Photography by Fredrik Brodén
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A House Divided
By Elizabeth Enright, July & August 2004
Divorce over 50 is on the rise. Women do the walking. Men don’t see it coming. Our exclusive survey reveals why couples are calling it quits
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Jane Burroughs knew 10 years into her marriage that it wasn't working.
She and her husband argued constantly. He made all the decisions; she felt she
had no say. But instead of divorcing, she stayed for 21 more years. It
wasn't until she was 50, when her children were grown with kids of their
own, that she finally got up the nerve to leave. Although she had wanted the
divorce for years—and her husband eventually did, too—Burroughs,
now 58, concedes it was the most difficult experience of her life and one that
triggered conflicting emotions. "The hardest part was learning how to be
alone," she says. "But I liked being independent."
Without doubt, "Till death do us part" remains an enduring vow for
millions of long-married American couples, and the benefits of a happy marriage
are hardly debatable. But increasingly, men and women like Jane and her
husband, who have spent decades with the same mate, are willing to forfeit
marital security if their union has been an unhappy one. Experts say the number
of people ending long-term marriages after age 50 is steadily increasing.
"The divorce rate has risen for adults at all ages over the past
decades," says Andrew Cherlin, Ph.D., a professor of sociology at Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore, who has researched divorce trends. Few states
include age in their divorce statistics, but researchers—and those
involved in divorce filings—say the trend is clear. "So many of this
generation are sitting with the prospect of many happy, healthy years ahead of
them," says Kate Vetrano, chair of the Elder Law Committee of the Family
Law Section of the American Bar Association. "They're shedding their
marriages in the quest for happiness."
Are they finding it? In most cases the answer is yes. That's according
to a groundbreaking new survey commissioned by AARP The Magazine of
1,147 men and women, ages 40 to 79, who experienced a divorce in their 40s,
50s, or 60s. Overall, respondents emerged from the ordeal of later-life divorce
far happier and emotionally healthier than most would have dared to hope at the
outset. The study revealed other surprises as well—busting to bits, for
instance, the common wisdom that it's the man who typically makes the
decision to leave. And the fear of never finding love again? That's largely
unfounded. The survey also lays bare the divide between men and women on
several hot-button issues, including children, sex, and, naturally, who
destroyed the marriage in the first place.
Deciding to Leave
The majority of midlife divorces are initiated by women. Don't believe
it? In the AARP survey, 66 percent of women reported that they asked for the
divorce, compared with 41 percent of men. And men more often than women were
caught off-guard by their divorce (the news blind-sided 26 percent of men,
compared with 14 percent of women). Chuck, 58, a financial planner in Fresno,
California, is one of these men. He had been married for 34 years when in 1996
his wife told him that she wanted a divorce. "Something was obviously
going on, and I was either unwilling or too dumb to look at it," he now
says.
Women often recognize the danger signs of a problem marriage earlier than
men do, says Howard Markman, Ph.D., codirector of the Center for Marital and
Family Studies at the University of Denver, and coauthor of Twelve Hours to
a Great Marriage. These are the signals of estrangement and
unhappiness—less talking, for example—that may start as a distant
buzz and over time grow into a roar of discontent. "An impulse divorce is
a very rare thing," confirms psychologist Constance Ahrons, Ph.D.,
professor emeritus at the University of Southern California and an expert on
relationships and divorce.
In fact, marital discontent often festers for years. Among the women in the
study who divorced in their 50s or older, about a third started contemplating
the split at least two years before it happened; 21 percent of men in their 50s
or older did likewise. About one in 10 women ruminated for 10 years or more.
But this trend was more pronounced in women over age 60 than in boomers, who
tend to decide faster, says Vetrano. "A higher number of women in their
50s have had careers and are more independent," she says.
"They're more likely to get out of a bad marriage sooner."
Staying for the Kids
When contemplating divorce, many people bide their time to spare potential
victims—the children. Kids are the glue that keeps marriages together,
for better or worse. That's particularly true for dads: 58 percent of
men—compared with 37 percent of women—cited their children as the
top reason they postponed a divorce for five years or longer. ("Not
believing in divorce" was the distant second reason men waited;
women's top reason for delay was financial worry.) But despite their best
efforts to hold things together, more than one in four of the people in their
50s still had adolescent kids at the time of their divorce. "My overall
concern was how the destruction of our family would play out in my
daughter's life," Jack Martin (not his real name) reveals. "My
daughter was deeply affected by our divorce, and I worry about the impact that
will have on her."
Why do men worry more about the children than women do? Because women take
for granted that they'll stay close to the kids. Most experts agree that
men of all ages have more to lose in a divorce, especially when it comes to
children. According to our survey, 42 percent of the men said that their worst
fears after the divorce involved their children, with most of these men
worrying they'd lose contact with their kids. In comparison, only 15
percent of women had these fears. "For men, it's a well-founded
fear," says Vetrano, who lectures on elder divorce law nationally.
