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Retired Husband Syndrome: Are Women Getting Sick of Their Husbands? by Jed Diamond

When I wrote about it in my book Male Menopause, I didn’t know it had a name. I described what I was seeing, as male friends and colleagues retired, and how it impacted the women in their lives. “It was a bigger disruption to our lives than the birth of our first child,” Ruth recalled, describing her husband Jeremy’s retirement. “He had been working since he was a teenager and all of a sudden he has no role, no title, no job definition. He became very dependent on me, almost like a child.” She went on to describe the impact on her and their relationship. “I got sick for three months and finally took a trip to visit friends,” Ruth went on. “One told me I ought to leave Jeremy. But I didn’t want to do that. I knew he needed to find his own way and he finally did.”

I recently came across an article, in Ode magazine with a headline “Sick of Their Husbands in Graying Japan: Stress Disorder Diagnosed in Many Women After Spouses Retire."

"In Japan, 20 percent of the population is already 65 or older (the highest percentage in the world). They have been dealing with the effect of retired husbands for some time. In 1991 a psychiatrist, Dr. Nobuo Kurokawa, coined the term Retired Husband Syndrome in a presentation to the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine. Since that time he has given therapy to a lot of women. His advice is simple and straight-forward. "Come to therapy," he says. "Then spend as much time as possible away from your husband." Certainly retirement can be a time of freedom, expansion, and joy for the man and his family. However, for many it can become a time of stress and strain. In Japan women frequently use the phrase sodai gomi (which literally means large-sized waste) to describe their retired spouses. Wives feel so burdened by their pension-age husbands who sit at home getting bored and telling them what to do that they develop all kinds of psychological complaints. As older couples are forced to spend more time alone together, the divorce rate among those married more than 20 years — a group that includes most of Japan’s married senior citizens — is now the fastest-growing in the country, more than doubling to 41,958 divorces in 2000 compared with 20,435 cases in 1985, according to government statistics. I see similar stresses going with couples here in the U.S. Many long-term relationships fall apart just at the time the couple has the freedom to enjoy each other the most. Have you experienced Retired Husband Syndrome? Are you concerned that you’ll never have enough money to retire? Or are you concerned that you will have enough, but that retirement will cause more pain than joy? If you’re a woman do you ever think of your husband in a very negative way (large size waste)? If you are a man, are you concerned about your self-worth and how others will see you after retirement? I’d like to hear about what you think and feel.

Orginally posted at Thirdage blog

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