It’s a common story in today’s day and age. A woman tells her husband she wants a divorce. He is stunned, blindsided, unsure exactly what went wrong. They were mostly happy, right?

The trend of “quiet quitting” has become prevalent within today’s marriages. Women initiate about 70 percent of divorces, although outside of marriage, men and women end relationships at roughly equal rates.

After the divorce papers are served, men often say they were shocked, unaware the separation was coming at all and entirely blindsided on what went wrong.

That’s because in many cases, women had quit their relationships long ago — they just didn’t say anything, according to family therapists.

“Quiet quitting in a marriage is often a biological freeze response,” Christine Scott-Hudson, a licensed psychotherapist and the owner of Create Your Life Studio in Santa Barbara, California, told Newsweek. “When things in the marriage feel hopeless for a long time, such as when nothing a spouse says or does seems to have any effect on the state of the marriage, the nervous system might feel trapped and begin to go into a freeze response.”

That freeze response could entail shutting down, stopping communication and disengaging, but it’s less obvious than fighting with your partner, so the other spouse may be unaware of how dire things are.

Many things make “quiet quitting” in a marriage more common, Scott-Hudson said. For instance, if one partner has experienced previous trauma, they might shut down rather than fight for the marriage to work due to fear.

Even when one partner is “quiet quitting” the marriage, there might still be sexual intimacy involved. But there are key differences from before the marriage was on its last legs.

“When couples do the minimum in the bedroom to ‘get the job done,’ sex becomes obligatory and a chore, sex becomes routine and boring,” Scott-Hudson said.

“Are you rooting for your partner as vocally as you did in the beginning of the relationship? Are you wooing them? Are you dating them? Do you still go out and have fun? Or are you sliding off of the couch in your dirty T-shirt and sweats again, doing more Netflix than Netflix & chill? Are you treating them with hostility and disrespect and expecting connection and intimacy? It is not going to happen,” Scott-Hudson said.

Larger Implications

Divorce never happens overnight, but therapists say they see this dynamic occur time and time again, in which one partner is blindsided despite years of dissatisfaction on the other’s end.

According to Kara Kays, a family marriage therapist with Thriveworks, the ongoing trend is reflective of a larger society that favors passivity over open communication.

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Women Are Quiet Quitting Their Marriages
By Suzanne Blake
Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends
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5
It’s a common story in today’s day and age. A woman tells her husband she wants a divorce. He is stunned, blindsided, unsure exactly what went wrong. They were mostly happy, right?

The trend of “quiet quitting” has become prevalent within today’s marriages. Women initiate about 70 percent of divorces, although outside of marriage, men and women end relationships at roughly equal rates.

After the divorce papers are served, men often say they were shocked, unaware the separation was coming at all and entirely blindsided on what went wrong.

That’s because in many cases, women had quit their relationships long ago — they just didn’t say anything, according to family therapists.

Wedding
A bride and groom look at their phones during The Wedding: New York’s Biggest Day at David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center on July 8, 2023, in New York City. Women initiate around 70 percent of divorces.
ALEXI ROSENFELD/GETTY IMAGES
“Quiet quitting in a marriage is often a biological freeze response,” Christine Scott-Hudson, a licensed psychotherapist and the owner of Create Your Life Studio in Santa Barbara, California, told Newsweek. “When things in the marriage feel hopeless for a long time, such as when nothing a spouse says or does seems to have any effect on the state of the marriage, the nervous system might feel trapped and begin to go into a freeze response.”

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That freeze response could entail shutting down, stopping communication and disengaging, but it’s less obvious than fighting with your partner, so the other spouse may be unaware of how dire things are.

Many things make “quiet quitting” in a marriage more common, Scott-Hudson said. For instance, if one partner has experienced previous trauma, they might shut down rather than fight for the marriage to work due to fear.

Even when one partner is “quiet quitting” the marriage, there might still be sexual intimacy involved. But there are key differences from before the marriage was on its last legs.

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“When couples do the minimum in the bedroom to ‘get the job done,’ sex becomes obligatory and a chore, sex becomes routine and boring,” Scott-Hudson said.

Sign up for Newsweek’s daily headlines
These sexual ruts are often caused by communication breakdowns outside of the bedroom that then turn into a lack of passion and trust inside the bedroom, she said.

“Are you rooting for your partner as vocally as you did in the beginning of the relationship? Are you wooing them? Are you dating them? Do you still go out and have fun? Or are you sliding off of the couch in your dirty T-shirt and sweats again, doing more Netflix than Netflix & chill? Are you treating them with hostility and disrespect and expecting connection and intimacy? It is not going to happen,” Scott-Hudson said.

