Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: The Women Quietly Quitting Their Husbands

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Hello EICherries. We imagine you're all quietly quitting your work obligations right now, as we slither towards the end of 2025... but today we're going to be talking about the women who are quietly quitting their husbands.What is quiet quitting a marriage? It’s the slow, silent retreat that often happens behind closed doors when one partner, often a woman in midlife, simply checks out. Despite the fact that divorce rates among older adults have climbed over the past few decades, countless couples are staying together, because separation feels too exhausting, too financially risky, or too disruptive to the lives they’ve built. And in many cases, their husbands don’t even realise how far things have drifted until it’s too late.Monica Corcoran Harel writes ‘Passivity came up again and again in my reporting: Husbands tune out their disenchanted wives like Charlie Brown deflects the monotonous drone of his schoolteacher. They make flimsy promises to engage more on an emotional level or to help out around the house. Maybe they vacuum for a month or two. Or act all intrigued when a partner vents about an incapable colleague. But eventually, the extra-credit effort falls by the wayside or just doesn’t feel like enough. In some cases, the man’s need to be lauded for taking on a fraction of the physical load only punctuates how much a woman has to accomplish every single day.’We get into it!Thank you so much for your takes on this topic, we love being in conversation with you all and hope you enjoy the episode, O,R,B xxThe Women Quietly Quitting Their Husbands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth I'm Rocherra and I'm Anoni and this is Everything in Conversation This is our midweek episode designed to drastically improve your Wednesday and get you through to the Friday main Remember if you want to take part in these extra episodes Just follow us on Instagram at Everything is ContentPod That's where we decide on topics and ask for your opinions

Today, we're diving into a phenomenon that is far more common than most couples admit out loud. According to a recent cut article, it's something therapists are seeing, support groups are discussing, and women across generations quietly recognize in each other. And the idea is quietly quitting your marriage. So what does that mean? It's not divorce. It's not even a dramatic breakup. It's the slow, silent retreat that often happens behind closed doors when one partner,

often a woman in midlife, stops fighting, stops hoping, and simply checks out. Maybe she moves into the gas room, maybe she starts going on solo holidays, maybe she just lowers her expectations until the relationship becomes something she co-exists with rather than participating in. Despite the fact that divorce rates among older adults have climbed over the past few decades, countless couples are staying together not because they're happy, but because separation feels too exhausting, too inconvenient, too financially risky or disrupting. and in many cases, their husbands don't even realize how far things have drifted until it's too late. Monica Corker and Harel writes, passivity came up time and time again in my reporting.

Husbands tune out their disenchanted wives like Charlie Brown deflects the monotonous drone of her schoolteacher. They make flimsy promises to engage more on an emotional level or to help around the house. Maybe they vacuum for a month or two or act all intrigued when a partner events about an incapable colleague. but eventually the extra credit effort falls by the wayside or just doesn't feel like enough. In some cases, the man's need to be lauded for taking on a fraction of the fiscal load only punctuates how much a woman has to accomplish every single day. I thought this was a great piece. I wanted to know how you both felt after reading it.

So I, when I had the quite quitting relationships, I hadn't expected the piece to just be about marriage. And I was sort of like quiet quitting. It felt a bit trendy, a bit like, well, that's not. really a totally a thing it's that's just a but then I read the piece and I was like this is actually fascinating it is very marriage specific I think there is a conversation to be had about how women do do this in less technically committed relationships and less kind of like long term relationships and I think that is interesting but the idea of marriage is this like unique state of being that

encourages a certain threshold whether that's like years together or age or changing life to be I think it's possible to stay in but not be in I thought it was so. so fascinating and I kind of read it with a mix of like horror and sadness because I think I am a person that is a bit of a romantic and sees long term marriage as like constant work and acts of like real courage to stay in versus like oh I didn't realize there was this option to be in it but not really be in it and just like slog on but as we'll get into it in the piece there are some really optimistic parts but I think I was just like damn I don't know if I really would like this to be my future even though some of these women it's

