Cheating on your husband, the decision to divorce - all this looks like a catastrophe in life and only causes difficult feelings. But there were a lot of good things, we experienced so much with this person... How not to erase the past and end the marriage with dignity?
In our culture, divorce is considered a failure, especially if it was preceded by infidelity. The length of a marriage is a major indicator of marital happiness, but many couples who stayed together “till death do us part” were not happy at all.
A successful marriage doesn't just end in a funeral home—especially in this age of increasing life expectancy. There are times when relationships exhaust themselves, and in such situations I try to help partners end them with dignity. This was exactly the case with Clive and Jade.
I first met them twenty-two years ago when they were newly married and came to my seminar for interracial couples. Carefree, they looked to the future with interest. Twenty years later, after raising three children and experiencing one betrayal, they felt that their marriage was on its last legs and turned to me for help.
Clive recently confessed to his secret relationship with Keira. He felt terribly guilty, but wanted to move on and build a life with a new lover. Jade was desperate and tried to hold him back. I remember how she clung to Clive’s every word, every gesture, every smile, but it was all in vain.
I felt it was my responsibility to decipher the message that was right in front of us: “Jade, he's not coming back. You feel bad and he feels guilty. He may not be gone yet, but he’s no longer around.”
I told him: “You keep waiting for the moment when you can leave without feeling guilty, but this moment will never come. It's time to let her go."
I felt like they needed time to say goodbye properly, so I suggested they have a breakup ceremony.
Reasons for divorce after 20 years of happy marriage
The scientific approach to relationships between people is very stingy in explaining feelings.
Love is considered to be chemical and biological processes in which a certain complex of hormones is produced. This complex must be developed even after 20 years of marriage, otherwise divorce is inevitable. The longer the euphoria of love lasts, the more difficult it becomes for a person to lose it. This phenomenon cannot be explained. When people lose love over the years, this very often entails the appearance of a large number of psychosomatic reactions of the body and divorce in their life together. How to avoid illness if you are faced with the inevitability of divorce after 20 years of marriage? What are the reasons for disagreements after many years of marriage? Is it possible to resolve the conflict? Let's try to figure this out.
Main causes and tips for eliminating them
There are couples who divorce after 20 years of marriage due to simple fatigue. At the age of 40-50, many people have a desire to “live for themselves.” Most often it occurs in men, since they perceive changes in their life together somewhat easier than women. Such fatigue rarely appears at the same time in both spouses.
Imagine a situation: a husband informs his wife of his desire to separate and asks for a divorce, due to the monotony of life together and marriage. She accepts his wish. They file for divorce. How could she continue to live if she was the keeper of the hearth, did not have a job, did not have the opportunity to build a career, and was the “shadow” of her husband in their marriage? Eking out a miserable existence after a divorce? Expect help, but from whom?
Situations like this happen quite often. They require an immediate solution. Psychologists advise looking for support and help only within yourself. Even if there are people willing to help, you cannot shift the solution to the problem onto someone else’s shoulders. Look for a way to resolve the situation yourself. Remember, your actions are not every second help - the foundation for future life after divorce.
Is it possible to overcome fatigue?
If a husband or wife initiates divorce due to fatigue, the inability to live a monotonous, boring life together, you need to understand whether the decision to divorce is final. The couple can still be saved; divorce is not the only solution, provided that both spouses are willing to make the effort.
To do this, you will need to radically change your life together, understand and identify the main reasons for the routine and desire for divorce, and then eliminate them. This is difficult and requires professional help. Unfortunately, people don't hear the warning signs. The desire to get a divorce is often the finishing line.
Recrimination
Having lived together for a long time, spouses usually describe separation and divorce as follows: the inability to listen to complaints, believing that only a divorce can put an end to this. This is often the main reason to seek solace on the side. A lover or mistress does not nag; it is easy, pleasant, and you can talk about any topic with them.
The longer people are together, the more common is the desire to shift the blame to the other half. The reasons for a bad mood are different, “forcing” spouses to look for reasons to take them away from themselves. Mutual accusations become a kind of tradition in life together.
