This article by ELAINE BRINKLEY (SMITH) of Missouri Western State University does not mention MLC but addresses spousal abandonment and discusses many of the themes we explore here, including both male and female abandonment.
It also mentions a book, now out of print, called "Sudden Endings," by Madeline Bennett, about "wife rejection syndrome." Bennett (pseudonym) was an LBS who wanted to understand what happened to her H. I read it. It was helpful in elucidating why men abandon their wives (and confirms what we learn here) but it was not encouraging of reconciliation (although it does acknowledge R). The article includes the results of a survey Bennett conducted in the 1980s, pre-internet. I have copied here the main part of the article and not the survey.
Here's the link to the full piece, including Bennett's survey:
http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/61.phpThe Dynamics of Marital Disintegration
The ceremony of marriage involves a symbolic joining of two becoming one. This implies that over the years of the relationship each partner`s identity comes to include the other`s. This identity shift is a normal aspect of marriage; a person`s \"I\" includes an identification of being part of a couple. In a long term relationship, spouses` lives become interwoven and divorce can leave a major gap in a person`s sense of \"I,\" for whether the relationship is \"good\" or \"bad,\" the identity shift implies no longer seeing the spouse as just a love object but includes the spouse as part of one`s own identity (Schell, 1990).
Spanier and Thompson (1983) find that individuals dealing with spouse initiated separation report greater distress levels. Timing also plays a role; separations without much forewarning are significantly more disturbing (Spanier & Casto, 1979). Schell (1994) suggests that human beings inhabit a literal and symbolic reality and so a divorce can symbolize a literal death that must be grieved. Stevens and Gardner (1994, p. 121) cite the work of Cassidy in saying that
`Next to the death of a loved one, a divorce is the most severe trauma an adult can experience. Every emotional reaction is possible: anger, despair, guilt, depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, euphoria.`
It is proposed that abandoned spouses go through clinically much of the same processes as widows whose spouses have died (Schell, 1994). Physical and mental symptoms occur such as preoccupation with the lost person, guilt, restlessness, hypervigilance and difficulty sleeping (Myers, 1989).
Further, the abandonee faces bereavement without the benefit of normal community support, without the custom of rituals, and often without an internal awareness that grieving will take place. This lack of awareness can lead to denial and, therefore, prolong the grief. Shell (1994) quotes on abandoned woman as saying, \"I wish he had actually died -- it would be much easier.\" A literal death would have led to grief but much less the feeling of rejection, and would have provided a context in which social support would have occurred. It would have included normal aspects of the grieving process that help move along the bereavement process -- a gathering of the families, the funeral and burial, the signing of legal forms, the sorting of possessions and the reading of wills. Symbolic death causes the rejected to face legal details that magnify the struggle of rejection. Schell (1994) provides an outline of the consequences of having lost a spouse through his or her decision to leave.
Initially it brings about shock and disbelief. Friends tend to provide support briefly for grief and longer for the anger that follows. Abandonees are then encouraged to move on in life. It is often not acknowledged that a death, albeit a symbolic death has occurred, not even by the abandonee. Schell proposes that this lack of acknowledgement may be symptomatic of \"our individual resistance to face the many deaths that are inherent in a rapidly changing culture.\"
Increasingly, the best psychological theories of the marital satisfaction and divorce distress phenomena make use of the attachment theory of Bowlby. Marriage provides an opportunity to reestablish attachment relationships that were experienced in early childhood (Stevens & Gardner, 1994). Bowlby (1969) defines attachment as \"the propensity of human beings to make strong affectional bonds to particular others.\" His theory proposes that attachments between parent and child determine the characteristic ways in which a person`s attachments are organized in adult life (Bowlby, 1980). Intense emotions arise during the formation, the maintenance, the disruption, and the renewal of attachment relationships. Loss of attachment causes sorrow and often is a phase of sorrow. Bowlby`s attachment theory, as considered by Kitson(1982), provides an explanation for not only grief over loss through death, but through separation and divorce too, just as Schell (1990) stresses. Attachment is always present in dissolving marriages. Greater feelings of attachment tend to exist the more recent the separation, and when one spouse asks for the separation. Attachment is seen as the primary cause of distress in divorce (Myers, 1989). It is a very powerful force, continuing even after the relationship has ended or is no longer rewarding (Kitson, 1982).
