Late Finale: When Long Marriages End : More Couples Old Enough to Have Grandchildren Are Saying ‘No’ to ‘Til Death Do Us Part

As with an earthquake, the breakup of their 26-year marriage was preceded by slight slippages beneath the surface.

They met at college, he remembers, and were married in their final year. It was a happy union, with two healthy sons. Somewhere along the line he became vaguely aware that he and the girl he fell for as a sophomore “had begun to have different objectives.” But it wasn’t until five or six years ago that “things seriously got to the point where everything started unraveling.”

Still, he was rocked on that Tuesday in 1986 when they drove their youngest son to college, came home, and “she moved out two days later.” He’s 50 now and, although he sees himself eventually in another long-term relationship, he admits to still having positive feelings for his ex-wife.

She sees it differently, but only by degrees. She, too, sensed problems, and tried to figure out what was wrong with her . An early ploy was to concentrate on the children. But when the youngest was in kindergarten, she went back to work--a step she now sees as a definite turning point. She became part of a “reevaluation” therapy group and one day confided that she “wasn’t getting her needs met” in her marriage.

They tried marriage counseling. “We’d get enough out of it to go back to the drawing board,” she recalled. Now 49, she estimates that after perhaps the first 13 years, she was there “only for the sake of the children.” That and the fact that “I wanted a family, and I wanted to see it work.”

When she moved out of their Sacramento home, she thought it would be just a separation, but she never went back. “My life was working well, and I felt better than I ever had.” The whole concept of divorce was hard for her, she said. Letting her mother know was hard. “I think it all comes down to “I failed,” or “I made a poor choice. To me, divorce and failure were synonymous.”

This former husband and wife--who spoke in separate interviews on condition of anonymity--now live 700 miles apart. As such, they are part of a statistically small but growing trend toward divorce after long-term marriage. It is supported by charts, demographic reports, gerontological papers and hundreds of everyday stories--a small accumulation of evidence which many find inexplicable and deeply troubling, while others contend it could hardly be otherwise given longer life-spans, multiple careers, the self-sufficiency of women, the reduced stigma of divorce at any age and, sometimes, encouragement from the children.

Carlfred B. Broderick, head of the USC’s Department of Sociology and a nationally known speaker on marriage and divorce, put it this way: “People are getting in touch with their own rights to happiness and freedom.”

Broderick, who’s also director of the University’s Marriage and Family Therapy Training Program, also acknowledged that older adults “are coming under the influence of the kids, who tell them divorce isn’t the end of the world. Almost always, social movements work from the young out.”

Yet, Broderick said, “it is remarkable that a person is willing to divorce--when the chances for remarriage may not be that great. In general, people at any adult age prefer being married, but now the older ones aren’t intimidated by any social requirement to have a spouse. You wouldn’t have seen this 20 years ago.”

If society is no longer shocked to its boot-tops when grandpa and grandma divorce, it is still, experts say, a frequently wrenching, always life-changing passage that often leaves a bittersweet aftertaste no matter how mutual the decision. For this story The Times interviewed a number of older Californians who divorced after long-term marriages. In the absence of comment from their former spouses, and sometimes at their own request, they are not identified by their real names.

Lisa Monroe, who lives in the Valley and is 54, recalls that she and her former husband met while attending high school in the Midwest. They married when he was 21 and she 19, and had two children.

“We were both loving and caring,” she said. “We took the children camping, we taught them values. He was in sales, and I was a homemaker.

“We had known each other 33 years, and our children were grown, before it happened. I attribute it all to textbook mid-life crisis by him. It came as a total surprise to me.

“I came home one day, and on my desk was a handwritten letter from him. He said in effect that he was confused and that he needed time to himself. He had taken some clothes, and had moved out.

“My heart started pounding, and my face got hot. I don’t remember much else. I would presume it was shock.”

Until then, they had everything planned: “We had talked about retirement life together, traveling across the country in a camper. We even had discussed our wishes to be cremated.”

Monroe describes herself as “a following wife. I didn’t want to get involved in any business matters. I considered myself one of the wives in the cocoon. This is deadly.”

Now that the marriage is over after three decades, “I have the full responsibility for being out in the cold by myself--having to buy an insurance policy, talk on a business level.

“A person like me who has more child than adult in her, doesn’t want to let go. Standing outside the cocoon isn’t pleasant.”

But, she emphasized “the optimism part: For all of us not particularly capable, it can be learned. We just have to realize our self-worth. Our right of capability was always there. Now is the time to tap into that resource.”

Is she bitter about what happened? “I went through that stage quickly,” she replied. “No one wants to listen to bitterness or hate, but they’ll always be there to listen to hopefulness.

“My support system was my family and friends,” she said. “If you don’t have access to that, seek groups or counseling. You can’t do it alone.”

Statistics show that for both women and men in older age groups the divorce rates have gone up significantly.