Wives accuse their husbands of raising their children and not being able to have a career. Although they understand perfectly well that the desire to have children was mutual, and the lack of professional experience is not his fault.
Husbands accuse their wives of the fact that, due to the presence of a joint family, they were unable to realize their desires, make a career, or build their own business. Although, the desire to start a family was a mutual decision.
Lack of pleasure
Pleasure is the main reason for marriage. People get married to experience:
- the joy of intimacy;
- communication;
- joint hobbies;
- aspirations.
When shared pleasure is removed from the equation, the very meaning of marriage becomes illusory. That's when the couple starts asking questions. Why do they lose pleasure after living together for 20 years? Where can they find what they reveled in at the beginning of their relationship? Where does it go? Can I file for divorce?
If the foundation of a marriage is lost, the only option available is divorce. Many spouses think so. Unfortunately, they are right. It is very difficult to again find the same connecting thread that brought the spouses into each other’s arms, avoiding divorce. This is why lack of pleasure is the most dangerous cause of relationship breakdown and divorce.
Where to find lost pleasure?
8 For regions of Russia
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8 St. Petersburg and Leningrad region.
Most often, the reason for divorce was several points at once. If you try to save such a relationship, you will have to identify everything and work together to eradicate it. It is important that both spouses want this, otherwise all attempts will be in vain.
Lost pleasure
Initially, people marry for:
- receiving joy from intimacy;
- achieving joint goals;
- sharing hobbies;
- communication.
When people do not experience joy in connection, they feel like they are wasting time. The meaning of marriage turns into an illusion. This reason is the most dangerous, since it is very difficult to restore this connecting thread. Most often, there are several reasons for an impending divorce. It is necessary to eradicate them through joint efforts.
Adult children
The main reason to start a family is the desire to have children together. That is why, after 20 years of marriage, many couples face serious problems and get divorced, because by this time the children have grown up. Accordingly, spouses need to find the meaning of their joint relationship. It is possible if you search wisely. Otherwise, even after maintaining the relationship and avoiding divorce, you can remain an unhappy person who is simply afraid of change.
Remember the saying: “Gray hair is a devil in the rib”? Compare it with the statements described above: men are less afraid of change than women, children by this time are already adults (17-20 years old).
Then you can understand why it is at the age of 40-50 that so many men appear who begin to wander in search of happiness on the side and ask for a divorce.
Is it possible to find meaning in a relationship if the children are already grown?
The couple will have to look for meaning in something else, since they have exhausted the pleasure of raising children together. Some couples find it in raising their grandchildren, but this is just a substitute, because it can still lead to divorce. You need to look for something that will bring pleasure to both spouses: joint hobbies and aspirations can be an excellent substitute.
Set a goal to organize a business for two with your other half or take up some kind of sport together. Simply put, you need to find something that can become a joint pleasure, then you will find the meaning of saving your marriage, avoiding divorce.
The meaning of life after children grow up
In the 20th year of marriage, problems often arise due to freed up time. A family built on the desire to have children loses its meaning. You no longer need to solve together the problems of teaching, raising, treating babies or rocking them at night. It is necessary to replace the freed up time, but looking for a new activity that will become a shared meaning is very difficult.
It is important to find pleasure in marriage, which will become the new connecting thread for the relationship. It could be:
- joint business;
- passion for travel;
- joint sports activities.
Some spouses wait for their grandchildren and begin to be active in raising them, but this is just a substitution of the meaning of marriage. If grown-up children decide to move away from their parents' nest, the foundation of married life in the form of grandchildren will again be lost.
The big problem in this situation is infidelity, which is more common among men. It arises in them due to a lack of fear of change. One of the reasons is the lack of desire from the spouse to establish a life together, lack of attention. The problem can be solved through joint goals and aspirations that will take up your time for several years.
Reasons for divorce after a long marriage
It often happens that people who have experienced both sorrow and joy together decide to divorce after 20-30 years. Of course, for each family such a decision is individual. However, we can highlight the most common arguments that push people to break their marriage ties:
- Fatigue. This is often the reason men give for leaving their family. The spouse may claim that life together is monotonous and boring, but he craves new discoveries and impressions. It happens that he himself does nothing, but places the blame on his wife.
