Sick of your husband? A new disease call RHS is attacking t

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Sick of your husband? A new disease call RHS is attacking t

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2005-10-21 12:55:00

TOKYO -- Sakura Terakawa, 63, describes her four decades of married life in a small urban apartment as a gradual transition from wife to mother to servant.

Communication with her husband started with love letters and wooing words under pink cherry blossoms. It devolved over time, she said, into mostly demands for his evening meals and nitpicking over the quality of her housework.

So when he came home one afternoon three years ago, beaming, and announced he was ready to retire, Terakawa despaired.

" 'This is it,' I remember thinking. 'I am going to have to divorce him now,' " Terakawa recalled. "It was bad enough that I had to wait on him when he came home from work. But having him around the house all the time was more than I could possibly bear."

Concerned about her financial future if she divorced, Terakawa stuck with their marriage -- only to become one of an extraordinary number of Japanese women stricken with a disorder that experts here have recently begun diagnosing as retired husband syndrome, or RHS.

Terakawa developed stomach ulcers, her speech began to slur and rashes broke out around her eyes. When doctors discovered polyps in her throat but could find no medical reason for her sudden burst of ailments, she was referred to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed stress-related RHS.

Terakawa began receiving therapy from Nobuo Kurokawa, a physician who is one of Japan's leading RHS experts. Kurokawa coined the term in a presentation to the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine in 1991.

Kurokawa estimates that as many as 60 percent of the wives of retired men may suffer from RHS.

"Come to therapy," he said. "Then spend as much time as possible away from your husband."