maybe a bit aspirational because they're sort of just like, yeah, I'm together, but I'm just doing my own thing. I don't know. I've felt mixed feelings about this. It's a very well-written piece. It's very interesting. But I was a bit like, oh, this shatters an illusion within me and I don't know how to feel about that. Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel like I went in with all kinds of assumptions. And one of the assumptions was a good marriage is this very present relationship, whether, you know, it turns into more of a platonic union. Or I'm thinking, of all fours by Miranda July, for example, and there's the chapter when they decide to stay together and the nature of their marriage changes, but they're still very present for each other. And I found that so moving. And it was this decision to still really be there, really be there for each other. But this is kind of the opposite of that. It's kind of the withdrawal and the change is more veering off in different directions. And it made me really sad. And I don't know if that's just a very judgmental or. maybe even just a projection because it makes me feel scared the idea of a relationship changing

and moving away rather than moving together or the choice to start a new chapter. But it really challenged me and I was, I felt quite sad about it honestly. How did you, Filanoni? I had the same initial reaction to you, Beth. I kind of, when I saw the headline, I was like, this is going to be an article that could have just been a tweet. And then I read it and I was like, oh, no, there is more to this. I think that I also remember reading a book called Love Factually by Laura Muker, but I think the title got changed.

And it was about the stages of love. how you go through kind of lust, deep love, and then later on in life, it does just become companionship. So there is always that kind of like mellowing out of a long-term relationship where it might become maybe sexless, maybe kind of like passionless, but there is some form of company, companionship and kinship between this person that you've spent such a long time with, maybe like raised children with, whereas this is a very separate thing of like, there's not even companionship, it's simply that you've just given up. And we had a message from Hannah, which I think is actually really interesting,

which is just, is it that women are mirroring the effort their husbands put in? And I think that because this article is centering on women in midlife, that that potentially is going to be probably maybe the case in that these women, if they were married in quite traditional structured, married a man who was perhaps the breadwinner, they stayed home, they were kind of the glue that kept the family together. And then once they decided to pull away those resources from their husband, a.k.a. making them dinner every night, cleaning the house, whatever. So interesting that so many

of these husbands weren't even really aware that this was happening, they were just kind of carrying on with their lives. And when I did the stories for this topic, I did put the quote from Michelle Obama where she says, I just couldn't stand my husband for 10 years. And I think that within long term relationships, when they are so long, of course it's going to be like you might have really long periods where you don't get on, but you decide to stay together and hope that it works out but I'm probably more cynically than you beth I wasn't shocked or surprised or like didn't find it as sad because I I'm like yeah I've seen this happening around me I do see where couples are just like well what is the point of getting divorced you know I don't really have

the energy or the fight I don't really want to meet anyone else and at some point I think people do become codependent even when they don't get on even when there's not much of a relationship left the idea of kind of not having that person in your home, even if it's at such a distant, in such a distant way, would probably feel like losing a limb. And I wonder if now, even like a conversation we had off our about like, what are our expectations generationally from what life should look like? I think a lot of us have this quite therapist, if you keep working at them, can actually be great for a really long time.

I wonder if women older than us, maybe in our parents' generations, were like, this is just how it is and they just got on with it. Got a message from Emily who said, I don't think this is a new thing. It sounds like something women did when divorce wasn't an option with an updated title. It makes me feel a bit sad for both parties. If my husband emotionally checked out on me without telling me I'd be heartbroken, surely it's better to work on something or if you can't fix it,

walk away and be happy. It just feels depressing to me. And this is really touched on in the piece and like the reason why so many women, and it typically is women are saying, this has happened, but I'm not going to walk away. It's like busyness. They're like, divorce is a faff. Separating your lives is a faff and I'm just not down to do it.

And I think that's, it's a lot, I get it, it is a lot of paperwork. And also, like, I do understand being a woman of a certain age, being like, yeah, I know that the option is I could be single in dating and not with my husband, but I don't really want to. Like, the dating pool now, modern dating, it's hell and horror. We talk about it all the time. It's so, it's like apps, it's rigmaral, it's effort, it's potential heartbreak. I can see why, after you've given a lot of your. years and there are still a lot of life left. These women are in their 50s and 60s. Like there's a lot

