The Gray Wave: Why Women Are Leaving

She purchased it off of Amazon, in hopes he would finally “get” it, see she was drowning and step up. The Fair Play Deck is sold as a game, but it’s really meant to hit men over the head and drive home the point they don’t even do half of the emotional, physical and mental labor required in a partnership. 

The premise is simple: lay out all the task cards, pick the ones that apply to your family and then divvy up who is doing what. At the end of the “game,” she had 66 cards and he had four. His response, “you’re just better at it.”

They’re calling it The Gray Divorce or The Gray Wave. Headlines frame it as an exodus driven by men’s weaponized incompetence, the tendency to shirk or feign inability at domestic tasks, leaving spouses exhausted. 

By 2030, nearly 45% of women in their mid-20s to mid-40s are expected to be single and childless. As someone who chose to be childless, with multiple articles written about that choice, I find this rather refreshing. Morgan Stanley published a paper on this, it’s called the Rise of the SHEconomy.*

Women are choosing to stay single or leave their relationships because these “systems” are influenced by patriarchy, sexism and societal expectations. 

We’re over it.

Women are Quitting Men

We’ve never depended on our marriages to provide us with the emotional or intellectual support we need, we turn to each other for that. We surround ourselves with other strong, successful and driven women who challenge us, show up and understand the struggle.  

The number of successful women I know who feel guilty about their own achievements is staggering. The more awards, promotions, or revenue milestones they rack up, the worse things get at home.

• • Suddenly, her achievement translates into his insecurity. Instead of stepping up, he checks out or worse starts nitpicking every decision she makes, from business travel to what’s for dinner.

• • Research has a term for this: the “male ego problem.” When wives out-earn or outperform their husbands, it messes with deep-seated expectations, sometimes making men act out or withdraw. 

• • Studies have found the biggest threat to a woman’s career isn’t kids, it’s the person she shares a mortgage and laundry basket with.

I’ll break it down for the dense ones in the audience.

• • We’re tired. Tired of running a business and a household while their partner “forgets” where the laundry basket is.

• • We don’t need your money. For the first time in history, generations of women have the means to pick up and leave, and they are.

• • We have each other. Single does not mean alone. We are ride-or-die and better for the soul than another decade picking up someone else’s socks.

• • Life is easier without you. Women are sick of feeling guilty because they want more from life than refereeing grown men.

Stop with the Guilt

Stop feeling guilty for wanting more; guilt is our worst enemy. If your partner sees your success as a threat and isn’t your biggest cheerleader, that is a them problem. Show them the door.

If you’re carrying everything, do a chore audit and have the hard conversation. Most of us know just getting to the convo is a battle in itself, we’re gaslighted and “ungrateful,” cause they did that thing the other day and you just never even acknowledged it. Guess what, we get to ask for more, expect more, and it isn’t our problem to solve that society has conditioned men to do less, while expecting more.

So to all the exhausted, ambitious, glorious women out there, living without a partner who drags you down is not a failure, it’s a flex. I’ve watched countless friends stop apologizing for wanting MORE. Their only regret is not doing it sooner.

If you need company or just a stiff drink, my inbox is always open. I’ll bring the dogs and the dose of reality.

* The name of this study actually proves the entire point of this blog: Men don’t have studies on them called Rise of the HEconomy—oh wait, that’s called everyday life.T