Larger Implications
Divorce never happens overnight, but therapists say they see this dynamic occur time and time again, in which one partner is blindsided despite years of dissatisfaction on the other’s end.

According to Kara Kays, a family marriage therapist with Thriveworks, the ongoing trend is reflective of a larger society that favors passivity over open communication.

“This growth in quiet quitting in marriage is an extension of other societal trends that favor passive action over open communication, such as ghosting in dating and quiet quitting in workplaces,” Kays told Newsweek.

When couples seek out counseling, it is often too late for any change to actually occur, as sometimes one partner has quietly dipped out of the relationship and is waiting for the best time to make their escape.

Jennifer Lytle, a marriage and family therapist at Joyful Journeys Counseling, said a common pattern of divorce that she sees in her work is this: “One spouse is content with not investing anything further in the relationship. To speak colloquially, they are done but will wait until a red herring gives them a credible out.”

Why Women File for Divorce More

While a common belief is that women want marriage more than men, that might be changing as more women enter the workforce and find themselves making just as much money and working just as many hours as their husbands.

This is on top of many hours of unpaid labor women often contribute at home. A Pew Research study from this year found that even in “egalitarian marriages,” where men and women brought home roughly the same income, women spent more than double the amount of time on housework than their husbands.

Additionally, the responsibility of childcare often falls to women, leading to frustrations as they often take on a higher share of responsibility for the household, while still working the same number of hours outside the home as their husbands.

When women do finally file for divorce, it’s typically after a long time of planning both financially and emotionally for themselves as well as any children involved.

Laurel Wiers, a 23-year veteran therapist at Lighthouse Counseling, said women often start sharing their unhappiness with their husbands while they’re raising the kids and either not working or making far less money than their spouse.

“In this case, they do not feel the freedom to be able to leave the marriage because financially they are dependent upon the husband,” Wiers told Newsweek. “So instead, they do their best to try to communicate their dissatisfaction but to no avail.”

After years of this, or when the kids are finally off to school, women then often have the financial freedom to leave, she said.

“Our society is still structured in such a way that if a woman chooses to be involved in raising her children or be available to them, it impacts her career choices which leaves her in a marriage that she has to remain in, albeit unhappily, in order to fulfill her desire to be an available mother and be financially stable,” Wiers said.

When this happens, the husband who has been told of his wife’s unhappiness time and time again starts to see it as meaningless.

“Sadly, what happens in the relationship is that the partner who has been told over and over again that he is failing to meet the woman’s expectations thinks that it is an empty threat,” Wiers said.

From the husband’s perspective, he hears complaints, but never sees any real action. So he has no motivation to change and meet his partner’s needs, Wiers explained.

“In the meantime, the woman sees the lack of change, loses hope and then waits until she’s in a position to support herself and/or her children to leave,” Wiers said.

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Women Are Quiet Quitting Their Marriages
By Suzanne Blake
Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends
FOLLOW
5
It’s a common story in today’s day and age. A woman tells her husband she wants a divorce. He is stunned, blindsided, unsure exactly what went wrong. They were mostly happy, right?

The trend of “quiet quitting” has become prevalent within today’s marriages. Women initiate about 70 percent of divorces, although outside of marriage, men and women end relationships at roughly equal rates.

After the divorce papers are served, men often say they were shocked, unaware the separation was coming at all and entirely blindsided on what went wrong.

That’s because in many cases, women had quit their relationships long ago — they just didn’t say anything, according to family therapists.

Wedding
A bride and groom look at their phones during The Wedding: New York’s Biggest Day at David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center on July 8, 2023, in New York City. Women initiate around 70 percent of divorces.
ALEXI ROSENFELD/GETTY IMAGES
“Quiet quitting in a marriage is often a biological freeze response,” Christine Scott-Hudson, a licensed psychotherapist and the owner of Create Your Life Studio in Santa Barbara, California, told Newsweek. “When things in the marriage feel hopeless for a long time, such as when nothing a spouse says or does seems to have any effect on the state of the marriage, the nervous system might feel trapped and begin to go into a freeze response.”

Sign up for Newsletter
NEWSLETTER
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Your daily briefing of everything you need to know
Email address

By clicking on SIGN ME UP, you agree to Newsweek’s Terms of Use & Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
That freeze response could entail shutting down, stopping communication and disengaging, but it’s less obvious than fighting with your partner, so the other spouse may be unaware of how dire things are.

