwasher. You know, I've been, you know, I've been, I've been, you know, I'm a 50-some-odd year old man and you're telling me that I don't know how to, how to load a dishwasher. And then she can say, oh, that's not what I mean. at all. And this was that's not what she meant probably. No, she meant, but she meant when you put the big knife down in the bottom, what happens is that the little spinny thing gets stuck and the dishes don't get washed. Right. It's little things like this. It's little things like that. Yeah. And it's the little things, Michelle, that create those little resentments. And that's what happens in this walk away wife is it's death by a thousand paper cuts. It's not one thing that he did. It's accumulation of years of him getting quiet, him shutting down, him not talking. You know, and for him, it's years of I don't feel safe. I don't feel like anything I do is good enough. Yeah, I could never make you happy. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the. That's a big one. Yeah. I could never make her happy. I hear this all the time. Yeah. And the thing is is and I tell my ladies this, when a man believes whether it's true or not, if a man believes that he cannot make you happy, he stops trying. He doesn't know what to do. So he does nothing. And then that makes it worse. And I think one of the things that we tend to do is we do tend to complain. But underneath every complaint, there is a hidden desire. So what I really encourage the ladies to do, and even men, is that when you have the propensity to complain, and I've caught myself doing this too, this is like human nature. We all do this no matter how much we know, no matter how much it just happens, right? But sometimes I'll hear myself complaining and then I'm like, I pause and I'm like, okay, wait a minute, I want to complain about this. What is it that I really want? And then sometimes it's very clear to me what I really want. I want my husband, Brian, to hug me if I'm upset. Yeah. Instead of shutting down and being, you know, not knowing what to do. But I never gave him direction. Hey, honey, you know what? When I'm upset, what would really feel good to me is if you came over and hugged me and said, I understand and validated what we need a roadmap. We don't know. We don't know what we don't know as well. And we can't expect our partners to be mine readers. No, we can't. And that's where it comes down to learning to communicate our own needs. And I love that, you know, underneath the complain is a desire. And the desire is that, you know, if I speak my needs, my needs aren't going to be met, right? So if I, and I probably experienced this in early childhood, you know, where I need something and then it's not, it's not met. So what I really need is, I just need you to hold me and feel, I just need to feel you like you love me. You're connected with me. You know, that kind of thing. And I remember, you know, a book I read by David Data, Callway of the Spirit, man. And he talks about this idea that when a woman is upset, she's not feeling loved. And so yeah. So he said, and then next time she's upset, realize she's not feeling loved. And so early on in our marriage, the marriage, I mean, now my wife was upset with me. And I had just read this passage. So I was like, I'm going to try this out. So she's upset. And I remember just clearly she's standing there and she's, she's just fuming. And I walked up to her and I just kind of grabbed her by the face gently. I said, babe, I am not going anywhere. I love you. And she, that's what she did. She collapsed. And she went, I just want to say you just, yeah, you just kind of hear. And I'm like, come on, not it works. Yeah. It does work because that's what we all want. We all want to feel loved and hurt and see. And also that I loved that you grabbed her face. I think that that is such a powerful thing to do to a woman. Grab her face and say, hey, I'm not going anywhere. I know that men need to hear that too. They do. They do. But but they also, they also need to understand that when she's upset, this kind of goes back to the emotional regulation piece of, I need to, I need to work on my emotion so that I don't collapse and shut down. So when she's angry with me, what I do is I get hurt and angry and feel unimportant, disrespected and so that I shut down. And so now you have two people that are hurt. And one of them has to be able to kind of break out of that. And men because, you know, as as leaders in your own life to be able to to be the one that goes and says, Hey, I'm not going anywhere. I got you, you know, she just needs to hear that. And I think that, you know, those are the kind of things that men just don't know how to do. They don't they don't nobody taught us how to do that. And and so it's it tell guys, it's the skill set that you can learn, right? Because men are very like, give me a give me the directions. What I do, ABC, you know, and and to be able to like feel into your own heart of like in that moment, I love that. I wasn't just saying, I'm not going anywhere, I was really feeling into my heart in that moment as well of like, you're not feeling loved right now. That's on me. That hurts me to know that you're not feeling loved right now. Yes, that's such a powerful thing to say. And to know, that's where we're going to pause today on monarchal love. I hope this conversation has already sparked some deep reflection, whether you're a husband, a wife, or someone trying to be better to better understand the dynamics of lasting love. Chuck has given us power of powerful lens into what's really happening when emotional distance creeps in. And we're just getting started. In part two, we're going to get even deeper. How men can start showing up differently. What rebuilding trust really looks like and the small shifts that can lead to big breakthroughs in your relationship. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. And if this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. I'm Michelle Hayes and this is Monarch for Love. See you next week in part two.