For a marriage to work, both spouses need to show up. It requires attention, effort, intention and strong communication. At the end of the day, many wives take stock of all they do for their families and wonder where their spouse has been.

These women feel they carry the weight of the relationship, do most of the emotional work and constantly have to find new and novel things to do to keep the relationship alive. It gets frustrating when they don’t receive equal (or close to equal) care in return. After a while, they say, ‘why bother’?

Many couples in marriage therapy have had the same argument about the same issues for years. When their needs continue to go unmet, mutual resentment grows ― a factor that is lethal to a relationship.

When women feel like they’re unable impact change, you start hearing statements like ‘You never listen to me’ or ‘your apologies are hollow and mean nothing.’ This is particularly difficult if there is an addiction involved. Eventually women give up on the relationship and begin to look for a way out because staying no longer is an option.

For most couples, sex is a good barometer for the general health of the marriage. When women complain about their sex lives, there’s usually greater problems outside the bedroom.

Wives in sexually frustrating marriages feel exhausted and emotionally starved. Or sometimes the issue is: can the couple be affectionate with one another without it always leading to sex? Sexual intimacy can easily become an issue that drives a wedge in a marriage.

Many long-married women are driven to divorce because they no longer feel emotionally tied to their partners.

In fact, I’d say it’s the number one reason women leave their marriages. This issue in particular makes an unhappy spouse so much more vulnerable to having an affair and looking for that connection elsewhere.

It’s inevitable that people will grow as individuals throughout the course of their relationship. It only becomes a real issue when they grow apart and one partner is resistant to reconnecting.

As a marriage changes and evolves, it’s not uncommon to hear a wife tell her husband ‘I feel like I’ve outgrown you’ ― especially if they’ve had kids. Often the wife has invited and encouraged her spouse to go to therapy, to bridge that gap. If he’s resistant, it creates an impasse for the couple: The wife does not want to continue to repeat the same unhealthy patterns and he wants to maintain the status quo.

Often, longstanding issues like addiction or uncontrolled anger will simply push women over the edge. What therapists hear again and again is that they would rather end their marriage than face another day, week or year with their spouse and troubling issues that never get better.

Sometimes, despite their love, commitment and best roll-up-their-sleeves efforts to stay married, people just reach a point of no return and choose to split up.

(Text by bauersyndication.com.au / Additional reporting by Natalya Molok)