Retired husband syndrome

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Husband's retired syndrome ( ?????????? , Shujin Zaitaku Sutoresu Shoukougun , literally Someone's Husband at Home Stress Syndrome ( RHS ) is psychosomatic stress related diseases that are thought to occur in 60% of the population of older Japanese women. This is a condition in which a woman begins to show signs of physical illness and depression when their husband reaches, or approaches, retires.

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Common symptoms

The following are some of the common symptoms of RHS:

• Depression
• Skin rash
• Asthma
• Ulcers
• High blood pressure

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Theoretical reason for RHS

This syndrome was identified and coined by Nobuo Kurokawa and first appeared in his presentation to the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine in 1991. It is a condition in which a woman begins to show signs of physical illness and depression when her husband reaches, or approaches, retires.

Kurokawa has theorized that RHS is the result of the fact that many Japanese citizens who reached retirement age, 60, were members of the Japanese Baby Boomer generation. Members of this generation are expected to meet certain social requirements: that men should be the breadwinners and work to support their families, and the woman not only becomes a housewife but also to show her husband's worship level as a gift because she carries the money she uses to care for their children and socializing with their friends.

Because a husband's career as a salaryman can demand long hours away from home, both work and socialize with other salarymen and their bosses as expected, a husband can leave home in the early hours of the morning and come home late at night. This could mean that husbands and wives may not interact extensively and when a retired husband both members can feel they are living together with someone who is a true stranger.

This can be a very stressful experience for a woman who, like a society dictated in her teenage years, is expected to meet every need of her husband and be able to find this enormous demand. The stress that changes in this lifestyle brings can lead not only to the symptoms mentioned above, but also to the degree of annoyance felt to her husband. Some couples have been known to separate more from RHS, but divorce is rare as it is not considered an acceptable option for Japanese generation. Also today ex-wives have no right to a portion of their husbands' retirement if they are divorced, and therefore may not be financially viable (although this will change in 2007). Nevertheless, divorce rates among older Japanese couples have increased in recent decades, as more baby boomer populations have retired, rising by 26.5% in 10 years according to the health ministry. The number of divorces among married couples over 20 years or over reached 42,000 in 2004, doubling those recorded in 1985. Divorce among those married for more than 30 years increased fourfold over the same period. In 2006, these numbers are projected to rise further as more Japanese are expected to retire in the next five years than at any other point in Japanese history.

Some women deal with RHS by focusing their energies on obsessions such as collecting teddy bears, or following a celebrity, which they say can help them psychologically. They can also ask their husbands to keep working after retirement age. Many wives do not tell their husbands what is happening and this can worsen stress because their husbands may not understand or even realize that their wives are RHS sufferers.

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Research

Marco Bertoni and Giorgio Brunello of the University of Padova published a discussion paper in July 2014 based on empirical research in Japan.

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References

Source of the article : Wikipedia