{"id":40762,"date":"2026-03-04T12:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T10:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/?p=40762"},"modified":"2026-03-23T13:26:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T11:26:51","slug":"the-psychology-behind-late-stage-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/the-psychology-behind-late-stage-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanneer Hy Wegstap: Die Sielkunde Agter Sening-Stadium Samesmelting"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"thrive-gutenberg_block\" class=\"thrv_wrapper thrv_symbol thrive-shortcode thrv_gutenberg_block tve_no_drag thrv_symbol_40786\" data-id=\"40786\" data-selector=\".thrv_symbol_40786\" data-shortcode=\"thrive_gutenberg_block\" data-tcb-elem-type=\"gutenberg_block\" data-element-name=\"Gutenberg_block\"><div class=\"thrive-shortcode-html thrive-symbol-shortcode \" data-symbol-id=\"40786\"><style type=\"text\/css\" id=\"tcb-style-base-tcb_symbol-40786\"  onLoad=\"typeof 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[data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e17a\"]{padding-bottom: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;margin-top: 0px !important;font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif !important;font-weight: var(--g-regular-weight,normal) !important;}.thrv_symbol_40786 [data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e179\"]{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}.thrv_symbol_40786 [data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e1ce\"]{min-width: auto;}}@media (max-width: 767px){.thrv_symbol_40786 [data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e16c\"]{padding-bottom: 25px !important;}}<\/style> <div class=\"thrv_wrapper thrv-page-section thrv-lp-block\" data-inherit-lp-settings=\"1\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e169\" style=\"\" tcb-template-name=\"Quote 02\" tcb-template-id=\"5efc64c74927cf5d0366026c\" data-keep-css_id=\"1\" data-form-settings=\"__TCB_FORM__{&quot;form_identifier&quot;:&quot;grey-divorce-form-r6bnov&quot;}__TCB_FORM__\"><div class=\"tve-page-section-out\"><\/div><div class=\"tve-page-section-in tve_empty_dropzone \" style=\"\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e1ce\"><div class=\"thrv_wrapper thrv-columns\" style=\"--tcb-col-el-width: 2220;\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e16b\" data-tcb_hover_state_parent=\"\"><div class=\"tcb-flex-row v-2 tcb--cols--1\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e16c\" style=\"\"><div class=\"tcb-flex-col\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e177\" style=\"\"><div class=\"tcb-col\" style=\"\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e178\"><grammarly-extension data-grammarly-shadow-root=\"true\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; pointer-events: none; --rem: 16;\" class=\"dnXmp\"><\/grammarly-extension><grammarly-extension data-grammarly-shadow-root=\"true\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; pointer-events: none; --rem: 16;\" class=\"dnXmp\"><\/grammarly-extension><div class=\"thrv_wrapper thrv_text_element\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e179\" style=\"\"><p class=\"tcb-global-text-\" data-css=\"tve-u-19cb862e17a\" style=\"\">Every year, thousands of long marriages end not with a fight, not with a crisis, but with an announcement that arrives out of nowhere, sometimes at a dinner table, sometimes on a Sunday afternoon at a braai. For the partner who didn&#8217;t see it coming, the shock is total. For the one who left, it was years in the making. This article explores what&#8217;s really happening in late-stage divorce: the psychology of silent withdrawal, the six fundamental human needs that quietly go unmet inside long marriages, the research that explains why men leave the way they do, and the one explanation that, sometimes, really is the simplest one. Whether you&#8217;re trying to make sense of what happened, recognise a pattern before it becomes irreversible, or simply understand a very human story, this is a place to start.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"thrive-group-edit-config\" style=\"display: none !important\"><\/div><div class=\"thrive-local-colors-config\" style=\"display: none !important\"><\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"when-he-walks-away-the-psychology-behind-late-stage-divorce\">Intro: The Psychology Behind Late-Stage Divorce<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It was a Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A braai, a few drinks, the smell of smoke and meat, nothing remarkable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They&#8217;d done it a hundred times before, with the same easy rhythm that long marriages develop: someone tends the fire, someone makes a salad, conversation moves between nothing in particular and everything comfortable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And then, in the middle of that ordinary afternoon, he said it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Oh, by the way, I want a divorce. In fact, I&#8217;ve wanted one for years.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Just like that. Years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">While she had been planning summers and talking about the kitchen renovation, he had been carrying an exit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">She had no idea, not because she hadn&#8217;t been paying attention, but because he had given her nothing to see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The Sunday braai continued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The coals still glowed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And a twenty-something-year marriage effectively ended between one sentence and the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That story is remarkable not because it&#8217;s rare, but because it&#8217;s not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Not the braai, obviously, the setting changes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But the structure of it: the long silence, the sudden announcement, the devastating gap between when he decided and when he said so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That structure repeats itself so consistently across late-stage divorces that understanding it has become one of the more important projects in relationship psychology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And for the people on either side of that conversation, the one who didn&#8217;t see it coming and, sometimes, the one who is still trying to make sense of why he left, the explanation matters enormously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"a-pattern-with-numbers-behind-it\">A Pattern With Numbers Behind It<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Before we go into the psychology, it helps to understand the scale of what we&#8217;re looking at, because this is not a niche phenomenon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In 2012, sociologists Susan L. Brown and I-Fen Lin published what became <a href=\"https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/2012-29610-010\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">a landmark study, &#8220;The Gray Divorce Revolution,&#8221;<\/a> in <em>The Journals of Gerontology.