Many things make “quiet quitting” in a marriage more common, Scott-Hudson said. For instance, if one partner has experienced previous trauma, they might shut down rather than fight for the marriage to work due to fear.

Even when one partner is “quiet quitting” the marriage, there might still be sexual intimacy involved. But there are key differences from before the marriage was on its last legs.

READ MORE
Mom stopping family seeing baby until she’s at least 6 months old backed
Woman fuming over daughter-in-law’s photo choice sparks outrage
Is 16 too young to try alcohol? Mom’s decision splits opinion
“When couples do the minimum in the bedroom to ‘get the job done,’ sex becomes obligatory and a chore, sex becomes routine and boring,” Scott-Hudson said.

Sign up for Newsweek’s daily headlines
These sexual ruts are often caused by communication breakdowns outside of the bedroom that then turn into a lack of passion and trust inside the bedroom, she said.

“Are you rooting for your partner as vocally as you did in the beginning of the relationship? Are you wooing them? Are you dating them? Do you still go out and have fun? Or are you sliding off of the couch in your dirty T-shirt and sweats again, doing more Netflix than Netflix & chill? Are you treating them with hostility and disrespect and expecting connection and intimacy? It is not going to happen,” Scott-Hudson said.

Larger Implications
Divorce never happens overnight, but therapists say they see this dynamic occur time and time again, in which one partner is blindsided despite years of dissatisfaction on the other’s end.

According to Kara Kays, a family marriage therapist with Thriveworks, the ongoing trend is reflective of a larger society that favors passivity over open communication.

“This growth in quiet quitting in marriage is an extension of other societal trends that favor passive action over open communication, such as ghosting in dating and quiet quitting in workplaces,” Kays told Newsweek.

When couples seek out counseling, it is often too late for any change to actually occur, as sometimes one partner has quietly dipped out of the relationship and is waiting for the best time to make their escape.

Jennifer Lytle, a marriage and family therapist at Joyful Journeys Counseling, said a common pattern of divorce that she sees in her work is this: “One spouse is content with not investing anything further in the relationship. To speak colloquially, they are done but will wait until a red herring gives them a credible out.”

Why Women File for Divorce More
While a common belief is that women want marriage more than men, that might be changing as more women enter the workforce and find themselves making just as much money and working just as many hours as their husbands.

This is on top of many hours of unpaid labor women often contribute at home. A Pew Research study from this year found that even in “egalitarian marriages,” where men and women brought home roughly the same income, women spent more than double the amount of time on housework than their husbands.

Additionally, the responsibility of childcare often falls to women, leading to frustrations as they often take on a higher share of responsibility for the household, while still working the same number of hours outside the home as their husbands.

When women do finally file for divorce, it’s typically after a long time of planning both financially and emotionally for themselves as well as any children involved.

Laurel Wiers, a 23-year veteran therapist at Lighthouse Counseling, said women often start sharing their unhappiness with their husbands while they’re raising the kids and either not working or making far less money than their spouse.

“In this case, they do not feel the freedom to be able to leave the marriage because financially they are dependent upon the husband,” Wiers told Newsweek. “So instead, they do their best to try to communicate their dissatisfaction but to no avail.”

After years of this, or when the kids are finally off to school, women then often have the financial freedom to leave, she said.

“Our society is still structured in such a way that if a woman chooses to be involved in raising her children or be available to them, it impacts her career choices which leaves her in a marriage that she has to remain in, albeit unhappily, in order to fulfill her desire to be an available mother and be financially stable,” Wiers said.

When this happens, the husband who has been told of his wife’s unhappiness time and time again starts to see it as meaningless.

“Sadly, what happens in the relationship is that the partner who has been told over and over again that he is failing to meet the woman’s expectations thinks that it is an empty threat,” Wiers said.

From the husband’s perspective, he hears complaints, but never sees any real action. So he has no motivation to change and meet his partner’s needs, Wiers explained.

“In the meantime, the woman sees the lack of change, loses hope and then waits until she’s in a position to support herself and/or her children to leave,” Wiers said.

Even if the husband does realize his wife is serious about leaving, it can be too late.

“At that point in time, the woman has emotionally shut off from her husband for so many years there’s no turning back,” Wiers said. “A common dynamic in my sessions is that the husband goes ‘all in’ many years too late. Sad to see. If only he could have had the urgency to change sooner. “