Have you ever sat across from someone you've shared decades with and realized you're about to begin again, at fifty-plus? That's the heart of today's episode, where we, Michele and Julee, strip back the layers of 'gray divorce'. It's not just a statistic; it's a journey many are walking, including us. We tackle the emotional maze and financial knots that come with parting ways later in life. The conversation spans from the unique challenges women often face in these splits to how technology and societal changes have reshaped marriage's longevity.
Navigating the aftermath of a long-term marriage is no small feat, and we get real about the impact this seismic shift has on everyone involved, kids included. From the delicate task of building a new normal to the potential personal growth and self-discovery on the other side of divorce, we're sharing our stories and those of others who've found the courage to chase happiness, even when it means starting over. This episode is a blend of candid reflections and supportive insights, complete with our own brand of humor to lighten the weight of these life-altering decisions.
We wrap things up by discussing the unconventional paths some couples take, like cohabitating without romance, and why honest communication is the linchpin of any marriage. As we chat about the importance of check-ins and owning one's role in a relationship's breakdown, our personal anecdotes and light-hearted banter promise to keep you company through this deep dive into the complexities of divorce at a later stage in life. So whether you're snuggled up with your fur baby or in need of a good heart-to-heart, join us for a journey of transformation, resilience, and maybe a few unexpected laughs along the way.
Have you ever sat across from someone you've shared decades with and realized you're about to begin again, at fifty-plus? That's the heart of today's episode, where we, Michele and Julee, strip back the layers of 'gray divorce'. It's not just a statistic; it's a journey many are walking, including us. We tackle the emotional maze and financial knots that come with parting ways later in life. The conversation spans from the unique challenges women often face in these splits to how technology and societal changes have reshaped marriage's longevity.
Navigating the aftermath of a long-term marriage is no small feat, and we get real about the impact this seismic shift has on everyone involved, kids included. From the delicate task of building a new normal to the potential personal growth and self-discovery on the other side of divorce, we're sharing our stories and those of others who've found the courage to chase happiness, even when it means starting over. This episode is a blend of candid reflections and supportive insights, complete with our own brand of humor to lighten the weight of these life-altering decisions.
We wrap things up by discussing the unconventional paths some couples take, like cohabitating without romance, and why honest communication is the linchpin of any marriage. As we chat about the importance of check-ins and owning one's role in a relationship's breakdown, our personal anecdotes and light-hearted banter promise to keep you company through this deep dive into the complexities of divorce at a later stage in life. So whether you're snuggled up with your fur baby or in need of a good heart-to-heart, join us for a journey of transformation, resilience, and maybe a few unexpected laughs along the way.
Hey everybody. This is Michelle and this is Julie. Welcome to a blonde, a brunette and a mic podcast. What is our podcast all about, you ask?
Speaker 2:Well, we're 250 something, women with life experience and oh, plenty to say which is exactly what we're going to do right now.
Speaker 1:Today's topic is going to be, or can be, somewhat sensitive, I think. Do you think Because you color your hair I mean, my hair is kind of gray, ah, no, sensitive in that divorce. So there's part of the topic just so you guys know that we're going to be talking about can, in general, be a somewhat sensitive topic depending on circumstances. But this is specifically something referred to and this was kind of a new. This was new verbiage for me, but something called gray divorce, like G-R-A-Y, like the color gray gray divorce and what is what? Essentially, I was like what does that mean? Mean, but because it is a thing though I did see in preparing that it's actually a term that is used. So what is that?
Speaker 2:So great divorce is well. First of all, people get divorced in all different parts of life whether it be when they're young or whether they're old or whatever the case may be old or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:So what gray divorce is really speaking to is when people get divorced after they've been married for a period, a long period of time, and kind of the cutoff on that would be like over the age of 50, anybody over the age of 50. But I think it applies to just about anybody that would be divorced that has been married a long time, for a long time, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I mean we're talking like 25 years, right, 20, 25 years both of us and yes, we color our hair yeah, it's also known as uh another way to say it is silver splitters I I silver what? Splitters like they split up but silver split kind of like yeah, I don, I don't know, I have a hard time with the whole silver thing and the gray thing. It's just really defining that timeframe in your life.
Speaker 2:So yeah, if you have gray hair or not have gray hair, it doesn't really apply. It doesn't matter. If you do have gray hair and you color it, that doesn't matter either. Michelle. Okay, good, it doesn't make any difference. What's correct? So I was looking at some stuff in psychology today. They talked about the divorce rate over 50. So over the age of 50, having doubled in the last 30 years, and I found that so interesting because most of the people that we're talking about here are going to be baby boomers. A lot of them will be baby boomers when in that generation where I am technically, I guess, the last year of that. But when you're talking about people that are older than us, so into their 70s, 60s, 70s, that kind of thing, and I even had someone say to me the other day it's like why would you, why did you, get divorced after so long You're married so long? Why would you have gotten divorced.