- Frequent conflict situations in the family. Constant quarrels, accusations, reproaches and scandals do not strengthen any family. Negativity accumulates, and the spouses become so distant from each other that at the first opportunity they try to break off the relationship.
- Cheating on one of the spouses (see also: how can you teach your husband a lesson for cheating?). In this case, even the statute of limitations does not matter. Resentment will always be present, and at the first opportunity a person will try to break off relations with the traitor. This often happens when common children grow up. Divorce is perceived as liberation from the unpleasant company of the offender.
- Problems with sex. The intimate component is extremely important in family life. If a husband cannot satisfy his wife, or a wife loses interest in sex due to a certain age, this often leads to a search for another partner and a new family (see also: how to understand that a wife has stopped loving her husband: signs of a cold relationship).
- New feelings. As you know, all ages are subject to love. It often happens that one of the spouses falls in love at 45-50 years old. The last love can be much stronger than the first, so in order to spend the remaining time with your loved one, you need to break off the previous relationship.
- Growing up children. If spouses do not have common interests, there are no common concerns (child care), they see no point in continuing the relationship. The husband and wife begin to feel uncomfortable in each other’s presence, communication is not built, there is no joy from intimacy, and then thoughts of divorce arise.
- Alcohol or drug addiction. For this reason, people grow apart at any age. If one of the spouses has any kind of addiction, then the second either tolerates it or finally and irrevocably breaks all ties. Considering that a woman is the keeper of the family, she often endures to the last, and as a result still leaves her husband. Patience in this case is not justified, because for children such a father is not a role model. In addition, he can use physical violence, show aggression, worsen the financial situation of the family, etc. Fighting addiction is difficult, so if you are not sure of victory, it is better to get a divorce right away, thereby not torturing yourself and your children.
Further apart
The exemplary philanthropists and creators of the world's largest private charitable foundation, which has given more than $50 billion to various causes, said they will continue to work together on this issue, but no longer as a couple. Read about how the Gates couple will divide their $145 billion fortune (according to Bloomberg) and what could have caused the breakup in the RG article.
As soon as the couple announced their separation, the media began a real race for sensations. As the TMZ portal reported, the Gateses made the decision to divorce a long time ago and wanted to announce it in March of this year. According to the publication, the couple’s breakup was “unfriendly,” and Melinda even rented an island in the Caribbean for $132,000 a night, where she wanted to get away from journalists with her entire family—except for her now ex-husband. And yet, as TMZ reported, Mrs. Gates did not demand that her husband pay her any money. However, curiously, on the day the divorce papers were filed, Bill transferred almost two billion dollars in stock securities to his wife. By the way, according to the portal, the Gateses, who got married when the creator of Microsoft was already the richest man in the United States, oddly enough, do not have a prenuptial agreement. And the only document they say is relevant to the divorce is the separation agreement. The couple is asking for the trial to be set for April 2022, but, as TMZ notes, most likely there will be no long-term trial and everything will be resolved quickly.
But if the question of whether the former spouses will share the acquired fortune remains not fully clarified, with the inheritance for children everything is extremely clear. Back in 2021, Gates said his three children would inherit just $10 million each because leaving “their children huge amounts of money is not good for them.”
So why did one of the richest couples on the planet decide to get a divorce? As The Wall Street Journal writes, citing sources and documents, there are many reasons, but, among other things, Melinda was very worried about her husband’s contacts with the late banker Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of trafficking minors for the purpose of sexual exploitation. According to the publication, Gates discussed charity with Epstein. According to the newspaper, Melinda began consulting with lawyers from different firms about the divorce in 2019. But only now the couple decided to announce a breakup in order to wait until their youngest daughter Phoebe turns 18, reports the People portal.
Pros and cons of late divorces
Every family experiences divorce differently. Some see only the positives and fearlessly look at their future lives, while others have no idea what to do next.
Sometimes a late divorce is a chance to start over. If the life of the former spouses was full of tension, the relationship did not work out, then after being freed from the burden of an unhappy family life, they become prettier before our eyes and exude vital energy.
