LIFE & TRENDS
Midlife Divorce: Is It Worth the Pain?
The marriage breakup rate is down — except among older Americans. Are they finding happiness after the split? ::
BY EMILY J. MINOR I
n her modern, airy office in a woodsy suburb of Raleigh, N.C., Lesli Doares watches the couples come in, week after
week. Sometimes they’re chatty. Sometimes they’re silent. Sometimes they’re at a place in between. Here’s what’s constant: They’re all
pretty much saying the same things. “We don’t have anything in common. We’ve grown apart. “We never talk. We don’t know
each other anymore.” About 50 percent of American marriages end in divorce, down from nearly 60 percent in the no-fault-divorce heyday of the 1970s. The seventh year of a marriage is supposed to be the trickiest, the year that can make or break a relationship. But Doares, a family
and marriage therapist, sees plenty of couples who have made it long past those early rough patches, staying together until the house grows empty and life is suddenly quieter. Perhaps too quiet. These are couples who raised
got so frustrated at the high incidence of unhappy couples coming to her in crisis she wrote a book, Blueprint for a Lasting Marriage; How to Create Your Happily Ever After with More Intention, Less Work. “By the time they get to me, it’s
often just too much work to put it back together,” she says. “One of them just wants out.”
BUMPY ROAD TO HAPPINESS After years of unsettling statistics
about marriage, the divorce rate is at its lowest in years, with one notable exception. More middle-age Americans are splitting up. The age group with the fastest-growing divorce rate is people over 60, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This leads to an obvious
MARRIAGE THERAPY Lesli Doares counsels disenchanted couples.
question: Are older people who decide to end their marriages finding happiness? “It’s almost never
worth it financially,” says a very blunt Brian Caesar, 49, a former Wall Street commodities trader who
kids, nurtured careers, survived some unsettling health scares. They’ve muddled through all the
things that are supposed to bring two people closer together. “A lot of them are on autopilot,” says Doares, who
68 NEWSMAX MAXLIFE | AUGUST 2012
spent $500,000 getting a divorce. “But I could no longer take it. Every day was a bad day.” The AARP commissioned a report
that is considered the bellwether on the dissolution of midlife marriage, tabulating everyday emotions and examining why people leave, and
what it’s like for them after they do. The researchers concluded,
“People age 40 and older generally feel that divorce is more emotionally devastating than losing a job, about equal to experiencing a major illness, and somewhat less devastating than a spouse’s death.” In other words, leaving behind a
longtime marriage might be worth it, eventually. But the road to happiness can be very bumpy. In the survey, respondents said
they suffered from depression and loneliness (29 percent), felt deserted and/or betrayed (25 percent), lived with a daily sense of failure (23 percent), felt unloved (22 percent), and felt inadequate (20 percent). “I was extremely naive,” said Diane
Dennis, of Aurora, Ore., who has tried marriage twice — once for 15 years and another for six. “I didn’t think
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