Speaker 1:I get that question. I'm not going to say all the time, it's not like I'm talking about that all the time, but frequently when it comes up, I do get that question. Well, it's kind of a loaded question how long were you married? Because you know well how long were you married? 26 years, really.
Speaker 2:We're both married 26 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's always. It's like oh wow, really yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do run across it nowadays, I think, a lot more back when, first of all, the divorce rate was lower but there were a lot of miserable, unhappy people that were living together. I think when you kind of go back to the more traditional aspects of marriage in the 50s, 60s into the 70s, that kind of a thingorce was really you're a pariah. If you're a woman and you got divorced, you're even more of a pariah. So a lot of people just stayed married for that reason, along with financial limitations that they might have, educational limitations, they never finished college or they didn't go to college. They raised the children at home women.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about women right now and so they didn't really have those resources outside of the home to be able to establish a career or a savings account. That was separate or any of those things. So you can kind of see what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:I was smiling while you were talking about those things because, I mean, all of those things were me.
Speaker 2:Well, you can kind of see why it would be so much different. Because the people who are in their 30s or in their 40s maybe getting divorced. They might not even have children or own property together or have a 401k that they would have to be splitting. There might not be any of that stuff going on. I mean, I've definitely seen where people even a little bit older that don't have any of those assets it's a really simple divorce process. But when you start involving children and things, money, it's always about money. When you think about it, everything's about your assets and there are formulas that people use that are used by attorneys and things to split up assets based on income and all that good stuff. That's a lot more than we want to probably get into. But the older you are in theory, the more you will have acquired and a lot of that acquisition will have been as a couple. Or you have one person who's working outside of the home bringing home the bacon while the other person is at home frying it up in a pan.
Speaker 1:Commercial. Do you remember that commercial back in the day? I can bring home the bacon Mama, mama, mama.
Speaker 2:Fry it up in a pan. Yeah, I know, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, okay. So, taking all of the funny stuff out of it, it that is the reality of it, and so I think there's people that definitely feel, maybe, that they're stuck, they might be in an emotionally abusive relationship, they might be in a relationship that's void of any emotion.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like when you've been married for a long time. I still we could talk about this whole wedding, marriage thing for a while, but I just wonder sometimes whether people are really intended to be with the same person for their whole life.
Speaker 1:You've said that a few times through different episodes that we've done. You pose that question frequently.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a question I don't really have an answer to. Yeah, but some of these things make me kind of think about it, because when you're talking about getting into a marriage, for example, at the age that a lot of us, or people that are in this gray divorce group, have they were young in most cases getting married and very traditional outlook on how they will have the wife home raising the children the guy will be making the breadwinner, the wife will be handling all of the PTA meetings, whatever the case may be. So then, when their lives are not running parallel anymore, the woman is in a position where she doesn't really have a lot of resources the same maybe as the guy would be. Or if it's vice versa, which you'll see more now, you'll see more men staying home raising the children, while the woman has some big lucrative job and she's the one out working. I mean, you do see that it doesn't happen that often, but in these traditional timeframes that we're talking about here, that was the way it kind of was.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I believe and I've seen it plenty of times where people have gotten married and they stay married because of the kids, but they lead kind of separate lives, meaning that they don't really do a lot together, and if they do, it's involving the kids or the family or what have you, but nothing really to keep their relationship nurtured and going. And so what is going to happen? Their relationship is going to fall by the wayside or they're not going to have the same level of intimacy, and people need intimacy in order to keep their relationship alive. So you go find the intimacy somewhere else, or the people find intimacy somewhere else, and so that creates a lack of trust. There's just all these different components to it that really have to be taken into consideration.
Speaker 2:When you're talking about having been married for that long, I mean ideally and again, I say ideally because in my head of what a fairy tale would look like or what the perfect scenario would look like. You're we really know that are like that or that have, from on the outside anyway, what we can see, that kind of a bond. I mean we have to get a marriage license to get married, but you don't have to go to school, you don't have to go to class, you don't have to get a certificate, you get married and you're just supposed to get married and nobody really talks about all the shit that happens and the things you need to navigate and, depending upon who your resources are, the people that you are confiding in. Maybe it's your mom, or maybe it's an aunt or someone else who is going through or has gone through a marriage and just says you need to suck it up, honey, you just need to suck it up. That's how men are, or whatever. I can remember hearing things like that and of course, I don't accept that for anything.