Bowlby (1980) presents four phases of mourning in the loss of a spouse -- 1) Numbing, 2) Yearning and Searching, 3) Disorganization and Despair, and 4) Phase of Greater or Lesser Disorganization and Despair. The Phase of Numbing lasts from a few hours to about a week and is marked by being stunned and unable to accept the news. The bereaved may carry on with normal life automatically but will feel tense and apprehensive; this calm is often broken by an outburst of emotion. Some report attacks of panic and say they find refuge with friends. Others may become very angry.
The Phase of Yearning and Searching for the lost figure occurs when reality sets in, and extreme distress, sobbing, restlessness, and preoccupation of thoughts of the lost are present. There is tendency to think that the lost will return and vivid dreams of the lost are common. Anger is also very common. The Phase of Disorganization and Despair requires the bereaved to achieve what Bowlby calls reorganization or a redefining of self. The bereaved must recognize the need of filling unaccustomed roles and acquiring new skills. If the bereaved can achieve these new roles, more confidence and sense of independence will result, they will be able to see a future for themselves (Bowlby, 1980).
Bowlby`s idea of reorganization of the bereaved having to redefine their identity brings to the mind Erikson`s theory of identity which also greatly relates to the institution of marriage and its disintegration. Erikson`s psychosocial modality of identity is to be oneself and to be able to share being oneself with others (Erikson, 1959). The achievement of identity, therefore, must come before the achievement of intimacy, and intimacy with another is a sharing of one`s identity. Intimacy as Erikson defines it is to lose and find one`s self in another (Erikson, 1959). Intimacy with another human being, therefore, has a great impact on a person`s identity. When this intimacy or attachment is severed, identity is enormously affected, just as Bowlby demonstrates through his attachment theory and idea of the need to reorganize.
Erikson`s counterpart to intimacy is distantiation, the readiness to repudiate, to ignore or to destroy those forces or people whose essence seems dangerous (Erikson, 1959). A spouse who abandons resembles this distantiation. Spousal abandonment happens to both men and women and affects men and women in different ways. The current literature takes a very segregated approach in exploring the phenomena of spousal abandonment for each of the sexes.
Amanat and Wiebmer (1985) employ the developmental theory of Erikson to explain spousal abandonment of women. They consider Erikson`s theory to be male oriented, saying that his eight stages of the life cycle (Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Diffusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation, and Integrity vs. Despair) are colored by the concept of autonomy, it being more socially encouraged and desirable in males. Author of the article, \"Women`s Difficult Times and the Rewriting of the Life Story,\" Helson (1992) agrees with this notion and notes the observation of feminist critics in their comparing of literature that heroic stories of men most often begin in the youth stages while stories of female heroines are told as though the woman`s life, her heroism, begins upon marriage.
In order to achieve identity and then intimacy, a person must first relinquish attachment needs of childhood and become more autonomous. Further, the stages of generativity and integrity are heavily intertwined with work achievements and work to establish identity in the world. A person`s work achievements and independent identity in the world do not coincide with furthering attachment and bonding with another person (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985). Amanat and Wiebmer present the notion that Erikson presents the female identity development as including attraction to and dependence on a male. A female`s identity has much to do with intimacy, therefore, her identity is \"contaminated by bonding needs\" (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
The authors also find Mahler`s theory of individuation as a source of explaining spousal abandonment of women. Mahler`s theory includes several stages (in the first three years of life) necessary to accomplish \"object constancy.\" The autistic presymbiotic stage is marked by isolation, self-stimulation, and attraction to human contact. Attachment, bonding, dependence, clinging, and imitative thinking are present in the symbiotic stage. The third stage necessary to achieve object constancy is separation individuation. It involves rapproachment, anxiety, ambivalence, fears of engulfment-abandonment, and mutative thinking (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
Mahler and Erikson`s theories both depict a male who is detached, distant, and individuated. But, it is assumed that during the intimacy stage the male does \"demonstrate adequate bonding capacity.\" So, since women`s achievement of individuation is inferior to men`s, they tend to play a \"dependent-passive, masochistic role with a heavy emphasis on self-depreciation.\" For women there is a natural fusion between identity and intimacy. This fusion between often leads to oppression and trauma (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
Amanat and Wiebmer have defined what they call Women`s Integrity Trauma Syndrome (WITS) as \"only one of the manifestations of this total picture.\" For, they relate, since a woman`s \"natural\" relationship style tends to be symbiotic, when feeling inferior she often enters into a dyadic, authoritarian relationship. Such a relationship would be one of dominance, submission, and complementarity. It would likely include a Type A (dominating, controlling, oppressive) male, and a Type B (passive, dependent, masochistic) female. The woman would receive her sense of identity or validation and integrity by being part of this relationship. She would idealize her husband, be socioeconomically dependent, experience guilt and shame, and display a false sense of romance. Her ultimate fear, and ultimate devastation, when and if it occurred, would be abandonment (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
Such a woman`s dependence would exploit her husband, making her feel a sense of control. The dominant, demanding male feeling superior, would encourage his wife`s dependence. His need to be idealized would promote feelings of guilt and helplessness in his spouse. He would usually be committed to a long term relationship even when he feels exploited and persecuted (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
In their work with twenty-two middle-aged women whose husbands abandoned them, Amanat and Wiebmer (1985) found the women to be lodged firmly in the development needs and authoritarian dyads. The women experienced a sense of loss and annihilation, a loss of a sense of purpose, an intense self-blaming, a suicidal ideation, and physical symptoms. Their symptoms were viewed as more resembling \"self-threatening traumas than typical grief reactions of denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance.\" The authors describe three phases of the Women`s Integrity Trauma Syndrome.
