If I were ever handed control of the National Curriculum, “emotional education” would go straight to the top of the timetable. Lesson one would be essential: how to end a relationship with honesty and care.

For all our talk about love, commitment and personal growth, we remain remarkably bad at leaving relationships in a way that preserves dignity on both sides.

Most romances begin with optimism, affection and the thrilling sense that anything is possible. But when that bond starts to unravel, many of us have no idea how to step away without causing unnecessary hurt.

Women are statistically more likely to initiate divorce, and often emotionally detach long before making the break official. Men, by contrast, can spend months or even years delaying the inevitable, sidestepping difficult conversations and hoping the problem somehow resolves itself.

That pattern was painfully familiar to me. I knew how to fall in love with ease; what I had never mastered was how to begin the ending when the relationship had clearly lost its way.

In one particularly unhealthy relationship that lasted several years, I tried and failed to leave 11 times.

There wasn’t even anything tying us together; no house, no dog, nothing legally binding us. There was no reason on earth why I couldn’t simply leave… and yet, I couldn’t. I was addicted to the familiarity of it and frightened of what was on the other side.

Now, having finally managed to exit that relationship and having spent time examining the psychological factors that held me back, I write about relationships in midlife for women, giving them the perspective from ‘the other side’.

Several hundred women write to me every week telling me their stories of heartbreak, from partners who seem uninterested – to those that leave with no explanation.

So, what are the telltale signs your partner is desperate to leave you – but can’t bring himself to say it?

And what should you do about it? Here’s my guide…

Withdrawal

Conversations get shorter. Your questions about future plans don’t get proper answers, or get deflected. He isn’t hostile, but each week he’s one per cent less present.

This is him slowly backing away, extracting himself mentally from the life you have together. Does he spend every evening with his head in his phone rather than talking to you? Is there always a reason not to book the holiday next year?

This was me in my relationship. I took a bit longer to answer each time, said a bit less, and let the silence do the work that I wasn’t brave enough to do myself.

It’s cruel, because you are watching the disconnect happen in slow motion.

You see the person you thought you were going to spend your life with quietly begin building another life, like a side project in the shed.

Anger

Dirty looks. Snide remarks. Wistful stares into the middle distance while he tunes out of what you’re saying, then tunes out of you entirely.

He is furious at having to live inside something that has failed, and that fury has to land somewhere.

Watch for fights that he starts over nothing. Some of that is temper, but some of it is a man trying to manufacture a reason. If he can provoke you into doing something unforgivable, he gets to be the one who was pushed.

Logistics

He moves the car insurance into his own name. He starts asking questions about the mortgage that are designed to sound casual, but are noticeably out of character.

None of these things mean anything on their own, but over a few months, they accumulate into a picture of a man who is quietly preparing for the possibility of a life by himself – even if he isn’t brave enough to step into it.

He is telling himself that by extricating himself from you administratively, it might make it easier. It rarely does.

He just goes

This isn’t a sign, rather it is what the signs are ultimately leading to.

Countless women have written to me having come home to a cleared-out house, with no note and no explanation.

Many men, particularly in midlife, find the idea of explaining that they want out agonising at best and impossible at worst, so they convince themselves a clean break is kinder.

It isn’t, of course, it’s just easier for them.

Women then blame themselves for having missed something, when the frightening thing is that there was often nothing to miss.

A man who isn’t brave enough to have the conversation is usually not brave enough to have let anything show beforehand either.

What to do

Men are fundamentally bad at leaving. It is a combination of stubborn pride and avoidance, which makes us bury our heads in the sand and hope that the storm passes.

The problem is a partner can often find themselves being bombarded with mixed signals and being made to feel that she’s imagining things.

So, if you think your partner is planning to leave, be careful. Plenty of relationships sit in this phase for years.

While there may be signs that a man has checked out, that doesn’t mean he’s about to do anything about it any time soon. Remember, it took me 11 attempts across a few years, and the 12th, finally, was the one that held.