of life left to live why you wouldn't want to live that period of your life searching or single or alone and why they would rather stay in a situation that is like known to them, understood. The boundaries are clear even if they were different than what they'd enter the marriage thinking they would be. And that kind of makes sense to me of being like, no, I'm not going to break up my marriage. I'm not going to break up my family. I'm going to exist. And I know I might be happy. I know that I could be single. I just don't want to be. I hope that is never me, but I kind of see the appeal or like the rationale behind that. We had such an interesting message as well from Monique, who I guess has seen the other side of it as a child of divorce. She said,

on women quite quitting their husbands, my parents got divorced and so effective conflict resolution was never modeled to me. I think this is often the case. Parents might argue in front of their children, but resolve it later at night when the kids are in bed. So for a lot of us, we don't actually see good conflict resolution take place. It's only through sheer determination, therapy, heaps of extra reading and an incredibly supportive partner that I've taught myself to be better at communication. Quiet quitting is just an internet rebranding of stonewalling, one of John Gottman's four horsemen, four communication habits that can predict whether a couple would break up or not. Every single couple has to have conflict. It's healthy and a sign that

you're looking after yourself. By not speaking up, you're abandoning yourself and your needs over and over again. But perhaps this is more palatable with a catchy alternative name like quiet quitting. I thought that was such an interesting point and the thing I kept coming back to in my mind was the rise of Lettham by Mel Robbins. It feels like one facet of the age when right now is this very deep passivity to relationships and communication and doing the hard thing. And that is not to judge any of the stories in this piece. I'm talking more generally in big picture. But I do really worry about this, this idea that rather than having the fight or saying the difficult thing or really being present in the moment and just saying, you know what, I'm not happy,

it's just easier to check out. And I don't think that's good for people's soul. I don't think it's good for anybody. And I don't think it breeds happiness in the long term to not be honest and to be present in life. And whether it's quite quitting relationships or just more generally, not having a difficult conversation with your friend who you're close to having a friendship break up with but you just decide to ice them out. I don't love this new facet of relationships that we're seeing more generally.

I also love Monique's message. I thought it was so insightful and interesting and I, because I think that there is a difference between, you know, like too much arguing and sort of like constructive conflict. And I think Esther Perel says you have to kind of got to break it in order to mend it and then it like it mends even better.

It's like if you darn something or fix something, then actually you make it stronger. It's got a stronger constitution. I always think this is true. It's like you have to kind of need the dover problem until you get to the root of it and then you can resolve it. At the same time, I can understand for these women who are kind of exhausted. And this is always my fear with motherhood is when I get into this train of thought of just this idea of kind of bringing up a husband, bringing up children, looking after a house, looking after a home, kind of losing decades of your life in servitude. and then thinking, oh, well, then I could go and start all out again, but you've like invested all this time and energy into this home.

Like one of the women on there I think said, like, I love our house. I don't want to move out. And like, you know, it's like I kind of get it. And it's probably not that different because it's not like there's any heartbreak there. It sounds like the relationships were already descended into something that didn't resemble a good relationship anymore anyway. So it's not like you're missing anything. You're just existing in the same existence you're having.

but it's just like more of a psychological reframing of it which is I'll just exist in this while I'm existing in but it's no longer a burden because I'm just going to decide not to care and I understand that there would be so much more power probably happiness and it does feel makes things that merry all of the life like what are you going to do

with your one wild depression's life well I'm just going to sit in the house with a man who hates me. It doesn't sound great but I do understand the impulse of thinking that is so much easier in a very like economically unstable environment where there aren't any eligible men and maybe you've been out the workforce for 30 years whatever reason it might be I can really understand the women making those choices I think even more

painfully sometimes or in most these cases like your husband doesn't hate you he you're a ghost to him you've had to become a ghost in your own house because he just has almost forgotten you exist and you've had to make peace with that and it's always again it's like the labor of the emotional labor being at the feet of the women or the work and like you said the thing about um kind of needing the problem like bread. And it reminded me of that Ursula K. Le Guincoe, which I will butcher but it's like love doesn't sit there like a stone. It has to be

made like bread, made and made new. And it's like with love and long time partnerships, it is like the maintenance and care the checking in like should fall on both sides. When it doesn't, it does descend into passivity because so often it is the women that socialised

