Constance Ruth Ahrons was born on April 16, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York to immigrants Jacob and Estelle Ahrons. She attended
Upsala College but dropped out when she married lawyer Jac Weiseman and had a baby. After reading
The Feminine Mystique, she returned to Upsala and graduated in 1964. In 1967, she received her master's degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin. In 1967, she married therapist Morton Perlmutter. She is known for her research in marriage and divorce which cumulated in the book
The Good Divorce. In 1977 she began researching divorce which is then used in the book to champion collaborative divorce at a time when divorce was stigmatizing and coined the term "binuclear." Conservative critics saw her work as contributing to the decline of the nuclear family. Ahrons ended her life through
physician-assisted suicide at her home in
San Diego on November 29, 2021, after being diagnosed with
lymphoma. ==Honors and awards==