That doesn’t mean you ignore it. If you recognise your marriage in the description above, the question isn’t whether he’s going to leave. It’s whether you want to spend another year waiting to find out.

And if the answer is no, check the lifeboat before you jump ship. Know where you would live. Know what money is yours. Know who you would ring on the first night.

He may never say it: plenty of men never do. That isn’t a reason for you to pack up and leave tomorrow, but it is a very good reason to stop waiting for him to decide whether you should.

A onetime candidate for California insurance commissioner is taking aim at fellow Democrat Jane Kim, accusing the Bernie Sanders-backed contender of building her campaign on what he called “profound intellectual dishonesty.”

Kim, the former San Francisco supervisor who now heads the progressive California Working Families Party, is seeking California’s top insurance post in November as the state grapples with an insurance crisis intensified by a string of destructive wildfires.

Her sole opponent in the general election is Democratic state Sen. Ben Allen.

Patrick Wolff, who came up short in this year’s insurance commissioner primary, delivered the sharp criticism in a Wednesday opinion piece for the San Francisco Standard, even though he is no longer in the race.

Wolff, whose background is in banking and finance, said he closely reviewed the policy platforms of the crowded primary field, which included more than eight candidates. Most, he wrote, offered ideas for confronting California’s insurance troubles — even when he disagreed with their proposed solutions.

“Kim, by contrast, has campaigned on a platform of smoke and mirrors: big talk, little respect for the facts, and at times outright falsehoods,” he wrote.

Wolff tore apart Kim’s signature policy proposal — a single-payer disaster-insurance policy for every Californian dubbed “Natural Disaster Insurance for All.”

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The idea is to create a single state fund, rather than relying on competing private insurers, to cover disaster losses for everyone.

“Everyone would be in the same pool and pay premiums based on factors like property value or risk,” Kim’s website states.

Wolff blasted Kim’s references to other countries offering similar plans, noting that wildfire risk isn’t calculated into their programs.

“Kim’s idea of replacing private wildfire insurance with the state would put California taxpayers on the hook for untold billions,” he stated. “All she can say is that other countries do something similar. But that’s untrue: Her only real example is a program in New Zealand that is not at all like what she proposes and doesn’t even cover fire.”

The entire proposal includes no concrete details or cost figures, Wolff claimed, details that could potentially elude voters not paying much attention to the race.

He also blasted her other campaign policies, or the lack thereof, as evidence of alleged dishonestly.

Some of Kim’s policy proposals, Wolff claimed, are shams. For example, she promised to “stop insurers from using credit scores to deny coverage” — even though a rule is already in place.

The California Post contacted Kim’s campaign for comment.

An Illinois woman charged in the strangling death of her 2-year-old son was in the midst of a “psychotic episode” when the child died, according to her high-profile defense attorney, while prosecutors say she had also been planning to poison her husband.

The dueling narratives have emerged as attorneys for Corie A. Walsh claim jail authorities failed to give her prescribed psychiatric medication, despite hospital doctors recommending continuous psychiatric care after she was discharged, the defense says.

Those starkly different accounts of Walsh’s condition are expected to put a key legal issue at the center of the case: whether the evidence of serious mental illness meets Illinois’ threshold for an insanity defense.

Andrea Lyon, a well-known defense attorney who was previously part of Casey Anthony’s legal team, told News Media in a statement this week that Walsh’s alleged actions were the result of mental illness.

“This is a tragedy for the Walsh family, all of whom are mourning the loss of this child,” Lyon said. “It is also a tragedy in that Corie herself was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time this happened.”

While Lyon described Walsh as experiencing a psychotic episode, legal experts say a psychiatric diagnosis alone does not determine whether someone meets Illinois’ legal standard for insanity.

“The definition of insanity is, as a result of a mental defect or disability, that you’re unable to appreciate the criminality of your conduct,” Richard S. Kling, a clinical professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and former Cook County public defender who has handled insanity cases, told News Media.