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They found that the divorce rate among adults aged 50 and older had doubled between 1990 and 2010. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Doubled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For adults over 65, it had nearly<em> tripled. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That&#8217;s 3X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Today, <strong>close to 40% of all divorces in the United States involve someone over 50<\/strong>, compared to fewer than 10% in 1990, a seismic demographic shift that most people are still unaware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Now, what makes Brown and Lin&#8217;s research particularly striking is the profile of the marriages involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>These aren&#8217;t unions that fell apart young. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">More than half of grey <a href=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/avoid-divorce-by-creating-a-happy-and-healthy-marriage\/\" title=\"Avoid Divorce By Creating a Happy and Healthy Marriage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"2977\">divorces involve couples in their first marriage<\/a>, including more than 55% of couples who had been married for over 20 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The researchers describe many of these as &#8220;empty shell&#8221; marriages, relationships without obvious conflict, <strong>without crisis<\/strong>, without the kind of external drama that might register as a warning sign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They simply hollowed out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Quietly, invisibly, over years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And when it comes to who initiates, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/social-trends\/2014\/11\/14\/chapter-2-the-demographics-of-remarriage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">data from Pew Research Centre<\/a> consistently shows that <strong>men in long-term marriages initiate divorce more often<\/strong> than most people assume, and that after divorce, men remarry at higher rates and faster than women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Roughly <strong>64% of divorced men eventually remarry<\/strong>, compared to 52% of divorced women, and they tend to do so considerably sooner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes with younger partners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This pattern, long marriage, sudden exit, rapid new relationship, is not a clich\u00e9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s a documented, recurring behavioural signature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And it demands a deeper explanation than &#8220;he wanted out.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/older-guy-walking-hand-in-hand-with-a-younger-pretty-woman.png\" alt=\"older guy walking hand in hand with a younger pretty woman\" class=\"wp-image-40769\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/older-guy-walking-hand-in-hand-with-a-younger-pretty-woman.png 1536w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/older-guy-walking-hand-in-hand-with-a-younger-pretty-woman-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/older-guy-walking-hand-in-hand-with-a-younger-pretty-woman-750x500.png 750w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/older-guy-walking-hand-in-hand-with-a-younger-pretty-woman-80x53.png 80w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/older-guy-walking-hand-in-hand-with-a-younger-pretty-woman-768x512.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-gap-between-when-he-decided-and-when-he-said-so\">The Gap Between When He Decided and When He Said So<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Here is one of the most disorienting things about the kind of divorce that arrives without warning: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-medium-font-size\"><blockquote><p>It almost never actually arrived without warning. The warning simply wasn&#8217;t shared.<\/p><cite><strong>therelationshipguy.com<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Research by Dr John Gottman at the University of Washington, developed over decades of observational studies involving thousands of couples, identified a pattern he calls <strong>&#8220;husband withdrawal&#8221;: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">a tendency for men to disengage during emotional confrontation rather than engage with it. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scirp.org\/reference\/referencespapers?referenceid=613475\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">Gottman and Levenson&#8217;s work<\/a> showed that men experience physiological flooding, a state of overwhelming stress arousal, at lower thresholds than women during conflict, and that disengagement is frequently a self-regulating response to that overwhelm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, it isn&#8217;t always indifference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is, in many cases, an inability to tolerate the sustained emotional intensity that direct conflict requires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Over time, this maps onto a broader dynamic that researchers call <strong>&#8220;demand-withdraw&#8221;<\/strong>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">a pattern in which one partner raises concerns and the other retreats. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/2213491\/#:~:text=Abstract,overall%20more%20demanding%20than%20men.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">Christensen and Heavey&#8217;s work<\/a> on this pattern showed it to be <strong>one of the most consistent predictors of marital dissatisfaction <\/strong>and eventual dissolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In long marriages, demand-withdraw doesn&#8217;t resolve itself; <strong>it calcifies.