“I’m sure one reason can be laid to the fact that people are healthier and are living to older ages,” said Barbara Foley Wilson, demographer with the National Center for Health Statistics, in Hyattsville, Md., who supplied the national numbers.

“People can look forward to ending a bad marriage and beginning a new life. It is a note of hope, although possibly not for the spouse.”

Wilson said the Center’s statistics come from numbers supplied by the 31 states which report. (California dropped out of the reporting procedure in 1978, Wilson said, because of state legislation which no longer required meaningful information.)

She noted that for men aged 55 through 59 the divorce rate increased 10% between 1980 and 1986, the latest year for which statistics are available. For men aged 60 through 64, the increase was 14% in the six-year period, and for those 65 and older, the rate increased 5%.

In 1986, women between 55 and 59 divorced at a rate 8% higher than in 1980; in the 60 through 64 age group the increase was 4%; for those 65 and older, the rate increase was 7%.

She added that, in the same time period, the number of marriages that ended in divorce after lasting 25 years or more jumped by 5,000--from 68,000 to 73,000.

Another type of tally, from Arlene Saluter of the Household and Family Statistics Branch of the Bureau of the Census in Suitland, Md., supports the drift of the center figures. In 1980 the proportion of divorced men in the 55 to 64 group was 5%; by 1988, it had grown to 7%. For men in the 65 and older group, the proportion remained at 4% both years.

In 1980 the proportion of divorced women in the 55 to 64 group was 7%; by 1988, it had grown to 9%. For women in the 65 and older group, the proportion increased from 3% to 5%.

The trend is obvious. The question is: Why?

One barometer, unscientific but useful nonetheless, comes from the tens of thousands of letters received by syndicated advice columnist Abigail Van Buren--Dear Abby.

“I am getting more letters than ever on divorce, and more letters than ever on that subject from the older group,” she said in an interview.

“Why do I think divorce is increasing among older Americans? Years ago, most couples took an oath that said ‘Til death do you part.’ Some of them took it literally and continued living together until they practically killed each other.”

Today, Abby continued, “divorce at any age is no disgrace. More couples are realizing that the time they have left of their stay on this earth is very precious. So they feel justified in ending a joyless marriage.”

Broderick, who also has a private counseling practice, pointed out that not all divorces at a late age follow first marriages. Some, he said, happen after widowhood and a subsequent unsuccessful try at a second marriage.

“The chief cause of divorce is disappointment,” he said. “If it was a long-term marriage, the disappointments are long-term, such as non-communication, insensitivity, alcoholism.

“There is a new doctrine: I don’t have to put up with this anymore.” Jolene Dashut, a certified paralegal with the private California Divorce Council in Van Nuys, has her own theories: “People grow apart, and after 30 years or so of marriage, they sometimes become strangers. And they would rather live alone than with a stranger, or someone they have come to dislike.”

Dashut, who has been with the council for 13 years, said the group assists people in uncontested divorce procedures, and that she is seeing more older Americans than used to be the case.

“I am also seeing a lot of prenuptial agreements among them, when they are remarrying. They have accumulated assets over the years and want to be assured those will be safe, and separate during a second marriage.”

Dashut said that “30 or 50 years ago, women weren’t self-sufficient, were financially dependent upon men, were socially blackballed if they got a divorce.

“None of that applies now. There is no longer a social stigma to being divorced, even among the elderly.

“At one time there was no place for a divorced woman in a small town. Now she can be her own person.”

Experts say men are equally, if not more, involved in initiating divorces at older ages, after long marriages. Sometimes, but not always, it is because of attraction to a new woman--in such cases usually someone younger than his wife.

Cynthia Perez, now 64, was married for more than three decades to a man six years her junior.

“We had raised four children, and everything seemed to be happy,” Perez recalled. “We took the kids to Disneyland and Knotts and on picnics in the park. My husband was a nice father, and a good provider for all of us.

“He was a laborer, and his hours sometimes varied, but I made sure I never let him go off to work without lunch to take along.”

One of the children died of cancer while a teen-ager, but the others led healthy lives, grew up and eventually left home. The parents continued to live in their rented home in one of the towns near central Los Angeles.

“It seemed like we still had a good marriage,” Perez said. “We would visit his mother in Mexico. We would have house parties. We would go dancing.”

A routine event began the unraveling. Perez said she was looking for a handkerchief, or whatever, perhaps still left inside the pocket of one of her husband’s jackets she was about to wash.

“I found a Christmas card to him. I still have it. The handwriting said: ‘You have made me the happiest woman for the last five months. I want to spend my life with you.’ ”

Perez said that before the find, she had suspected nothing. She said she waited until after New Year’s Day, then when they were in the kitchen and about to begin dinner one night, she read her husband the message in the card.

His reaction, she recalled, was that it was some kind of a joke being played by somebody, and that she should forget about it. Still suspicious, she called the “other woman,” pretending to be a flower shop with a delivery to make, and obtained enough information to convince her that her husband was, indeed, romantically involved with someone else.

