Observation of transactions between 5 men & their female life partners preceding the men’s high-lethality suicidal acts appeared to shed new light on the social context of suicide. Having exhausted all avenues of rescue, the women disengaged themselves from the suicide a few days to 6 months before the act. It is speculated that the females, in an anticipated shipwreck reaction, had some intuitive insight into the inevitable lethality of the male’s suicidal acts. (RM)