You turn to look at your husband and realize he is never going to change. He would be content to spend the rest of his life locked in his study, working on his military history novel. You wonder how many days it would take him to notice if you left. Aside from meals together — where he punctuates the silence with the odd comment about how nice the peas taste — you do not have much to share anymore.
The house can feel empty once your children have left home. Your once-bustling Destin household is now deathly quiet and gathering dust. A bit like your marriage. You did your duty, raised three fine kids and all the other things expected of a wife when you got married back in the last century. Now you have two choices. Fade slowly into the furniture, or live your life while you are still young enough to enjoy it.
You leave an article about gray divorce on the computer screen, hoping your husband will see it. It says the number of over 50s getting divorced is rising, despite the overall drop in divorces in the US. With modern health care, ‘til death do us part can be a lot longer than it once was. Many over-50s are realizing they still have time to start over once the kids have grown up. Women’s increased financial independence and society’s growing acceptance of divorce have also contributed to this trend.
Your husband does not mention the article, so you broach the subject at dinner, “Darling, I’m thinking of going traveling,” you say. He smiles and slips you the card of a Destin divorce attorney. He says, “I think I might go traveling too. I’ll buy a motorhome and see all those civil war sites before I’m too old.”