to be the menders, the temperature checkers, the fixers, the kind of like we should work on this, suggesting they go to therapy, they do all of these things. Often by the time a man notices something is wrong, the woman is 10 years into already having checked out. And it is a very dominant attitude in heterosexual relationships that the work is the women or the work shouldn't be there at all, the work that to continue to like each other, to continue to be on the same page, to actually get on and be like, what do we want? Are you getting what you want? Like is not

decided on the first good day or the engagement. It's actually decided every day for the next 60 years and I do I love it like I always feel like I am being quite harsh on men but when I talk about men I'm talking about like men as they've been made to be and forced to be but I do think a lot of men do feel shortchanged in modern marriages when they realize they won't be getting their grandparents marriage that like the days of subservient wife and devoted home labour are done the day like obviously because women don't want to do that but also like the economic system does not allow a single income to run a household that's done

if you want a modern marriage that works a long time, you have to be, you have to be kind of hip to what that requires, which is like to create something completely new, both of your own, which is the magic of marriage. But when people don't show up for that labour, you just end up in an institution which it's just like an empty house. You're sort of walking around. She is tired from doing so much overwork. You are tired from feeling like you are not being served properly and it just like rots away over time. And I think that's where some people, obviously I've never been married, what am I talking about? But I think where some people really fall short, they enter a contract that they think they understand, but they don't understand and they aren't really

willing to renegotiate and renegotiate and labor and work. And so you just end up too strange at the dinner table. We also had a message from Sally and I think it touches on that, which is it kind of just makes me want to pull the idea of marriage into question. Would people still be in these relationships without the marriage aspect? And I think I think you you were right from the beginning, Beth, when you said that there's something about the marriage of it all that feels essential to this feeling of not having an exit or as readily available or this kind of pressure to stay into it or even just the financial repercussions I've heard and read so many examples of divorce financially obliterating people. And, you know, the idea

of pre-ups is still really controversial. Lots of people don't do them. And there's this idea only rich people do them when actually anyone with a pen and paper anyone should do them so i think there's just all of these hurdles and that is so real and that is you know undeniable and it it does feel like the bounds of marriage feel more trapping for people in these relationships where they're not happy because there's so much admin and so much life change and upheaval really to get yourself out of it so I do really get that, to be fair. There was an interesting bit in the piece where the male loneliness epidemic was brought up by Ralph Brewer, who heads the global support group, help for men, where he

said he thinks that more men would step up in their marriages or initiate divorce if they had more friends to consult and socialize to fall back on. He says, women talk to their lady friends about their marriage, men internalize what's going on. Maybe his wife doesn't touch him anymore, so he turns to the internet and gets fed a bunch of misogynistic stuff like men are kings and should be worshipped, he said. And there's this running thread through the piece about like women being able to discuss and think about their relationships, even though there was a bit about the ones that do get divorced, it'll often be because they suddenly maybe have a sexual awakening where they think actually how long have I got in this body where I'm going to want to have sex? Maybe I want to have a threesome. There seems to be like two sides of the coin with these postmenopausal women where either you go one way which is like sex no longer interests me and it's not something I want to seek out and I don't care or you go shit. I've not got much time left and I want to explore. Whereas. men again it's weird they're they're the ones that are always being kind of passive and hoping

that there's another bit where he says like the men just like as long as she's still complaining she's never going to leave me and then when they do they're always really surprised by it but I sometimes find it frustrating when the male loneliness epidemic has brought up because as even in that snippet it's explained why men are lonely which is that they're not as good at making sure to keep those communities that they don't I struggle with it I feel totally huge amounts of empathy for men who struggle because of the way they've been socialised because of the way the world treats them and how they've been taught to behave. But I find it hard when it's used as kind of an excuse when the problem is the exact thing. They've kind of put

themselves in that position. We did get a message from Anand that said, surely the healthy, mature way to deal with this marriage entropy is to separate and move on with your lives. I cannot imagine festering in a collective misery is good for anyone and you end up wasting two lives, theirs and yours and maybe even more. You sacrifice the potential happiness you could both find with others instead people choose to stagnate and there's a really interesting um quite sad bit in the piece where a woman says she spends years and years in this unhappy marriage she knows that she has to leave and she sort of puts it off puts it off and she's crying every morning she's going to work being like this situation is so wrong and then after she files for divorce she's diagnosed with Parkinson's and she

says quote I believe with all my being that I got my diagnosis from the stress of lying to myself and pretending we had the perfect marriage and family which is You know, I mean, it's a really upsetting thing to think. And like, who knows if that kind of can't happen? At the very least, we all know that living miserably puts like, you know, living in chronic stress and hiding things and having to orchestrate this big farce, does put a huge amount of stress on your body and brain. And it can cause so many physical ailments and heart attacks and death and chronic illness.

