<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # So the walkaway wife did not wake up one morning... > So the walkaway wife did not wake up one morning and stop loving him. She finished a calculation she had been running for years, in the intervals between the things she remembered for him, and the calculation had two columns: the cost of continuing to administer him and the cost of leaving, and the leaving column included the mortgage, the children, the loneliness, the friends who would take his side, and it was still cheaper. {{The walkaway wife does not leave when she stops loving you. She leaves when the cost of running you exceeds the cost of losing you, and that line was crossed long before she said a word.}} He is blindsided because the scrounger never sees the ledger; that is what scrounging is. So blame precisely. If you carried him, he was not helpless; he was cheap, and he was cheap because you were paying, and the relief is that nothing was wrong with your standards or your patience or your love, only with your price. If you were the one accused, you were not unappreciated; you were unbilled, and the bill arrived as a lawyer. The instrument is the same for both: whoever holds the ledger holds the marriage, so hold it together or one of you will hold the divorce alone. {{Love does not divide the labor. The labor is divided by whoever can tolerate the failure longest, and the one who can tolerate it longest is the one who leaves.}} {{Nothing in your kitchen was a mystery. Two apes priced each other's effort for years, and the one who was overcharged finally walked out of the enclosure.}} **Source:** [[books/Chimping Out|Chimping Out]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “So the walkaway wife did not wake up one morning and stop loving him. She finished a calculation she had been running for years, in the intervals between the things she remembered for him, and the calculation had two columns: the cost of continuing to administer him and the cost of leaving, and the leaving column included the mortgage, the children, the loneliness, the friends who would take his side, and it was still cheaper. The walkaway wife does not leave when she stops loving you. She leaves when the cost of running you exceeds the cost of losing you, and that line was crossed long before she said a word. He is blindsided because the scrounger never sees the ledger; that is what scrounging is. So blame precisely. If you carried him, he was not helpless; he was cheap, and he was cheap because you were paying, and the relief is that nothing was wrong with your standards or your patience or your love, only with your price. If you were the one accused, you were not unappreciated; you were unbilled, and the bill arrived as a lawyer. The instrument is the same for both: whoever holds the ledger holds the marriage, so hold it together or one of you will hold the divorce alone. Love does not divide the labor. The labor is divided by whoever can tolerate the failure longest, and the one who can tolerate it longest is the one who leaves. Nothing in your kitchen was a mystery. Two apes priced each other's effort for years, and the one who was overcharged finally walked out of the enclosure.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-walkaway-wife-wake-finally-walked-enclosure ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->