The initial phase or alarm phase, like in post-traumatic stress disorder syndromes, lasts several days to weeks. It characterized by feelings of shattering annihilation, hyperemotionalism, severe guilt, depression, shame, worthlessness, humiliation, helplessness, bitterness, and multiple fears. The woman may also experience a survival challenge, blocking of thoughts, suicide ideation, somatic complaints, a sense of vulnerability, and a profound sense of nothingness (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
Phase two of WITS is the reorganization phase. This phase is marked by a prevalence of symbiotic clinging and attachment. Common responses include alcohol or drug use, regressive behaviors, nightmares, and hypochondriasis. The last phase of WITS is the adaptation phase and Amanat and Wiebmer (1985) observe it to be almost impossible to achieve because of such complicating factors as a \"concreteness of formal thinking,\" a lack of social support, or limitation of interests. It is also noted that a failure to make progress in this adaptation can lead to psychotic reactions (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
he authors propose some interesting implications for the therapy of WITS victims. They report finding it necessary to accept clients` sense of nothingness because when they tried to \"talk them out of it,\" the women`s feelings of annihilation increased. When the women felt that their feelings of nonexistence were accepted, they were more trusting of the therapist and their own perceptions (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
The therapists then could allow the women to self-blame. The therapists found that becoming \"somewhat of a `replacement` for their lost dyadic halves\" helped the women to \"develop trusting alliance and gradually work them out of their misery\" (Amanat & Wiebmer, 1985).
Madeline Bennett, author of the book Sudden Endings, and herself a victim of what she labels Wife Rejection Syndrome, also offers some insight on the phenomena of female spousal abandonment. Bennett`s work, although biased, provides a thorough psychoanalytical explanation of sudden rejections in marriages, especially of wife rejection for she feels that it is more common. Bennett describes Wife Rejection Syndrome as the husband`s defense mechanism against overwhelming feelings of anger, shame and guilt, resulting in his abandonment of his wife.
The author sees her informal solicitation of twenty-five wife rejection cases as evidence for its commonality. She used three sets of questions to separate the cases of abandonment to be classified as wife rejection syndrome. The cases she evaluated included the wife`s account of her husband`s integrity, the wife`s expectations for marital longevity and the wife`s report of her magnitude of shock. These criteria were an attempt to screen out fragile marriages, especially marital breakdown due to drug or alcohol abuse (Bennett, 1991).
Many commonalities were found in these interviews. The rejected women reported their husbands to have been well-regarded in the community, to have left hastily without remorse, to have expressed elation at their decision, and to have followed up with acts of persecution, either, or both financially and emotionally. Much of the motivation for researching and writing of wife rejection syndrome for Bennett came after she sought therapy and found no satisfactory treatment or information. She says that the therapists were pessimistic and unwilling to counsel her and her husband together. They suggested that she stay away from her husband and seek individual therapy. Bennett, reports, however, that she found psychoanalytical therapists as more willing to discuss the syndrome and treat the family as a whole (Bennett, 1991).
Another characteristic Bennett says that she observed of therapists of \"other persuasions\" was that they appeared to blame the wife. She reports that many of the therapists that she interviewed in seeking therapy thought that \"the seeds of wife rejection germinate over a long period of time,\" that an observant wife could not \"be blind to such deterioration.\" Bennett, as a victim, disagrees. She describes the wives` \"blindspot\" as \"innocence about the reversibility of good and bad\" (Bennett. 1991).
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