“That night, after he got home from work, I gave him some of his clothes and told him to get out of the house, and he did. A couple of months later he filed for divorce, and I didn’t contest it.”

Perez realized that not only would she not be able to get by on the $500 monthly alimony awarded by the court, but she would have to get into the work force--after having spent most of her life as a homemaker.

“It wasn’t easy. My age and lack of experience worked against me. I finally found a job as a receptionist, which I still have.”

Reactions of family and friends, have varied, Perez disclosed. “My son wants nothing to do with his father anymore. He says he doesn’t want to turn out that way. One of our daughters still speaks to him, the other doesn’t. She feels he let me down after many years of being together. All my life had been for him.”

As for the couple’s friends, some of them acquaintances for decades, “some didn’t want to take sides, so they don’t talk to either of us.”

This was but one scenario for an actual divorce after a marriage of many years. Increasingly, older Americans are taking the step. The numbers prove it.

Anne Studner, program specialist with the American Assn. of Retired Persons, said that vast national organization has been receiving an increasing number of calls and letters regarding divorce at an older age.

“Most are from women who feel they have been dumped, and want to know their legal rights,” Studner said.

Dr. Joyce Brothers, syndicated psychologist, said in an interview that what used to be known as “the 25-year ditch” is showing up more and more now as “the 40-year ditch.”

It refers to one mate shedding another--and Brothers is of the opinion that, overwhelmingly, the husband is the instigator:

“The man who was a wimp at age 21, when he reaches 70 he thinks he is one hell of a guy. And there suddenly are so many women who would do anything for him. He finds himself in demand.”

Brothers, who also said her mail on the subject is increasing, believes it’s rarely the wife who files for divorce later in life because, since women generally outlive men, the pool of potential new marriage partners availble to her is small.

“And,” the psychologist said, “if she had had divorce in mind, she would have done it sooner. Women fall out of love faster than men.” When it is the man who starts the proceedings, Brothers said, “all of a sudden the wife who had been good for him for 40 years is no longer svelte or wonderful enough. So he ditches her. He either takes a younger woman or someone who thinks he is the most wonderful man on earth.

“The woman may be seeing him for the first time, and there are very few of him around at his age, and all of a sudden he is a hell of a guy. She hasn’t seen him in his underwear, drinking beer in front of the TV set.

“We are living more vigorous lives in our middle years,” Brothers added. “In the past, when a man reached 50, he was almost through life, so he figured why bother with divorce. Now he figures he’s got many years left.”

Brothers said we may be seeing the fulfillment of something anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote about: “Margaret Mead once suggested we might see serial monogamy: one person to have kids with, another to share companionship in later years. A person who fulfills the need for mating purposes may not be the same person who fulfills other needs as one grows older.”

As it sometimes happens, the former couple quoted anonymously in the top of this story parted with dignity.

Although he would have preferred to stay together and work on the marriage, her choice, he says, was that she didn’t want to put any more energy into it.

“We agreed we wouldn’t establish an adversarial relationship. I sat down, wrote a preliminary financial settlement, and gave it to her. She made some suggestions, and I rewrote it.

“We both took a class in doing your own divorce. Essentially, we divided our assets, and set up a college trust fund for our younger son (the older had already graduated) from money from the sale of our house.

“After all those years, the hardest part was going around the house and saying: ‘I’d like to take this, or that.’ On the first day, after two hours of it, I just broke down and said: ‘Let’s do this another day.’ ”

The divorce was final three years ago. The former husband says they maintain a friendly relationship. They talk on the phone when matters, such as illness or college expenses, arise involving their children.

“I don’t believe you have to destroy the other person to end a marriage; you just destroy yourself in the process,” he says.

For her part, she is dating other men and “living alone for the first time in my life (other than the separation).”

As for her ex-husband, she said: “I want to continue a friendship. There are lots of things about him that I still care about. I can’t just forget that part of my life.

“I think it (the divorce) is still painful for him. A certain sadness remains there for both of us.”

She now feels she “lost myself in trying to make the marriage work. I don’t want to lose this again. I want someone who can understand this

“I need to be my own person, and have someone to support me in being who I am at all times.”

Vern L. Bengtson , director of the Gerontology Research Institute at USC, said the effect on children and grandchildren of a divorce later in life, after a long marriage, is usually divided between applause and dismay.

“Kids frequently are aware if their parents had a rocky and unsatisfactory marriage,” said Bengtson, also president of the Gerontological Society of America. “The childrens’ attitude sometimes is: ‘They weren’t suited to each other, why didn’t they end it sooner?’ “When there is dismay, it is almost always directed toward the father. He is the one who usually initiates the divorce.”

When it is the wife who does so, Bengtson said, “many have planned it for a lot of years, and never told their husbands. They spring it suddenly, after the kids are grown. A lot of them married young, become mothers at a young age, were dutiful wives, but then saw it wasn’t going to be a happy life.

“Emptiness is the occasion for a lot of late life divorces.”