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The concerns go unraised, then unheard, then unremembered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The distance accumulates so gradually that neither partner fully registers how far they&#8217;ve drifted from each other, until one of them has already, privately, decided it&#8217;s over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This is what produces the gap: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-medium-font-size\"><blockquote><p>the man who announces a divorce at a Sunday braai may have been quietly certain of it for years, running the decision on an internal loop, perhaps even grieving the marriage in private, while continuing to live inside it on the surface. <\/p><cite><strong>therelationshipguy.com<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For his partner, however, the announcement is a beginning, the start of an incomprehensible crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For <em>him<\/em>, it is <strong>closer to an ending.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s the last step of a long, silent process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They are, at that moment, in completely different temporal realities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And that difference is a significant part of why these conversations so often go so badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"before-we-go-further-the-simplest-explanation\">Before We Go Further: The Simplest Explanation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">There&#8217;s a version of this story that no amount of psychology will change, and it would be dishonest to bury it halfway through the article. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes, not always, but often enough to warrant direct attention, the simplest explanation is the truest one: he wasn&#8217;t just emotionally withdrawn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">He was somewhere else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Literally.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A <strong>history of infidelity<\/strong>, whether disclosed at the time or discovered later, fundamentally changes the analysis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And research is unambiguous on one point: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">past behaviour is the most reliable predictor of future behaviour when it comes to cheating. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/28785917\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">A landmark study by Knopp et al<\/a>., <\/span>conducted at the University of Denver and published in the&nbsp;Archives of Sexual Behaviour&nbsp;in 2017, followed 484 adults longitudinally across two relationships and found that those who had been unfaithful in their first relationship were <strong>three times more likely to be unfaithful<\/strong> in their next one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Not somewhat more likely. <em>Three times. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And those who had suspected <a href=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/signs-of-cheating-in-a-relationship\/\" title=\"Unmasking Deception: Recognizing the Telltale Signs of Cheating in a Relationship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"2975\">infidelity in one relationship<\/a> were <strong>four times more likely to encounter it again<\/strong> in the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Now, the implications of this for long marriages are significant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A man who has had affairs during a marriage, even historical ones, even ones that were supposedly resolved, <strong>carries a behavioural pattern<\/strong> that doesn&#8217;t simply disappear because the relationship continues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The affair itself may have ended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-medium-font-size\"><blockquote><p>The underlying drivers rarely do: the appetite for novelty, the tolerance for deception, the ability to compartmentalise, the willingness to prioritise personal desire over relational cost. <\/p><cite><strong>therelationshipguy.com<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">These don&#8217;t evaporate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They wait for the right conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This matters because there are women who spend years trying to understand what went wrong, what they missed, what they failed to provide, what they could have done differently, when the more honest answer is that<strong> the problem was never really about the marriage. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It was about a man with a pattern that pre-existed the marriage and will likely survive it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The new, younger woman in those cases isn&#8217;t a symptom of unmet psychological needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">She&#8217;s the <strong>latest chapter in a longer story.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/and-older-man-in-bed-with-a-younger-woman.png\" alt=\"and older man in bed with a younger woman\" class=\"wp-image-40776\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/and-older-man-in-bed-with-a-younger-woman.png 1536w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/and-older-man-in-bed-with-a-younger-woman-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/and-older-man-in-bed-with-a-younger-woman-750x500.png 750w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/and-older-man-in-bed-with-a-younger-woman-80x53.png 80w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/and-older-man-in-bed-with-a-younger-woman-768x512.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That said, and this distinction is crucial, not every late-stage divorce involves infidelity, and not every man who remarries quickly was cheating before he left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That is important to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The serial infidelity pattern is <em>one<\/em> explanation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is not the only one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">What the research invites us to do is to look clearly at the actual history of the relationship, rather than the story we&#8217;ve told ourselves about it, and ask what it honestly contains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Because the explanation that fits will shape everything that comes after, including, most importantly, the kind of healing that&#8217;s actually available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"why-the-younger-woman-isnt-usually-the-real-explanation\">Why the Younger Woman Isn&#8217;t Usually the Real Explanation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Now, in cases where