And it's like, it is, there is a side of this that women are like, I'm calm, I'm chill. I've accepted this. I've changed my life around this. I'm fine. But the other side is the stress of wanting, of quite quitting rather than doing the really, really hard thing does put a body under so much stress. And we already know that marriage, heterosexual marriage benefits the man so much more in terms of like income and health outcomes and well-being than it does women. And it's just a very sad reality to think some women are giving up the precious hours of their life, also their health and their well-being for an illusion of something that isn't real. And that bit just really upset me and kind of took me out of the other kind of cozy bit of women being like, I'm having great time. I'm learning to knit. I'm fine. I don't know. Well, I guess it's also, we've been fed for so long that women's lives and or kind of they die a death when you exit your 20s. Then they die a different death when you get married and you get taken off the market. Then you have children and then it's like,

well, you're nothing. And I wonder if so many of these women have really absorbed this idea that, you know, your good years are behind you. You're no longer fertile. You're no longer desirable. Like everything is, this is as good as it's going to get. Like, what else are you seeking for? And that's objectively, obviously not true. But I can understand also how those women might think, what is there better out, what is better that's out there for me? And it also, I mean, fundamentally on the financial thing, it's like that for so, especially if you've been out the workforce for ages and like, your partner doesn't have that much money to give you. For some people, it is just a trap. that's something we spoke about ages ago, or maybe I spoke about something else, but just

about people, even our age, not breaking up with their partners because they can't afford to be single. Like, that is a very real pressure. And I do think it's really sad. And I think that it's like, obviously there's a better way to live. But I think it's also maybe naive to feel too sort of like, oh my God, that's awful about it when presented with the options, perhaps a lot of these people think this really is the best thing. And actually, loads of them seem really happy with it that was the funny bit of it like lots of them like you mentioned beth were actually like i have a great time you know like he's there i'm living the same life but actually i go and get my nails down like they're not annoying me because i can spend my free time how i want it's not all

doom and gloom it is that thing of you've got to love as a verb bullhooks you've got to be like acting on it and working on it you can't just meet someone and go a relationship will unfold now from this point you have to build it there was a message from samanso who said i'm quite quitting my situation ship every time I try to go out, he negotiates and can't be asked. And I think quiet quitting situationships, that's a lot more cut and dry. Like, you're not happy. You want to break up. But it's sometimes just like, I can't be asked. I've actually got to go to work. Like, I'm just going to let this dire death. There's no like breaking down of the infrastructure and like shared history, anything to preserve. And I just think, I have, I think, been in that situation where I've had

to quiet quit a situation ship. And it feels awful. And it's like, you're thinking like, should I, should I send this long paragraph to a man? who literally does not care if I live or die and it's like he's just not invested in you a single bit and you're like rewriting and writing on the notes app and it's like you know like people you can sort of quite quit on you can exit out of the side because they won't notice and it's like it's like kind of a waste of time job

and it's like you never actually had this job honey whereas in a relationship you've made that promise and you've made that commitment and it is it's a lot more weighty and grace said have just loudly quit my husband devastating but empowering and over all ladies I would I would recommend Like, I think there's something to be said, not in situationships necessarily, although it is a bit empowering there. But in marriages, when you do say, no, I am done, I am choosing me. Like, that is, that actually does feel very flag in the ground.

This is the next act of my life. I really, really like that. Yes. And we do have to give people homework, which is you just have to read all fours by Miranda July. And on that note, Ken's message just and said, the solution is lesbianism. And you know what I'm convinced. If I had a pound for every time I heard that. Thank you so much for listening and for all of your opinions and takes on this topic.

We love being in conversation with you all. Please also give us a follow on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod. And please give us a review wherever you listen if you haven't already. We'll see you as always on Friday. We'll see you as always on Friday. Bye. Bye. Thank you.