Kling said psychiatrists first determine whether someone meets the criteria for a recognized mental illness before courts consider whether that illness prevented the person from appreciating the criminality of their conduct. He also said defendants who pursue an insanity defense must present evidence they were legally insane at the time of the alleged offense. Illinois also recognizes a separate verdict of guilty but mentally ill, distinct from a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity.

But behind the scenes, a battle over Walsh’s mental health care is unfolding.

Following her arrest, Walsh was treated at Silver Cross Hospital for self-inflicted wounds to her wrists and thighs. According to her defense team, hospital doctors recommended she receive 24/7 psychiatric care upon her discharge.

However, Walsh’s attorneys said she is not receiving her prescribed medication inside the Will County Adult Detention Facility.

The Will County Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the jail, did not respond to News Media’s request for comment regarding Walsh’s medical treatment.

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The defense’s account differs sharply from prosecutors’ allegations.

Along with three counts of first-degree murder, prosecutors also allege Walsh was planning to poison her husband Michael Walsh, before her son’s death.

Further details regarding the alleged poisoning plot – including how far along the plan was or what substance was involved – were not immediately disclosed in court. Michael Walsh was traveling out of state when the couple’s son was killed and flew home that evening. He has not responded to News Media’s request for comment.

Speaking generally and not about Corie Walsh’s case specifically, Kling said evidence that a defendant planned or attempted to conceal a crime can become relevant in an insanity case because prosecutors may argue it shows the defendant understood the criminality of the conduct.

Walsh allegedly told police she killed the toddler because she believed he was the “devil,” a petition seeking to deny her pretrial release states.

Witnesses also told investigators Walsh had recently grown “very invested” in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother who was charged with murdering her three children during an alleged bout of postpartum psychosis.

Walsh allegedly texted friends about the Clancy case as late as 12:30 p.m. on the day of her son’s killing.

“It is our hope that through a thorough presentation and investigation of the facts, that all of us will come to see this heartbreak for what it is,” Lyon said.

The competing claims have prompted a deeper investigative look into Walsh’s background.

Kling said a documented history of mental illness, psychiatric treatment and medication can become critical evidence in an insanity case because psychiatrists often examine a person’s mental state before and after an alleged crime to help evaluate their condition at the time of the offense.

News Media has reached out to multiple immediate family members, in-laws and former neighbors to determine whether there were prior warning signs, isolation or documented mental health struggles leading up to the holiday weekend.

Additionally, News Media has filed public records requests with local police departments seeking years of 911 dispatch logs and wellness checks connected to Walsh’s current and former residences.

Because of the victim’s age, the three first-degree murder counts carry a potential sentencing range of 60 to 100 years in prison, to be served at 100% upon conviction.

For several hours on the afternoon of July 20, two diplomatic security agents stood watch outside the office of Gavin Wax, a 33-year-old chief of staff at the State Department’s Washington headquarters, under orders to ensure he did not leave early.

At 5 p.m., Wax was summoned to a meeting with human resources and informed that he was being placed on administrative leave. Officials told him it would be his final day at the State Department.

Until that moment, Wax’s fierce devotion to President Donald Trump had helped him survive repeated controversies and rise through the ranks at Foggy Bottom.

This time, it appeared, his protection had worn thin.

But by the next Monday, Wax was back behind his desk, still overseeing the public diplomacy office, with his position seemingly untouched.

Wax had made what one source described as a ‘Hail Mary’ phone call to Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s personal senior counselor, to save himself, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.

Epshteyn allegedly took the issue to the president, and Wax’s dismissal was undone within the week, five senior Trump administration sources familiar with the matter said.

The decision to place Wax on leave had been approved by the White House Office of Presidential Personnel and senior State Department officials, at the behest of Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau. The White House’s office liaison at State coordinated the plan.

They were all overruled inside a week by a single adviser who holds no post at the department and whose authority rests entirely on his proximity to the president.