infidelity isn&#8217;t the primary driver, <strong>the appearance of a new and younger partner still demands explanation<\/strong>, because it follows so quickly, and because it can feel, to the person left behind, like the clearest possible message about what was lacking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">She was younger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">More exciting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">More attractive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The conclusion almost writes itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But psychology rarely lets the obvious explanation stand unchallenged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In most cases, the new partner is less a cause than a mirror, someone who reflects back a version of the man that the marriage, over time, had stopped reflecting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Understanding what that mirror was showing him requires going somewhere most conversations about divorce never reach: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">into the structure of what we actually need as human beings, and what happens when those needs go unmet long enough.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"six-needs-one-slow-unravelling\">Six Needs, One Slow Unravelling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">There is a framework, developed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tonyrobbins.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">Tony Robbins<\/a> and drawing on a wider tradition of motivational and humanistic psychology, that identifies six core human needs: <em>certainty, variety, significance, connection and love, growth, <\/em>and <em>contribution. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">These are not preferences or personality quirks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They are structural; <strong>every person is attempting to meet all six of them at all times, whether or not they know it. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The way they get met changes across a lifetime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">What doesn&#8217;t change is <strong>the pressure that builds<\/strong> when they don&#8217;t get met at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">With that in mind, we know that long marriages are extraordinarily good at meeting some of these needs and extraordinarily poor at meeting others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The particular mix is different for every couple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But in late-stage divorces that don&#8217;t involve serial infidelity, there is <strong>usually a recognisable configuration of unmet needs<\/strong> that, when you map them out, tells a coherent story, one that often neither partner was able to articulate at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\" id=\"certainty\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\"><strong>Certainty<\/strong> <\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\">This is the need for safety, stability, and predictability <\/span>that marriages are typically thought to provide, and for years, they have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But <strong>certainty has a shadow side. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Over time, the very predictability that once felt like security can begin to feel like disappearance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">When a man knows exactly what every morning, every conversation, every holiday will hold, he can begin to lose the sense of his own agency within the life he&#8217;s built. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Paradoxically, the desire to recover certainty about who he is can express itself as the one thing that looks most like its opposite: blowing up the structure entirely and starting from scratch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The decision to leave, from the inside, can feel like the first genuinely autonomous act in years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\" id=\"variety\"><strong>Variety<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This need is certainty&#8217;s counterweight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s the need for novelty, stimulation, and the friction of the new. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This is not a character flaw. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is neurologically basic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>brain&#8217;s reward systems are highly responsive to novelty<\/strong> and habituate rapidly to the familiar; this is not a moral failing but a design feature, one that in evolutionary terms kept our ancestors exploring and adapting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">After decades of the same rhythms, the same Sunday mornings, the same way of arguing and making up and not quite making up, the hunger for something genuinely different can become quietly overwhelming, not because the life is bad, but because <strong>nothing in it surprises anymore.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\" id=\"significance\"><strong>Significance<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The need to matter, to feel seen, valued, and necessary, is <strong>perhaps the most loaded of the six in a midlife context. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Erik Erikson&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/1951-04438-000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">model of psychosocial development<\/a> identifies midlife as the stage of <em>generativity versus stagnation<\/em>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">the existential question of whether one&#8217;s life is still producing something meaningful, still contributing to something beyond itself. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For many men, this reckoning arrives against a backdrop of fading professional relevance, adult children who no longer need them, and a domestic life in which their role has become largely functional: a provider, a fixer, a problem-solver, but not someone whose presence is actively and warmly sought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Significance is the need that a new, attentive partner meets most visibly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">She looks at him the way his wife did thirty years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In that gaze, <strong>he recovers something he thought he&#8217;d permanently lost.