One thing about gray divorces really mades me upset. At least two of the XHBs in our circle accused the wives of going crazy after menopause. Apparently there are even memes online affirming that ‘Female Mood
Swings ruin more marriages than cheating.’
Talk about taking responsabilities..

Anonymous wrote:Friends and acquaintances with kids in high school/college are now divorcing at a worrisome rate and struggling emotionally and financially right after that. Is grey divorce more common in the last few years or is just in my social circle?

Yes common.
But no financial issues.
Markets have been great the last 20 years. Just split it all.
Shed the deadweight.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's common except the stuggle part.

The gray divorces I know (at least the women) are all financially secure and more than happy being single.

I think they ones that would face financial and emotion struggle are just white knuckling it and staying.

I know a few long term SAHMs who chose gray divorce, once their husbands were at retirement. They stayed during the working years, and then become financially sound by taking (rightfully) half of the retirement and savings and having their own life/retirement with more choices.

I'll never understand this tradeoff. Life is so short, I just don't understand being miserable for years and then once you are well into your late 50s suddenly you have all this grandiose plans with all this money. Travel, romance, fun sex etc all of that is more enjoyable when you are younger

It's not about grandiose plans so much as about day to day peace.

Anonymous wrote:

Your talking to somebody who has friends that clearly don't feel comfortable sharing their real life with her. She probably just has acquaintances and calls them friends.

I see others have responded to this post, but I’m the PP you were taking about. My friendships are deep, some dating back to elementary school, and we know each other well - AND we enjoy doing things as couples with our husbands. We all say that the Covid shutdowns were good for our relationships because we got to take walks, eat more meals with and just see our husbands more. I think it’s dysfunctional people who assume that others lives are as dysfunctional as theirs because they do not know differently.

They don’t confide in you, plain and simple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My youngest is in college, and I only know of two recent divorces among my friend group: one was a marriage that has visibly foundered for years, and one was a couple that had always lived somewhat separate lives (e.g, they still had separate bank accounts). I don't know of any divorces among couples that seem happily married.

Interesting...I'm pushing 60 and I don't know 1 person in a "happy marriage". The thing is people have to be completely miserable to divorce. But "happy" nope. Happy life, yes... but how much the marriage contributes to the happiness I just don't see it.

Most live separately together.

Sounds like you hang out with a bunch of losers.

I'm 58 and not a single person in my 8 person HS group or my 5 person college group has divorced. All are incredibly happy with their relationships and are vocal about it.

These are the people that often have something to hide.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's common except the stuggle part.

The gray divorces I know (at least the women) are all financially secure and more than happy being single.

I think they ones that would face financial and emotion struggle are just white knuckling it and staying.

I know a few long term SAHMs who chose gray divorce, once their husbands were at retirement. They stayed during the working years, and then become financially sound by taking (rightfully) half of the retirement and savings and having their own life/retirement with more choices.

I'll never understand this tradeoff. Life is so short, I just don't understand being miserable for years and then once you are well into your late 50s suddenly you have all this grandiose plans with all this money. Travel, romance, fun sex etc all of that is more enjoyable when you are younger

Kids. That's it. Some parents choose delayed gratification to raise their kids under one roof and tuck them in every night. But once their off and we feel we've done the lion's share of our job as parents, it's our turn to focus on our happiness again with whatever time we have left.

This is me as well. I have basically hated my wife for 15 years, but sacrificed my happiness for my kids stability. I never cheated and I do regret marrying her, but my commitment is more important than my happiness. 2 more years….

I'm the poster of a few pages back who now basically lives apart from my spouse in our second home with no plans to formally separate or divorce.

If I were brutally honest, we too probably should have never married. We were very young (by DCUM standards) and pregnant. And obviously I wish we were closer still shared a more romantic love. But I can't say I regret getting married and wish I didn't. And I certainly don't hate my spouse!

We created an amazing family together and our kids and grandkids love both of us dearly. We're all very close and have great (and frequent) times together as a family before each of us retreats to our own space. It's only when it's just the two of us alone in the same physical space when friction bubbles to the surface, so we just avoid that when we can. And it's not hard since we have two houses.