Five sources familiar with the matter said the reversal guts the credibility of the department’s staff and sends a message that anyone with the president’s ear is untouchable.

‘It signals to everyone else in the department that if you have the ear of someone close to the president, you are untouchable no matter what you do,’ one State Department source told the Daily Mail.

The reversal allegedly infuriated Marco Rubio. He has since made clear that Wax cannot stay in his department, three senior sources familiar with his reaction told the Daily Mail.

‘This is false and never happened,’ State Department spokesperson Dylan Johnson said when asked for comment. 

The final straw was reportedly over Serbia.

On Friday, July 17, Wax hosted a lunch in the eighth-floor executive dining room for Serbian right-wing politicians seen as pro-Kremlin, after being advised not to by career officials at the State Department.

The department’s Europe bureau was allegedly furious, and Landau’s office asked whether the guests could be barred from the building.

Wax had also been telling the Serbs that Landau had signed off on the meetings, a White House insider said, and when Landau learned his name was being used, it sent him into a fury. 

Three days later, Wax’s boss, Under Secretary Sarah Rogers, received word from HR at noon that her chief of staff would be gone by the end of the day.

She allegedly objected and was told she had no say. Wax is now on paternity leave after the birth of his second child.

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When he returns, he will follow Rogers to the US Agency for Global Media once the Senate confirms her to lead it. Inside the administration the move is being sold as a promotion.

Sources say it is the opposite: Rubio and other senior officials are putting their foot down to get him out of the building.

‘Gavin Wax will be an incredible addition to the United States Agency for Global Media and will continue to successfully execute President Trump’s America First policies,’ a White House official told the Daily Mail. 

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether Wax would keep his State Department role after moving to the US Agency for Global Media.

The episode caps a year in which Wax has become the most divisive political appointee in the department, accused of leaking in last fall’s Young Republican group chat scandal.

In a complaint the Daily Mail revealed in July, Wax was accused of shoving and threatening an aide to Greenland envoy Jeff Landry in a Truman Building elevator. The department’s Office of Special Investigations reviewed the complaint. It is unclear if the investigation remains ongoing.

Senior State Department officials overseeing Diplomatic Security coordinated the plan for his departure with PPO and senior department officials, sources said.

Putting agents outside his office struck some colleagues as excessive. Wax had figured out what the 5pm meeting was, and nobody wanted him leaving early or making an excuse about why he could not attend, sources say. 

A State Department spokesperson denied that Diplomatic Security agents were placed outside Wax’s office.  

Landau also allegedly soured on Wax over his relationships with the presidential special envoys, according to multiple sources. 

Senior officials had wanted him gone for months but held back under a White House rule that political appointees are not fired, only promoted up and out.

He and Epshteyn go back years in New York. When Trump gave a speech at the New York Young Republican Club’s gala in December 2023 and thanked ‘your president Gavin Wax’ from the stage, Epshteyn was in the room.

A year later Epshteyn attended the same gala, with Steve Bannon as the keynote speaker. Wax name-drops him constantly, a White House insider said.

Epshteyn is not Wax’s only route to the president. A source close to Wax said his most direct line runs through Natalie Harp, the blonde 35-year-old aide who is rarely more than a few feet from Trump.

Wax allegedly keeps a close texting relationship that produces personal notes from Trump and has helped him ride out one controversy after another.

Despite their ties, there’s no indication that Harp had any role in saving Wax’s job.

Wax took over the club in 2019 and made it the first Young Republicans chapter to endorse Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Last October, after Politico published thousands of racist and anti-Semitic messages from Young Republican leaders’ group chats, a Small Business Administration official, Michael Bartels, swore in an affidavit that Wax had demanded his private chat log and threatened him.

That month, the Daily Mail reported that senior White House officials had questioned Wax over texts that appeared to show him passing names and phone numbers to the Politico reporter.

Wax denied leaking at the time and faced no consequences.