"Men lose their children a lot."
Taking the Blame
It may be easier to split up the second time around. Nearly half (47
percent) of the divorced people in the AARP study had also gone through a
divorce when they were younger. "People who were somewhat traumatized by
their first divorce tend to bail out sooner on the second marriage," says
John Gottman, Ph.D., a noted marriage researcher and executive director of the
Relationship Research Institute in Seattle. "If things aren't going
well, they'll predict that they're in for the same painful experience,
and they get out."
Bad math: Among people 50 and older who said infidelity
caused their divorce, 93 percent of women and 78 percent of men said their
spouse was the one at fault.
In getting down to toaster-hurling specifics, most women in their 50s or
older said the top killers of their marriages were physical or emotional abuse,
infidelity, and drug or alcohol abuse—and they put almost all of the
blame on their ex-husbands. On the flip side, most 50-plus men said they simply
"fell out of love" or had "different values or lifestyles."
And a larger number of men, though not the majority, said it was their own
fault.
The one thing neither sex would take the blame for, however, was an affair.
Among people 50 and older who said infidelity caused their divorce, 93 percent
of women and 78 percent of men said their spouse was the one at fault. In doing
the math, it's obvious that many may be fudging the truth about who
cheated, or may disagree with their ex as to whether the affair really did
their marriage in. This blame shifting may not be due to lying, but rather a
matter of perception, says Gottman. "It's not uncommon for someone to
cheat and then blame their partner for it," he says. "If someone is
lonely or feels their mate has lost all interest in them, they can rationalize
that they were driven to have an affair."
Traditionally, men have been perceived to be the cheaters. However, while
most research has suggested that men are more likely to stray, some say that
the gap may be closing. "Baby-boomer women are in the work world—and
that's where you meet that sympathetic person when you're having a bad
marriage," Gottman says. "It's opportunity, not biology, and
while men had much greater opportunity for cheating in the past, it's far
more equal now."
Getting Back in the Game…
During the throes of a difficult divorce, it's easy to assume that love
will never resurface. But it does. The survey found that more than 75 percent
of women in their 50s enjoyed a serious, exclusive relationship after their
divorce—often within two years. And 81 percent of men in their 50s did
the same. In fact, 26 percent of all respondents were dating before their
divorce was final.
What got them back into action? The number one reason given (both sexes):
proving to themselves that they were getting on with their lives. For men, sex
ranked a close second. Call it therapy; one in four men in their 50s—and
a third in their 60s and older—said they had sex with a new partner as a
means of coping with the stress of the divorce. (Hitting the bottle was the
second most frequent coping mechanism for men.) How did women cope? The top
ways were exercising and retreating into work.
…But Staying Free
The perceived benefits of divorce differ by gender. Women were far more
likely than men to say that having their own self-identity was a top reward.
That made them a little gun-shy of marrying again anytime soon: 43 percent of
women said they emerged from the split against remarriage. Only 33 percent of
men said they wouldn't remarry.
Women are more likely to have a strong network of friends to support them
after a divorce, explains psychologist Ahrons, author of We're Still
Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents' Divorce.
Men typically don't. That makes men more vulnerable to loneliness—the
worst fear for both sexes in a divorce. It's telling that a third more men
than women in our study had remarried after their midlife divorce.
For reluctant once-weds agonizing over whether to do it again, the following
statistic is worth considering: our survey found that 57 percent of men and 54
percent of women who remarried after a midlife divorce have sex at least once a
week. Those who remained single aren't nearly as active in the bedroom;
single divorced men are three times more likely never to have sex than their
remarried peers. Single divorced women are five times more likely to be
celibate.
Finding Happiness
For all of the pain of midlife divorce, it tends to leave a normal, healthy,
and optimistic man or woman in its wake. This is a big surprise to many people,
says Ahrons.
At all age levels, midlife divorcers did quite well on our survey's
measure of contentment and expectations for their future. When compared with
respondents to other recent surveys, they reported roughly the same measures of
happiness as other single Americans their own age, and those who remarried also
scored very high. This held true regardless of who made the decision to split
or how long the marriage lasted. As for regrets, about 70 percent of those who
initiated the divorce were confident they'd done the right thing.
Such was the case for Jane Burroughs. She looks back at her decision to end
her marriage of more than three decades with no doubts. She's dated but has
no desire to remarry. Her female friends provide her with companionship and
emotional closeness. And, having been married at 19, she's finally
experiencing living in the world on her own. "After getting my divorce it
was like going back and doing things I should have done when I was a
teenager," she says. "I learned how to look within myself for
happiness. It's a new experience, and I have found that I do it quite
well."
Elizabeth Enright is a freelance journalist who writes on family
issues.
Special thanks to AARP researchers Xenia Montenegro, Linda Fisher, Ph.D., and Sonya Gross.
Additional reporting by Ron Geraci.
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