Last night is a good example of how things go with us. Texting each other from the two houses coordinating helping with grandkids. Spouse says a few days are opening up because they decided against a trip with a really good old friend because it was too expensive. I said no, go and don't worry about the money. The response was "you know full well I don't spend that much money for just a long weekend," to which I responded "exactly and that's why you can afford to do it this time so just do it!" Long story short, I eventually prevailed after threatening to buy and send the tickets myself -- because I knew they really wanted to go. The conversation ended with a "fine, I'll do it but you have to stop NOW." Had we had the same conversation in person, it probably would have ended in a fight. By text, it ended with my spouse making a reservation for a nice trip and sending me a very nice "thank you" after it was all said and done.

Ideal? Nope. Not even close. But things could be a lot worse. We're certainly not going to blow up decades over it. We're both silently committed to making this work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also think sometimes couples just have very different needs and perceptions of whether a marriage is "happy" or not. I have friends who are now getting divorced who were married for three decades. She thinks they were happy and is baffled. He thinks he's been unhappy for at least two of the last three decades and stayed because of the kids. They both agree marriage was mostly sexless. She thought that was fine and they were both okay with it. He thought it was not fine and he was lonely. She thought he was easygoing because he always let her get her way. He thought she was controlling because she got pissed off when he did not do what she wanted.

I think both of them have crappy communication skills and took each other for granted: it's like they never actually sat down and had a conversation about what they each wanted and needed, what was working, what was not. Maybe they could have made it a good and enduring marriage if they had talked about those things decades ago. They're both decent people. I don't think either of them hates the other or behaved abusively or badly. I think they just somehow managed to go through decades of marriage without actually talking about what they wanted. Which is mind-blowing.

So now she is shocked and mad and he is relieved to be out but wracked by guilt. I suspect they will both get over it and they will each find someone better suited. I just hope they have both become learned some lessons during the process. I definitely don't think they should have stayed together, though: the marriage was built on a set of mutual false assumptions.

Obviously you know these people and I don’t, but I think women who never have sex with a willing husband are either extremely stupid or don’t care about their husband’s happiness and then express “confusion” to their friends as a cover when their husbands leave. Have these women never met a man? Why on earth do they think their husbands would be happy with no sex? They actually don’t care about the person they are living with or are too stupid to be married.

+1. I am skeptical about the PP’s statements that these two didn’t really talk about it. What your friend thought is that she could ignore her husband’s desires, not just sex but for things to go how he’d like on occasion in their life together, and he would still stay forever and forever in those conditions. I bet it’s more likely that they did talk about it but she thought her own wishes trumped his.

The DH sounds super passive aggressive. Like he’d decided a decade in that he’d just never be happy, and lived that out instead of actually bringing his issues up with the wife. We don’t know the wife… maybe she’s super aggressive, or maybe it was a self fulfilling prophecy on the part of the DH. Or maybe the DH did bring it up, and the wife just ignored him or laughed off his complaints. We don’t know. Two decades is a long time to be unhappy and not tell the other person though. I am also wondering if this was revisionist history on the part of the DH and there is a secret affair on his part that hasn’t come out yet.

Anonymous wrote:I stuck it out for many years - separate bedrooms for 10 years, hated him for 15 years for his dysfunction and destructive behavior. Unemployed for over a decade. Once he became abusive I had to file. My friends (he has none) were shocked they didn’t see it coming.

^^ and of course he feels entitled to a payout now.

I stuck it out for many years - separate bedrooms for 10 years, hated him for 15 years for his dysfunction and destructive behavior. Unemployed for over a decade. Once he became abusive I had to file. My friends (he has none) were shocked they didn’t see it coming.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's common except the stuggle part.

The gray divorces I know (at least the women) are all financially secure and more than happy being single.

I think they ones that would face financial and emotion struggle are just white knuckling it and staying.

I know a few long term SAHMs who chose gray divorce, once their husbands were at retirement. They stayed during the working years, and then become financially sound by taking (rightfully) half of the retirement and savings and having their own life/retirement with more choices.

