Featured In Good Housekeeping - The Silent Divorce, Relationship Therapist advice.

Featured in Good Housekeeping, relationship expert Sarah Louise Ryan explores the quiet divorce trend, what emotional disengagement looks like in modern relationships, and how therapy supports individuals and couples - including conscious uncoupling - toward healthier outcomes.

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking about the “quiet divorce” in Good Housekeeping - a term that describes something many people have lived but few have named: the emotional ending of a relationship long before any legal separation.

Unlike dramatic breakups or headline-grabbing splits, a quiet divorce happens gradually. It’s characterised by emotional withdrawal, unspoken disengagement, and increasing distance between partners who may still live under the same roof and function together in life — yet feel profoundly separate inside.

This trend reflects a deeper cultural shift in how we experience long-term relationships: we are emotionally checking out before we ever check out legally, socially, or publicly. But quiet doesn’t mean harmless. In my therapy and coaching practice — both with individuals and couples — I see the real impact this slow fade has on mental health, identity, and future relational capacity.

Here’s what you need to understand about this trend, and why therapeutic support matters so much.

What Quiet Divorce Really Looks Like

A quiet divorce isn’t one big event. It’s a process of disengagement that unfolds in small, everyday moments. You show up physically - you share dinners, routines, and family life — but you stop showing up emotionally.

Partners stop responding to bids for connection, avoid difficult conversations, and gradually stop investing in each other’s inner worlds. This emotional withdrawal isn’t always visible to friends or family — it often looks like “tolerance” or “stability” from the outside. But inside, it feels like loneliness.

Psychological research suggests that this emotional drift often precedes more visible relationship breakdown by months or even years, and is driven by patterns such as emotional withdrawal, defensiveness, and reduced engagement in shared experiences. These early signs are subtle - missed laughter, unfulfilled curiosity, small bids for attention that go ignored - yet they matter enormously.

The quiet divorce phenomenon touches many couples, whether they’ve been together for 5 years or 25. One reason the term resonates now is that it provides language for an experience that previously went unnamed: partners who are together but no longer connected.

Why People Stay Even When They’ve Checked Out

The reasons are complex. For many couples, practical concerns - children, finances, housing, family expectations - make legal separation difficult or undesirable. Emotionally, people often cling to familiarity and safety even when the emotional bond is gone.

For some, staying together becomes a compromise: sacrificing connection for stability. Others feel ashamed or scared of breaking up, believing a divorce signals failure. Still others simply don’t know how to articulate what’s been lost.

But staying emotionally disconnected can be just as damaging as separation, if not more so. Quiet disengagement often erodes self-worth, breeds resentment, and leaves both partners grieving a relationship they can no longer name or nurture.

Therapy for Individuals: Reclaiming Emotional Agency

For many who experience emotional withdrawal in a partnership, individual therapy becomes a lifeline. People often walk into my practice feeling confused, numb, or guilty - unsure whether they should leave, fight for the relationship, or simply numb their feelings with routine.

Therapy helps individuals:• Identify emotional patterns and unmet needs• Reconnect with their authentic self — not the self who “survives” a marriage, but the self who feels inside it• Understand attachment styles that shaped how they relate to intimacy and conflict• Process grief for the emotional phases of the relationship that already ended• Build clarity around whether the relationship can be repaired or ought to be redefined

Individual therapy provides a safe space to explore not just the reality of the relationship, but how you have stopped showing up emotionally and why.

Therapy for Couples: Repair, Reconnect, or Redefine

Couples therapy isn’t just about “saving a relationship.” It’s about creating clarity and safety in the space between two people. In quiet divorces, partners often stop communicating long before they stop caring. Therapy helps bring truth back into the conversation, even when that truth is painful.

With therapeutic support, couples can:• Rebuild emotional safety by re-affirming each other’s needs instead of avoiding them• Learn how to recognise and respond to everyday bids for connection - the tiny moments that build intimacy• Understand the interplay between conflict, avoidance, and emotional distance• Explore whether the relationship can be revitalised with attuned communication and shared goals• Identify when emotional disengagement is irreversible so they can part ways consciously and respectfully

Sometimes couples rediscover connection and decide to recommit with new understanding. Other times, therapy reveals that the relationship has already ended emotionally - and separation becomes a healthier choice.

Conscious Uncoupling: Ending With Awareness, Not Disconnection

For couples who realise that their relationship no longer meets both partners’ needs, there is a constructive alternative to silent suffering: conscious uncoupling.

This term - popularised in cultural discourse and grounded in relational theory - refers to separating in a way that prioritises mutual understanding, personal growth, and minimal emotional harm. It does not ignore grief, nor does it pretend the relationship was perfect. Instead, conscious uncoupling invites each partner to take responsibility for their contribution to the dynamic, communicate honestly and kindly, and leave with dignity and clarity.

As a therapist, I support couples through this process by focusing on emotional honesty rather than conflict avoidance. This allows partners to redefine their relationship without bitterness and to build healthy patterns going forward - whether that means healthy co-parenting, respectful friendship, or graceful separation.

Why Naming Quiet Divorce Matters

Language shapes understanding. Before there was a name for “quiet divorce,” many people wondered why they felt alone in a relationship that appeared fine externally. Naming this experience allows individuals and couples to see what’s happening rather than deny it. Once you name a pattern, you can work with it.

Therapy gives emotional language back to people who have been living in silence - and that alone can be transformative.

Final Thoughts

Emotional disengagement is real, painful, and recognisable to many. But it doesn’t have to be a silent drift into isolation within a shared life. Support, presence, and intentional reflection - either individually or together — make it possible to move through this transition with clarity and care.

Whether a relationship is restored or consciously uncoupled, the goal is the same: emotional integrity. That is the foundation for healthier future connections - and for feeling truly alive again, whether partnered or not.

About Sarah Louise Ryan

Sarah Louise Ryan is a relationship expert, therapist, and international matchmaker helping people navigate complex emotional dynamics in 21st-century relationships. Her work blends psychological insight with compassionate guidance, supporting individuals and couples through reconnection, transition, and conscious uncoupling.

Her commentary on quiet divorce has been featured in Good Housekeeping and reflects her belief that emotional clarity - not avoidance - is the heart of healthy love.

Working With Sarah

Sarah offers private 1:1 therapy and couples sessions for emotional reconnection, relationship transitions, and conscious uncoupling. If you are experiencing disconnection, confusion, or emotional withdrawal within your partnership, support is available to help you move forward with intention and care. Enquire here.