People who divorce after decades together:why?

In My Humble Opinion
21

My aunt and uncle were married for ~50 years, when my uncle asked for (and got) a divorce. They’d raised 8 kids, and he’d had a very successful career, while she maintained the household. When he retired, he got bored, and started traveling to Southeast Asia.

He fell in love with the people and culture there, but, in particular, he started becoming attracted to Chinese women (typically, ones about half of his age). So, not too long after he divorced my aunt, he married a successful businesswoman from Shanghai who is, in fact, half his age. They split their time between the U.S. and China (she spends more time in China than he does).

It seems like he’s happy (though she bosses him around like you cannot believe), but the general consensus among his kids (my cousins) is that he’s slipped a cog.

22

My grandparents divorced 20 years ago after four decades of marriage. My grandpa had found someone else and had zero reason to stay.

Pretty much everybody viewed the divorce as a very good thing, as it was a loveless marriage occasionally made volatile due to my grandpa and uncle (who lived with them) hating each other. The only reason to be sad was because the house would be sold and that meant the dog had to go to a shelter.

Grandma died in October after a long illness, and there was plenty of multi-generational family drama surrounding her care and post-death details. As ugly as it was for these grown, educated adults to spout petty bullshit over Grandma’s dying body, it is nothing compared to the drama we would have experienced had she and Grandpa stayed together.

Before she got sick, Grandma seemed pretty happy with life. I haven’t seen Grandpa in 20 years, but I hear he’s doing well. He even sent money to help with Grandma’s funeral expenses. Leaving out their kids/grandkids’ drama, this ending is the most pleasant we could have hoped for.

23

My mother spent her entire life in mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might, for a moment, think poorly of her. It was pathetic.

Father was an obnoxious, violent drunk. At age 13, I flat-out asked mom - “why don’t you divorce him?”
“No one in my family has ever been divorced”.

Pathetic?

No, pathetic is:
She spent her adult life loving a man back in the tiny burg (about 12 blocks, total) of her birth. I stumbled across a bunch of letters in an adult hand I didn’t recognize, addressed to mother.
After 42 years, she finally divorced the bastard and ran back to tiny burg and the man she loved.
He was married, and his wife was dying. I actually believe she was disappointed that he wouldn’t divorce his dying wife for her.
Well, wife died. Bliss! 6 months later, he died. Within the year, mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She held on for 8 months.

A pathetic story of 45 years, wrapped up neatly in 2.

24

That… actually sounds like a kick-ass idea. I think society would benefit greatly from a standard marriage contract that ended after 10 years and that you needed to make active measures to renew. For those who are happy together, it could be a big special occasion to celebrate and maybe even have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc wedding together to renew the contract. For those who are unhappy, they can get out of the situation naturally without having to make active divorce motions.

25

You would have a number of differing contracts - I’m sure there would be a “child rearing” contract good for the length of the child-rearing years, etc - like I contract with my spouse for 2 years of baby-making, and then 18 years of child-rearing, but that’s the general idea.

26

When I was applying for college, something clicked in my mom, and she decided that if her kids were going to college, she should get around to finishing it up for herself. She worked full time, earned her associates, then her bachelor’s and eventually we graduated with our Master’s in the same ceremony. During that same time, my dad… did nothing. He was working the same dead-end job, he was still drinking way too much (more, even, out of boredom when my mom was studying or at class), and being bitter that my grandparents hadn’t made him go to college.

One day my mother had just HAD it with the drinking, the bitterness, and the belittling towards her, my sister and I. She literally stood up, went and put her shoes on, and came back out to the living room with her coat and purse and said, “Joe, this is bullshit. Either you stop drinking and we start doing counseling, or I’m done.”

(in this instance, he decided that he liked having her around more than he liked having the bottle around, but he very easily could have just decided to be too lazy to change. I don’t doubt that she would have been done had he not really quit drinking)

But, I think that’s sometimes how these things happen. My parents married when they were 21, and were both working as waiters… work, party, drink, sleep, rinse, repeat. Sometimes people change, or they don’t change, or they change differently, and sometimes that takes a really long time to happen.

27

Another anecdote. I had an uncle who divorced his wife when he was in his 60s. I don’t know how long they had been married, but it had been decades, and he said, “The past 25 years have been hell with her.” But that was pretty much all he said about it publicly. He did remarry shortly afterwards, though. . . .

28

I’m not young- but I wonder why people get divorced at such advanced ages. Not so much because I think that at a certain age your done and why bother - more because I tend to think the husband or wife you divorce at 70 is not so much different than the one you didn’t divorce at 50. There’s a certain amount of sense in “staying together for the kids” - but not when the kids are 50.

29

Ah! your full name must be Kenobi Murdoch

30

Sometimes, after years of dealing with someone, you just get tired of it. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand.

31

LOL! Pretty much.

32

Retirement could play a role too. I’m sure once you have to spend another 8+ hours a day with a person your opinions on them can change! My dad is already trying to get my mom out of the house to come visit me more often, but he was retired more than 10 years before she was.

33

Another reason some people get divorced after years of marriage could be the loss of a job. Lets say someone who’s married 15 or 20 years suddenly loses his job. Now he’s home 24/7 waiting for the phone to ring to be called back to work because he won’t look for another job. Friction between him and his wife happens more often now that he’s under her feet all day and night. They have nothing in common anymore and as time passes it gets worse. One day she surprises him with divorce papers to sign and that’s the end of that.

Also the sudden death of a child maybe from an sickness or accident. Both Husband and Wife are overwhelmed maybe blaming each other for what happened.

34

That doesnt really make sense though. Being in a bad marriage for 39 years and 2 days would be worse than being in a bad marriage for 39 years and 1 day. And so on. Dr. Phil is an idiot. But i understand the point intended.

35

Interestingly, this has been given as the reason why so many of the Apollo astronaut marriages broke up after decades together.

37

Reported spam link.

38

What’s the deal with exhuming dead threads? Like the second one today.

39

Spammers. They search keywords.