This is the first book to reveal the truth about the
exploding phenomenon of late-life divorce, which has
resulted in a seismic shift in modern relationships. Now, in
a finger-on-the-pulse examination of this growing trend,
Deirdre Bair, New York Times bestselling author and
winner of the National Book Award, explores the many reasons
why older, long-married couples break up. Having conducted
nearly four hundred interviews with ex-wives, ex-husbands,
and their adult children, Bair reveals some of the
surprising motivations that lead to these drastic late-life
splits, as well as the surprising turns life takes for all
concerned after the divorce is final.
Although the
standard assumption is that husbands trade in their spouses
for younger trophy wives, Bair has found that, most often,
women initiate these divorces because they want the freedom
to control how they will live the rest of their lives. The
realization may appear to happen suddenly, but Bair shows
how it often takes many years and much careful planning
before the ultimate “Eureka!” moment. We see that for one
woman it happened when she asked her husband to help in the
kitchen and he shouted angrily for her to keep her voice
down so he could hear the television. For one couple, the
decision to end their marriage arrived when the wife
condemned their unmarried adult daughter for having a baby
and her husband sided with the daughter, leading both
partners to realize that they had never had anything in
common. One woman in her eighties, married for fifty-three
years, woke up after transplant surgery and announced to her
husband: “I don’t know how many years I have left, but I do
know I don’t want to spend them with you.”
Bair
describes current trends in late-life divorece, including
the growing use of “mediators,” whom many couples see as
lower-cost alternatives to lawyers. She also provides
fascinating examples of how people cope in the years after
divorce. Divorce changes older peoples’ sex lives in
surprising ways, and Bair is candid in discussing what
really goes on in their bedrooms. She presents the stories
of those who elect to stay single after divorce, of others
who remarry immediately, and of those who are puzzled to
find themselves divorcing yet again. As Bair’s subjects
rebuild their lives, the reader wills see new possibilities
for living in “the third age,” and may be inspired to
realize that there is indeed life after divorce–and plenty
of it.
Important, eye-opening, and truly
groundbreaking, Calling It Quits is essential reading
for an entire generation and its children,–and an acclaimed
author’s most personal and most universal work.
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