Breaking up an unhappy marriage allows you to open your heart to new love, so you can create a happy family. Over time, the feelings of the former spouses, burdened by everyday problems, fade away. Divorce will allow you to find a person with whom you will be warm and comfortable for the rest of your life.
There is an opportunity for self-realization, to devote yourself to your favorite business or hobby. It happens that after 25-30 years a moment suddenly comes when a person realizes that the years have passed and his talent has not yet been discovered. For example, a talented actor works in a car dealership, or a singer sits at the cash register in a store. Family and children do not allow you to change jobs, or the fear of dismissal prevents you from changing your occupation, and over time there is a need to stop all this. When children no longer need support, people eventually get divorced and begin to realize their talents.
In addition to the positive aspects of divorce, some difficulties arise. Many people find it difficult to get used to being alone or to a new partner. The ex-husband might have gotten tired of her after 15 years, but he knew all his wife’s habits and preferences by heart - this is very convenient. It happens that some time after a divorce, ex-spouses begin living together again.
For some reason, late divorce often does not find support in society. You should be prepared for the fact that someone will say something unpleasant with condemnation.
As men age, they may experience problems with the cardiovascular system or exacerbation of chronic diseases, because many of them are trying to find a younger partner. Consequently, you need to spend more strength and energy, and a sharp change in sexual activity with age is fraught with many dangers.
“I wondered: how will he leave?”
A year later, when I contacted Jade again, she said that the breakup ritual helped her realize the obvious. “We did the right thing, even though we messed up before. I often wondered how he would leave. Will he really just wake up one day, say “bye” to me and walk out the door? The breaking ceremony put an end to my thoughts. I desperately needed help to come to terms with the fact that he loved someone else and our relationship was over.”
Some romances turn out to be temporary, while others lead to the beginning of a new life. Clive's affair belonged to the second category, so Jade could wait as long as she wanted, but this could not be changed. The tone of his letter also clarified a lot for her. “It wasn’t a letter about what he would miss,” she says. “It was a letter saying it was all over.” He said something nice, but there was no love in his words anymore. That’s when I realized that I was suffering, still in love with him, but he was no longer around. You can’t imagine how much it hurt, but it opened my eyes.”
When I contacted Clive, he described the ceremony as “emotional and effective.” His guilt gave way to gratitude, and memories replaced denial. Gradually, he found the strength to cope simultaneously with his attachment to Jade and the children, and with the desire for a new life with Kira. “Until that moment, everything seemed unreal. This ritual allowed me to put an end to it.”
For this couple, such a cleansing ritual turned out to be effective. However, sadly, many partners pour out an endless stream of curses at each other instead of sharing pleasant memories. Whenever possible, I try to help people reframe their relationships in a way that empowers each other rather than being a victim of each other. Forgiveness does not always come with this; sometimes there is room for anger, but one can only hope that this anger will mobilize them. We need to move on - hope again, love again, trust again.
How do you know if you should divorce your spouse with whom you have lived for more than 20 years?
To understand whether it is worth getting a divorce after 20 years of marriage, you need to listen to your inner feelings. The answer to this question is very individual. Undoubtedly, you need to break off relations with a drug addict, alcoholic, liar and traitor. Moreover, you should leave as soon as possible from a person who is aggressive, uses violence, or negatively affects the mental state of family members.
If the spouses become bored in the family and want new emotions and experiences, then it is better to find the true cause and try to eliminate it. Faded love can be turned into strong friendship. Spouses who have been married for 20-30 years can become not just partners, but true friends and soul mates.
Divorce after a long marriage
Divorce after 20 years of marriage - what could be the reason? The most common “they don’t get along” is not applicable in this case. It is more suitable for couples who have not lived together for ten years. Divorce after 20 years of marriage mainly occurs for two reasons: infidelity of one of the spouses or loss of trust due to some other circumstances.
If we talk about betrayal, then there are two options: either it occurred due to a sudden attraction and does not imply any continuation, or it was the result of a long, previously established discord in the family.
Divorce after 15 years of marriage is a hard blow for any couple, which will not be easy to cope with.