The White House, Epshteyn, Wax, Rogers and the State Department have been contacted by the Daily Mail for comment.

Aaron Rodgers fired back sharply at what he called “horse s–t” claims that he was a “monster” in past relationships, after Shailene Woodley and Danica Patrick made allegations about their experiences with him.

“I dated two women who nobody gives a f–k about unless they drop my name,” the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback said during Thursday’s episode of the “Not Just Football” podcast.

Rodgers continued, “They like to say their version of the history of what actually happened. I’m just like, this ‘monster’ of a partner, and it’s just f–king horse s–t.”

“Number one, why are you still talking about me? It’s been years,” the 42-year-old NFL star added, noting that he began dating Patrick, 44, around early 2018.

Speaking about the former professional race car driver, who had stepped away from full-time racing the previous year, Rodgers said, “She had just retired.”

“She was depressed and not fun to be around,” he admitted. “But I didn’t leave her because I was trying to be there and be a good partner.”

Rodgers explained how his and Patrick’s relationship was heading toward a “certain direction” with “no intimacy.”

“Then, I’m buying a house in Malibu, and she goes, ‘Well, would you want to buy it together?’ And I say, ‘No,’” he recalled. “She said, ‘You know what that means then?’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the way things are going.’”

The athlete shared how he and Patrick briefly went to counseling, explaining their relationship took another turn when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and they were “stuck” together.

“So she tells the story [that she’s] totally blindsided by getting left,” Rodgers said about their 2020 split, sharing how Patrick claimed he also “leaves a trail of blood around.”

“I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’” the pro footballer questioned. “That is not what happened by any means.”

Rodgers’ comments appeared to be directed at Patrick’s 2025 interview on “The Sage Steele Show,” where she ripped him as being “emotionally abusive.”

“People could never imagine that I would lack … any confidence or belief in the simple things about who I am,” she said, admitting that she ignored many red flags in their relationship. “Yeah, he leaves a trail of blood.”

“Then I date Shailene,” Rodgers continued on the podcast, reflecting on the start of his July 2020 romance and December 2020 engagement with Woodley, 34.

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“I propose, and she says, ‘Yes,’” he recalled. “Now, she maybe felt like she was forced to make a decision. She could have said no. But not a couple of days after that, she tells me, ‘You know, before we get married I gotta go f–k this guy.’”

“Her story is, I ruined her life and gave her a crazy depression because I left her,” he said, alleging that Woodley was the one to call off their engagement in March 2021.

“We had a couple of times that we tried to get reunited, and nothing ever happened,” Rodgers explained. “She literally told me, ‘I don’t want to be with you.’”

Rodgers claimed there were “a lot of narratives” about him that were “just not true” spread by Patrick and Woodley, saying, “They portray things a certain way because they can get away with it.”

“All due respect … no one knows what they’re doing,” he claimed. “The height of their fame is when they were with me. They get clicks when they say my name … they get clicks when they say my name because I am a lightning rod. People actually give a f–k.”

“Stop talking about me,” Rodgers continued. “You’re not relevant … Move on with your life. Also, two, you’re lying about what actually happened … Like, I was actually a good partner.”

Reps for Woodley and Patrick weren’t immediately available to Page Six for comment.

Woodley has previously discussed her relationship with Rodgers, referring to their breakup as the “darkest” time of her life.

Additionally, the “Divergent” star once stated their romance was “not right” during a 2024 interview with Outside magazine.

“I felt like I lost my soul, my self, my happiness, my joy,” she told the outlet. “I really understood depression and anxiety and, like, complete soul detachment. I knew I was depressed when I looked at a tree and felt nothing.”

Rodgers also dated actress Olivia Munn from 2014 to 2017. However, they’ve never publicly shared anything negative about their romance.

Rodgers has since tied the knot with a mystery woman identified as Brittani. The couple got married last year after briefly dating and breaking up in 2017.

As for Woodley, she’s not publicly in a relationship, while Patrick is dating a mystery man.