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\" id=\"connection-and-love\"><strong>Connection and Love<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This need barely needs explaining as <a href=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/six-basic-human-needs-better-relationships\/\" title=\"Understanding Tony Robbins\u2019 Six Basic Human Needs: A Path to Fulfillment and Better Relationships\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"2976\">human<\/a> needs, but their texture inside a long marriage often does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is entirely possible for two people to spend thirty years together and become, over time, highly effective co-<strong>managers of a shared life rather than genuinely intimate partners. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The children, the mortgage, the ageing parents, the careers, the logistics of a full life can occupy so much relational bandwidth that the quieter work of actually seeing each other, being curious about each other, choosing each other beyond the practical necessity of it, gets quietly deprioritised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Brown and Lin&#8217;s research earlier specifically identified <strong>the quality of shared leisure time, not just its quantity<\/strong>, but whether couples actually enjoyed being together, as <strong>a significant predictor of grey divorce.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">When emotional intimacy has eroded to the point where two people are fundamentally lonely inside the same house, the absence eventually becomes unbearable for at least one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\" id=\"growth\"><strong>Growth<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This is the need to feel that<strong> you are becoming something<\/strong>, that you are in motion, expanding, moving toward something rather than simply maintaining what already exists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stagnation is existentially painful<\/strong> in a way that is hard to articulate but unmistakable when experienced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And midlife amplifies this: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The horizon of time remaining begins to feel finite, and the question of how to spend it grows more urgent. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For some men, the answer to that urgency is internal, therapy, new interests, or <strong>reinvention<\/strong> within the existing life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For others, the urgency <strong>expresses itself as escape:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">the feeling that this particular life, with this particular person, in this particular configuration, is not where growth is possible anymore.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\" id=\"contribution\"><strong>Contribution<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"> This tends to be the <strong>most consistently underestimated need<\/strong> on the list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Humans need not just to give, but to feel that what they give is received, that it registers, that it matters to someone specific. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In a marriage where a man&#8217;s contributions have become invisible through familiarity, where his presence is assumed rather than cherished, <strong>this need goes unmet in its deepest sense. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">He may be doing a great deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But if it isn&#8217;t felt as a gift, if it&#8217;s simply the baseline expectation, over time it stops feeling like contribution and starts feeling like maintenance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And maintenance, sustained long enough without acknowledgement, <strong>breeds quiet resentment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/an-older-guy-sitting-on-the-couch-looking-unhappy.png\" alt=\"an older guy sitting on the couch looking unhappy\" class=\"wp-image-40778\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/an-older-guy-sitting-on-the-couch-looking-unhappy.png 1536w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/an-older-guy-sitting-on-the-couch-looking-unhappy-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/an-older-guy-sitting-on-the-couch-looking-unhappy-750x500.png 750w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/an-older-guy-sitting-on-the-couch-looking-unhappy-80x53.png 80w, https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/an-older-guy-sitting-on-the-couch-looking-unhappy-768x512.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"what-it-all-points-to-and-why-it-matters\">What It All Points To, And Why It Matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Taken together, these six needs don&#8217;t produce a decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>They produce a pressure that accumulates over years<\/strong>, sometimes decades, in the silence that demand-withdraw leaves behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And then, one day, at a milestone birthday, a retirement, a health scare, or a perfectly ordinary braai, <strong>that pressure finds a way out.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Understanding this has practical implications for both people in the aftermath of a late-stage divorce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For the person left behind, the most urgent psychological task is often separating the impersonal from the personal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The exit almost always feels like a verdict on your worth, your attractiveness, your adequacy as a partner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-medium-font-size\"><blockquote><p>But in most cases, it is a verdict on a set of needs that weren&#8217;t being met, in a marriage where the silence ran too deep and too long for the problem to be named and addressed. <\/p><cite><strong>therelationshipguy.com<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That is a different kind of wound to heal from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is still painful, but it is not the same as being fundamentally insufficient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The question to sit with is not <em>what&#8217;s wrong with me?<\/em> but <em>what was happening in the marriage that neither of us was able to name?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For the man who has left, or who recognises in himself some of the patterns described here, the implications are equally important. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The needs that drove the exit don&#8217;t disappear because the marriage ended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>They follow him<\/strong> into whatever comes next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A new relationship may meet some of them brilliantly and expose others more sharply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The significance need might be met abundantly in the early intensity of a new partnership, and then resurface, unresolved, five years in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Growth feels possible at first; then the new life, too, begins to settle into familiarity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The six needs are not problems that a new relationship solves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They are the <strong>permanent conditions of being human<\/strong>, and they require ongoing, conscious tending, not a single, dramatic act of reinvention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This is where the work lives, for anyone navigating either side of this experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Not in the blame, not in the grievance, but <strong>in the question of what you actually need<\/strong>, and whether you have the vocabulary, the awareness, and the courage to ask for it before the silence becomes irreversible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Because in almost every case of late-stage divorce, that is what the long, quiet build was really about: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">two people who had stopped being able to articulate what they needed from each other, and neither one knowing how to begin again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That&#8217;s not a simple problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But it is a human one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And human problems, understood clearly enough, can be worked with, sometimes to save something, and sometimes to leave it with more honesty and less wreckage than the Sunday braai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"practical-implications-what-to-do-with-this-understanding\">Practical Implications: What to Do With This<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Whether you are in the middle of this experience, have recently gone through it, or are trying to protect something you value from the patterns described here, the research and psychology above are not merely explanatory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">They point toward concrete, actionable directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">If you are the partner who didn&#8217;t see it coming, the most important <a href=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/slowing-things-down-in-a-new-relationship\/\" title=\"Slowing Things Down in a New Relationship: Building a Strong Foundation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"2974\">thing you can do in the early stages<\/a> is <strong>resist the pressure to construct a final narrative too quickly. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The <em>&#8220;why&#8221;<\/em> is almost always <strong>more layered than any single explanation<\/strong> can hold, and grief has a way of flattening that complexity into a story that is either all your fault or entirely his. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Both versions are usually incomplete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Working with a therapist or <a href=\"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/relationship-advice-that-sounds-good-on-instagram-but-breaks-down-in-real-life\/\" title=\"The Relationship Advice That Sounds Good on Instagram But Breaks Down in Real Life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"3136\">relationship coach to map the actual dynamics of the marriage<\/a>, the patterns, the silences, the unmet needs on both sides, will give you something truer to heal from and truer to move forward from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">If you recognise something of the man in this story in yourself, or in a marriage you&#8217;re currently in, the most honest question is whether the needs described above are being named, not just felt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/12140959\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">Gottman research<\/a> makes clear that couples who develop the capacity to make explicit what they need and to hear what their partner needs without defensiveness have substantially better outcomes than those who rely on assumptions and inferences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The problem in most long marriages isn&#8217;t a lack of love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is <strong>a failure of language<\/strong>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">a couple who stopped being able to say the thing directly, so resorted to signals, withdrawal, and distance until someone finally said something irrecoverable at a Sunday braai.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">If the marriage is still intact and you sense the pressure described here building in one or both directions, the intervention point is always earlier than it feels urgent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Couples who seek support at the point of crisis are working with much less than couples who build the capacity for honest conversation before the silence becomes structural. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This is not pessimism about marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">It is the most <strong>practical possible optimism<\/strong>: the belief that what goes wrong in relationships almost always goes quietly and gradually, which means it almost always had earlier moments when it could have been addressed, and that with the right tools, those moments can be found and used before they pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intro: The Psychology Behind Late-Stage Divorce It was a Sunday afternoon. A braai, a few drinks, the smell of smoke and meat, nothing remarkable. They&#8217;d done it a hundred times before, with the same easy rhythm that long marriages develop: someone tends the fire, someone makes a salad, conversation moves between nothing in particular and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":"","tve_custom_css":"","tve_user_custom_css":"","tve_globals":{},"tcb2_ready":1,"tcb_editor_enabled":0,"tve_landing_page":"","_tve_header":"","_tve_footer":""},"categories":[12261],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marriage","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40762"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41115,"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762\/revisions\/41115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therelationshipguy.com\/af\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}