I'll never understand this tradeoff. Life is so short, I just don't understand being miserable for years and then once you are well into your late 50s suddenly you have all this grandiose plans with all this money. Travel, romance, fun sex etc all of that is more enjoyable when you are younger

Kids. That's it. Some parents choose delayed gratification to raise their kids under one roof and tuck them in every night. But once their off and we feel we've done the lion's share of our job as parents, it's our turn to focus on our happiness again with whatever time we have left.

This is me as well. I have basically hated my wife for 15 years, but sacrificed my happiness for my kids stability. I never cheated and I do regret marrying her, but my commitment is more important than my happiness. 2 more years….

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think men are struggling more than women after gray divorces

+1. As a divorced I'll say I regret getting married. I kind of fell obliged. I just didn't want to do it. But every step of the way I felt like I had to, that's all she talked about. If I had stayed in this marriage until my "grey years" I would have been miserable AF. I am so much happier today. Women aren't the only ones who are happier once divorced. We men just don't talk about it as much as women do, but most of us are really happy as well.

Honestly, WTF is wrong with you? Like what messed up world did you grow up in where you allowed this to happen? I can’t imagine getting married if you didn’t want to. It’s crazy. I know I came off strong so sorry that you must’ve had a lot of dysfunction and trauma in your family. Hope you’re ok.

My STBX could be this guy, and yes, tons of dysfunction and trauma in his family way below the surface. Wish it had been a teeny bit less hidden!

Your talking to somebody who has friends that clearly don't feel comfortable sharing their real life with her. She probably just has acquaintances and calls them friends.

I see others have responded to this post, but I’m the PP you were taking about. My friendships are deep, some dating back to elementary school, and we know each other well - AND we enjoy doing things as couples with our husbands. We all say that the Covid shutdowns were good for our relationships because we got to take walks, eat more meals with and just see our husbands more. I think it’s dysfunctional people who assume that others lives are as dysfunctional as theirs because they do not know differently.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think men are struggling more than women after gray divorces

+1. As a divorced I'll say I regret getting married. I kind of fell obliged. I just didn't want to do it. But every step of the way I felt like I had to, that's all she talked about. If I had stayed in this marriage until my "grey years" I would have been miserable AF. I am so much happier today. Women aren't the only ones who are happier once divorced. We men just don't talk about it as much as women do, but most of us are really happy as well.

Honestly, WTF is wrong with you? Like what messed up world did you grow up in where you allowed this to happen? I can’t imagine getting married if you didn’t want to. It’s crazy. I know I came off strong so sorry that you must’ve had a lot of dysfunction and trauma in your family. Hope you’re ok.

DP, i tend to think there is some revisionist history going on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think men are struggling more than women after gray divorces

+1. As a divorced I'll say I regret getting married. I kind of fell obliged. I just didn't want to do it. But every step of the way I felt like I had to, that's all she talked about. If I had stayed in this marriage until my "grey years" I would have been miserable AF. I am so much happier today. Women aren't the only ones who are happier once divorced. We men just don't talk about it as much as women do, but most of us are really happy as well.

Honestly, WTF is wrong with you? Like what messed up world did you grow up in where you allowed this to happen? I can’t imagine getting married if you didn’t want to. It’s crazy. I know I came off strong so sorry that you must’ve had a lot of dysfunction and trauma in your family. Hope you’re ok.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's common except the stuggle part.

The gray divorces I know (at least the women) are all financially secure and more than happy being single.

I think they ones that would face financial and emotion struggle are just white knuckling it and staying.

I know a few long term SAHMs who chose gray divorce, once their husbands were at retirement. They stayed during the working years, and then become financially sound by taking (rightfully) half of the retirement and savings and having their own life/retirement with more choices.

I'll never understand this tradeoff. Life is so short, I just don't understand being miserable for years and then once you are well into your late 50s suddenly you have all this grandiose plans with all this money. Travel, romance, fun sex etc all of that is more enjoyable when you are younger

Kids. That's it. Some parents choose delayed gratification to raise their kids under one roof and tuck them in every night. But once their off and we feel we've done the lion's share of our job as parents, it's our turn to focus on our happiness again with whatever time we have left.