‘I’m not going to come,’ Rachel’s husband Tom said to her.
The date had been in the diary for months.
The couple were going to meet friends for a curry – but at the last minute, Tom decided he’d rather stay home, and Rachel would have to go alone.
The next day, Rachel sat him down and told him ‘I’m leaving you’.
While it may seem extreme, Rachel Allen, 45, from Milton Keynes, is like thousands of women in the UK.
She fell into the trap of a ‘slow burn divorce’.
There was no big argument or a crushing affair. Instead, day by day she fell further and further from her partner, until she decided to call it quits.
The couple had met 12 years earlier on a work training course, after four years they got married and soon welcomed a child.
But the couple were gradually falling out of love, and Rachel realised Tom wasn’t prioritising her.
The day before the event, she now refers to as ‘Currygate’, Tom had been enjoying an evening out with his friends.
When he returned he told Rachel that he wouldn’t be joining her and he ‘didn’t care about the consequences’.
‘That’s when I knew there was nothing I could do to get the changes I wanted,’ she said.
‘The curry had been in the diary for three months as my friend was travelling from Europe and wanted to catch up with everyone in one go.
‘I had told him in therapy that I felt very alone a lot of the time and hated always socialising with my friends on my own.’
The next day, after the business owner had gone to work, sorted out the washing machine repair and made dinner, her former partner asked if she wanted to talk about what had happened.
And in that moment Rachel said she ‘was done’.
She told him that she couldn’t do it anymore and it was over.
‘It was important to me that he came, he didn’t – and so “currygate” was the end of our marriage.
‘I had given him a test really because I was so embarrassed he never came out or made an effort and he failed.
‘He just didn’t love me enough to give me what I needed.’
There had been issues throughout their relationship, but initially, she had seen signs of romance.
Tom had called up the computer course where they’d first met with a fake excuse to get her phone number and for a while, seemed head over heels in love.
But more than a decade later the spark had gone and the dating agency owner felt her relationship had become ‘complacent’.
Her husband was more introverted and needed his own space which to Rachel felt like she was being rejected.
After finding out she was pregnant, she had hoped things would improve, but after their son was born the dynamic continued.
‘I always believed that when we had a baby, it would be different.
‘He said would stop having big lie ins and gaming.
‘I used to spend a lot of time pretending that things were okay.
‘I’d spend a lot of time, when our son was born, on my own with my son, or going out with my parents for Sunday walks’, she said.
‘On a surface level, we looked like the perfect fit.’
Rachel often found herself ‘twisting the truth’ and making excuses for her partner when he failed to socialise with their friends.
‘When he wasn’t coming out with my friends I would lie and I felt so embarrassed and lonely.
‘I just wanted us to go out and be a unit,’ she said.
‘And I kept up a pretence for a really long time, until “currygate”, and then I just couldn’t do it anymore, because I knew that this man was never going to hear me’.
‘He was very shocked but there was no big gesture or anything.
‘All he said was “You can’t go we have a little one”.’
After the ‘final straw’, Rachel and her partner remained living together until Christmas for their sake of their toddler and parented in shifts, with one of them taking the spare room and making sure to spend time with other family members at weekends.
‘I’m not a needy person, but I have needs, and I need them to be listened to, respected, and met,’ Rachel said.
Despite their previous difficulties, the 45-year-old and her former partner get on better than ever and still co-parent their child.
Rachel also confessed that she believes her ex and his new partner are much better suited.
‘We now get on quite well, he’s got a new partner and we co-parent well – our son is happy and well adjusted.
‘I think he’s met someone who is a more suitable match for him and that’s a good thing.’
The red flags in Rachel’s relationship were familiar to Koosje Kosters, a couples therapist, who told the Daily Mail that many relationships collapse because of ‘quiet withdrawal’, adding the thing that kills intimacy is indifference.
She said: ‘We often believe relationships fail because of conflict.
‘But most relationships don’t end in dramatic fights – they end in quiet withdrawal.
‘What kills intimacy isn’t anger – it’s indifference.
‘The real reason relationships collapse is that partners stop being curious about each other.
‘They no longer see their partner as a mystery to unfold but as a problem to solve – or worse, as furniture in the room.’
She explained that couples have to engage with each other meaningfully or else one or both partners can feel isolated, as Rachel did.
Koosje added: ‘When couples stop engaging with each other’s inner world, they stop creating a shared reality.
‘And once you’re no longer co-authors of the same story, you begin living parallel lives.
‘You can spend years in the same house, eating at the same table, raising children together, and still feel profoundly alone.’
But the couples counsellor did reveal there are ways to avoid this by engaging with each other more intentionally.
She said: ‘Growth, however, is uncomfortable.
‘It means stretching beyond old patterns, facing fears, and renegotiating boundaries. But without growth, marriage becomes a cage.’
The counsellor added that it’s important to think about marriage as a constantly evolving relationship because that will encourage both partners to continue getting to know one another through changing circumstances.
‘Connection requires constant renewal. You don’t marry a person once; you marry them again and again, each time they change, each time you change.
‘Intimacy isn’t about knowing everything about your partner – it’s about staying open to discovering more.’
- Tom’s name has been changed
