What is emotional starvation?

”Emotional starvation,” “anorexic marriage,” are terms to describe a complete lack of affection in a marriage.

This Reddit poster said he was divorcing his wife after more than 30 years. At age 61, he had envisioned entering retirement with his spouse by his side. Instead they are filing papers and selling the house.

What led to this marital demise? He says at age 50, his wife began to ignore him emotionally. She was never a hugger or really affectionate. But he says in the early years, they balanced each other out. She was the calm, collected one while he was more emotional and spontaneous.

But now, she completely shuts him out, and divorce seemed the only option. The comments were completely supportive of his plight. One man sympathized, saying he went through almost the exact same ordeal:

And what has helped me was going nearly no contact. We still have young-ish kids so no contact is impossible, but for the most part we are no longer friends or atleast don’t communicate about things other than kids and finances. I’ve also been dating someone (I know it’s early) that actually HUGS me. She’s a saint, a truly wonderful soul and the opposite of my ex affection wise.I’m excited for you brother, you were dying (like me). You’ll be able to breathe again.

Can you fix a love starved union?

In this article Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten explains that an affection-less marriage is basically a loveless marriage. Because a lot of times the spouses will still throw the L-word around.

She maintains that you need to establish a deadline. For instance, give the partners six months to get closer. And if that doesn’t work, it may be time to split.

How to Move On after a Split

In this article, therapists recommend you should acknowledge the pain you are feeling and work on self care. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Lean into your support system. You will need friends and family more than ever now.

How do you make sure you don’t make the same mistake again?

This article explains that you need to ask yourself certain questions every time you begin dating someone new:

1. Do they embarrass you by their behavior?

2. How do they treat their families?

3. Does the relationship take too much work?

I remember talking casually to a therapist in my 20’s and she told me, “If someone asks you how your relationship is going and you can’t say simply ‘fine,’ there is something wrong. When you have to give an explanation and there is too much drama, it spells trouble.”

That conversation stuck with me. I realized that an exciting, spontaneous, unreliable person who is constantly keeping you on your toes may not be the person you want to spend your life with.

Because those quirky, charming and mysterious personality traits that attracted you, will likely turn into a noncommittal, self absorbed all-about-me persona.

The 61 year old “grey divorcee” in the Reddit post said his wife eventually filed for divorce. And eventually he thanked her, because it opened a whole new life for him, with hope instead of dread. And he doesn’t feel like he could have pulled the plug on the marriage if his wife hadn’t done it first.

He said he realized what attracted him to her in the first place is eventually what led to the demise of their marriage. And he knows now that it is never too late to start over, even in your sixties or beyond.

Grey divorces aren’t as unheard oof as they once wore…maybe for a reason.