I know there are a lot reasons men and women don’t agree to a divorce when one partner wants to leave. I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish they’d just let their partner go.

Disclosures last week about Carl Bernstein’s book on Hillary Clinton which alleges that she refused to give Bill a divorce, got me thinking about the topic.

According to Bernstein, Hillary was worried about being a single parent. She also, apparently, had come to terms with Clinton’s tendency to stray before they wed, which is one of the reasons she married him.

I personally know of a few couples with similar situations where one wanted to leave and the other wouldn’t agree.

In one case, the husband of a female friend of mine won’t let her leave. From the things she tells me, he behaves like a sadistic, control freak and it sounds like he gets pleasure out of her unhappiness. (Many of their marital troubles revolve around his lack of ethics in his business, lying and putting his family in a precarious financial position).

I know of other cases that are less complicated, but have to do with economics, where the wife is fearful her husband won’t continue to contribute to the household if they separate.

What makes me the saddest though, is when women don’t let their husbands leave because they’re afraid to be alone. Maybe they can’t imagine not being with their husbands or they think they love their man too much to let him go, or perhaps they have low self-esteem.

I would hate to think someone was staying with me out of obligation, or worse, because I begged him not to leave. Letting the man who wants to leave, go, is probably the hardest thing to do, but it’s also one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves.

We’ve heard that when men fall in love, they fall harder than women, and that males are generally happier being married than females.

However, a new study out of Canada finds that men who had divorced or separated were six times more likely to report an episode of depression than men who remained married. Also, the rate of depression for men surpasses the rate for women. In fact, men were three and a half times more likely to have been depressed than women who were still in relationships.

Perhaps, but what the statistics don’t say is which sex initiated the breakup among these respondents. If it was split 50/50, the numbers are telling. Personally, I’ve seen both reactions, that of deep depression more devastating than the wife’s, and the reverse situation from the same man.

I was a close observer of a highly masculine, very handsome, charismatic charmer who was thrilled to finally separate from his wife to be with his longtime mistress full-time. Unfaithful, (that’s what I call him), was married to her for over a decade, had two children with her but was never “in love” with her, he said, and later grew to dislike her intensely. He couldn’t stand to be with his wife any longer, but I never knew for sure if his then-girlfriend had also pressured him to leave.

Unfaithful and mistress were married immediately. They were both deeply in love and had been for years. And truth be told, she was more suited to him than wife No. 1. Frankly, I thought his second marriage would last, but she walked out on him after 15 years.

He was angry and broken-hearted. A six-foot tall wounded bird so deeply depressed, he confessed to me he considered suicide until he started taking antidepressants and running around looking for women and sex again after a month or two.

Psychologists have long told us that some of the most traumatic and/or stress-inducing events are death of a loved one, divorce, illness, losing a job and even getting married—a happy, but nonetheless stressful life event.

It all seems to make sense, right?

Perhaps, but if you buy into some new research, it takes to task this logical information.

What ranks as more stressful than divorce? Forget death of a loved one or illness, because being promoted ranked more stressful than divorce, according to a recent online survey of business executives. According to the survey, nearly 20% of business leaders said climbing the corporate ladder not only beat out divorce in terms of stress, but also death and relocation.

Corporate life can certainly be an all-consuming hell, especially if you’re working with cut-throat colleagues but still, more stressful than divorce or death? After wondering whether these corporate bigwigs were for real, being so unable to see outside of their own life situations, it occurred to me that maybe the reason they find divorce more palatable than getting ahead is because divorce isn’t a constant condition, and is often a relief.

Surely at least a quarter of the respondents have been touched by divorce. And perhaps the end result of the hell of separation, legal fees, bitterness and even problems with children and custody arrangements, is well worth the price of freedom.

For more on this story, click here: http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/may/21/survey_promotion_more_stressf...