More Women Find They Don’t Need Marriage

Guess what? Among divorced couples between the ages of 45 and 54 it is the women who are choosing to stay single more than the men.

This is another one of the great revolutions in the adult life cycle over the last 20 years. Divorce is occurring with greater frequency among people aged 40 to 54. The number of women in that age group who shed husbands surged from 1.5 million in 1970 to 6.1 million in 1991. Demographers and sociologists agree that increasingly it is women past their childbearing and child-rearing years - if they have gained financial and sexual independence - who see a return to wifely status as a bad bargain.

Although a committed marriage to one’s best friend is one of the best predictors of high well-being, “Marriage is an institution that primarily benefits men,” holds University of Washington psychologist Neil Jacobson. He is among a growing number of experts whose studies have drawn the same conclusion.

Men can benefit from marriage even if it’s a botched job. Women in good marriages also enjoy enhanced well-being, but those in ailing marriages accept the blame and do poorly, as reported in a study of 156 long-term marriages by University of Washington psychologist John Gottman. No wonder many middle-aged divorcees would rather be dead than wed.

The Girlfriends, a half-dozen high-powered Chicago professionals, meet for high tea in the Greenhouse of the Ritz Carlton (the location and identities of the women have been disguised, but all of their substantive comments are verbatim). They are the equivalent of the Seattle men’s group in accomplishment. All divorced. All between 40 and 50. Their teatime is a delicious interlude when they can dish about the last disastrous mismatch before the next blind date.

Beryl describes herself with deadly accuracy as “one who’s always looking for the Prozac around the corner.” Single for longer than any of the Girlfriends, Beryl, now 44, lives with her 14-year-old daughter. A rainmaking stockbroker with a nationwide firm, she is always appearing on TV or giving lectures at prestigious city clubs.

“This year has been my lowest - the pits,” she says. “Externally I’ve had nothing but fabulous successes. I’m at the top of my game professionally. But internally I keep asking, ‘Is this all there is?’ I feel terribly sad that I’m not in a relationship,” she admits.

Despite the many parallels, the Girlfriends’ conversation was dramatically different from that of the guys’ group. The difference was not in worldly success, but the steam seems to have gone out of the men’s ambitions. Once their marriages broke up, their lives dropped away from them. They are truly alone, treading water.

For the women, however, it is a thrill to be in the power structure at all. Notably, the women are not as desperate as the men to get back into marriage. With the exception of Beryl, perpetual middlescence is turning out to be the time of their lives.

“My mother brought me up that you are defined by being married,” says Laura, a former state commissioner. “I find, on the contrary, I relish being single. When both my children were launched at the same time as my second separation, it felt like a huge liberation. I used to spend my life juggling everybody else’s. Now you want to know my greatest secret pleasure? On a Friday night to rent two movies and stay in bed - what incredible freedom!”

Even Beryl, for all her moaning about a future alone, would not put up with a replay of a mediocre, traditional marriage.

“I’m superbly happy, and I feel so lucky to have gotten to this place in my life,” says Laura. “It’s not how you’re supposed to feel at 50, is it?”

Yes, today it is. That’s what the Revolution of Second Adulthood is all about.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Gail Sheehy Universal Press Syndicate