She created a website, Runaway Husbands, and solicited responses from women who had been wronged. Stark said she wanted to know, “How is it possible to maintain the fiction of being married when they were planning their escape?”…

More than 400 of women aged 45 to 60 from around the world responded to her online survey, and their stories were mind-boggling.

Some husbands left “hit-and-run” text messages or Post-it notes stuck to the television, while others dropped the bomb in the most mundane moments — eating cereal or putting on socks.

They said things like, “I can’t take do this anymore,” or, “I never loved you,” or, “Our marriage was never good,” or even, “You have knee problems and I love to go hiking.”

One woman who had been married for 25 years found two notes on her kitchen counter next to a grocery list, one for her and one for their son. “I have to leave, we don’t have much in common anymore,” her husband wrote.