Have you quietly quit your marriage?
It’s a new term for an old strategy: emotionally distancing yourself years before you formally separate.
Jan, a New Zealander in her 50s, is in a marriage that she left years ago. Her husband likely has no idea.
When I say left, I mean she tapped out emotionally with the marriage intact on paper. They never go on holiday together or set new goals. She likes hiking, but he never comes. They don’t have a joint hobby to gather around, and the kids have grown up. Their conversations centre on household logistics and are never deep.
“He’s a great guy. He really is. Got lots of good qualities. It’s just sort of, I think it’s just stagnated.”
About 70 percent of divorces in New Zealand are initiated by women.
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There is no abuse in their relationship, physically, verbally or emotionally. Things are fine enough, and that’s the problem: the hassle and expense of a divorce outweighs the 'meh' of her marriage.
Jan’s situation sounds like marriages from days of old, where partnerships were often endured rather than enjoyed, when the shame of divorce was greater than the disappointment of staying.
We now have a term for it, and it’s called quiet quitting a marriage. The term was originally coined to describe employees who don’t resign from a job, but probably should. Instead, they do the bare minimum to remain gainfully employed. That term has extended to the quiet quitting of a marriage, and the current financial climate and cost of living crisis in New Zealand has made it more common, according to numerous divorce coaches and counsellors.
“What I’m seeing here is absolutely people are getting stuck,” says Bridgette Jackson, an Auckland-based divorce and relationship coach.
“It's the long, often unspoken phase where the emotional connection really does fade, but no one has the clarity or the stage-appropriate support and therefore obviously don’t have the courage to either repair the relationship or separate thoughtfully.”
Auckland divorce coach Bridgette Jackson
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More than half of Kimberlee Sweeney’s clients have quietly quit their marriage years before they come to her for help, says the divorce and relationship coach. Often, it is an instance of infidelity that causes them to finally want to pull the pin.
“I think, you know, even our parents and grandparents were in marriages that they didn't want to be in and were there just because they had no other choice. I think it's got a new name. I quite like the name.”
She finds the women who are in a quiet quitting situation - and the majority of her clients are women - are likely in a traditional role of primary carer for children and homemaker. Women initiate divorce about 70 percent of the time in New Zealand’s divorces.
“They are fully aware that their life is going to change immensely if they have to be financially independent again and look after themselves.”
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It’s something that is mirrored in Jackson’s clients. About three out of four women who come to her for help have no idea about their family’s finances.
“It's not the 1950s. This is the reality in 2025. They don't know what they own. They don't know what he owns.
“They may have paid a few household bills, but that's about it.”
(While it is hard to say if quiet quitting is more prominent in heterosexual couples, anecdotally, Jackson has found that lesbian couples tend to be more decisive rather than languishing for years in a lacklustre partnership. One or two clients have been men in same sex marriages out of 1,200 clients in the seven years Jackson has been a divorce coach.)
Another ingredient in the mix of quiet quit marriages, according to relationship counsellor and divorce coach Kate Todd, is the continued unfair distribution of the mental load, the term given to the never-ending planning, organising and remembering that an efficient household requires.
Research overseas and in New Zealand reinforces that women do the majority of domestic tasks even if they are working, and men routinely overestimate how much labour they contribute to the household.
There is also a level of busyness in modern lives that means a divorce can be too much admin, says Todd. Quiet quitting is an easier alternative.
“That age group, sort of 40s with young children, busy lives, busy jobs, huge mortgages, big debt. It’s just not feasible for people to actually separate.”
Some people choose to remain in the quiet quitting phase of divorce indefinitely, according to Jackson. When a spouse eventually decides to leave, the other half - often the man - is caught by surprise, she says.
Partners are often taken by surprise when a spouse who has quiet quit a marriage years ago asks for a separation, according to divorce coaches.
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For Pablo, a man in his 30s living in New Zealand, it was his wife who was surprised by his desire to end their marriage, even after a stint of relationship counselling that he instigated.
“It was deteriorating at a very slow pace even before we had our son. After having our son, it became harder and harder.”
Their quiet quitting looked like separate sleeping arrangements so he could go to work and not be woken throughout the night by the new baby. The activities they did together that nurtured the relationship gradually dropped away.
As for Jan, she might decide to leave next year. She might not.
“I'm feeling like I'm living in limbo.”
The people she confides in want her to leave.
“I was given advice in my mid-30s to leave my husband. And they said to me that if I didn’t, in 20 or so years' time, I would think back and regret not making that decision.
“And here I am - at exactly that point.”