Speaker 2:I think bottom line what it boils down to when you're talking about gray divorce. This isn't about women or about men. This is about people, and not every woman wants to get divorced, not every man wants to get divorced, but it's not about men being the bad guy in gray divorce and saying, well, I burned all the bacon, so I'm going to be taking everything that goes along with that. That's where things start getting really contentious and it gets really ugly. And if there's children involved, then it's even worse.
Speaker 2:And so when you start thinking about gray divorce, there are people that are already in those mature years. They might be in their 60s, they might be in their 50s, they might be retired and they come to realize that the second half of their life isn't necessarily what they're going to envision it to be. From what they've been living for the last 20 years, they can't get past the reconciliation of it with the person that they're supposed to be married to for the rest of their life. They've outgrown each other, they've gone in different directions. There's been infidelity and there's no trust, there's no intimacy. There's all these things that, if you don't work on them over the course of time, all the time that they're going to be void from any relationship like that, I would think.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's the hard part, because going back to how the divorce rate for people over 50 has doubled- in the last 30 years.
Speaker 1:You know there's so many factors now that make it seem like that is an option. Yes, and what happened to hard work in those relationships? I mean, here I am, you know, yeah, I got divorced. So you know I'm a divorced person speaking about these things and I can look back and I can see how so many of the things that I'm going to refer to in a minute affected me in my own marriage and when it comes to the cell phone and with that whole people, our age living through going from not having that be a part of your relationship and then moving into that.
Speaker 1:And now, all of a sudden, there's this whole other thing of communication that takes your person outside of the communication that you have between each other. There were a lot of different the internet, email, all of those things. The telephone communication social networking, myspace came out. That was the first one. Myspace and different things like that and all of those things being thrown at you and inserted into that relationship that the generation prior didn't have. I'm not saying there weren't problems, but they didn't have all of those.
Speaker 2:They were different.
Speaker 1:But now this is like a whole other layer that was added on to have to navigate all the newness of it and that was pretty cool and chatting with people outside of your home and you know not having to go anywhere.
Speaker 2:I mean people sliding into your DMs, and I know that sounds like it's a young person thing, but it happens with everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people sliding your DMs and.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the thing. I think one of the ways to avoid this whether it's gray divorce or any kind of divorce is really having open lines of communication about what is available. Now I'm not saying I'm never going to be, nor would I ever be, that person who is searching in someone's phone or taking their password. If I have to do all that crap, then I'm in a bad place as it is, in my opinion. But if you don't have the conversations around some of these things or set boundaries around them, they're going to just exemplify additional problems that are going to be coming into a marriage.
Speaker 2:So, again, if you're talking about someone who's around our age, the whole thought of getting divorced and everything doesn't just happen yesterday. It's probably a culmination of things over the course of time and one or the other person is choosing to remain in that relationship for maybe purely financial reasons, or they are afraid. They're afraid to try something different or to leave. If there's abuse verbal abuse, emotional abuse, any of that kind of stuff it might be something that you're so used to you don't even realize it's there anymore and the unknown especially if there's kids, the unknown of what that looks like.
Speaker 1:I know we were older, but my youngest was only 10 when I divorced. So people with kids, that whole unknown of what that looks like and how it's going to impact them. It doesn't even matter either Whether your kids are young or old. Divorce is still going to impact. You have no idea in what ways.
Speaker 2:Do you think that if, looking at it the way we see it now, like in society, it's so common, but when children are younger it's easier, or when they're older? Do you have a thought on that?
Speaker 1:I don't. I personally don't think that it matters if they're older. Do you have a thought on that? I don't. I personally don't think that it matters if they're young or old. I don't think it's easier or harder, it's just different. I think it's just going to be different because the older ones they're going to, they will have seen, you know, transition in the parental relationship. Probably they will have been able to witness some of those things and it might be more understandable. Yet at the same time they had both parents and so it's difficult to see that all happen. Probably I don't know or they might think that's normal, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the younger ones. They have seen both parents, but at the same time. And then the younger ones, you know they have seen both parents, but at the same time probably a more difficult part of that relationship, and so, yeah, I just, I just think it's different.
Speaker 2:You know, I always thought it would be harder. It's just different. I always thought it would be easier. It when the children are young, you're with them a lot more so than when you're when they're, you know, going through their formative years of like teenage years and things like that, where they probably are in need of more of the time and attention or to feel more secure. You know about what might be happening. They may see that there is a not really a quote relationship there, but they have the home and they have nothing's changed. Their world hasn't been impacted. But little kids I think you can make transitions and they don't necessarily know. It's how the parents handle it. It's how the parents choose to handle it and really how they choose to explain things, I think is huge.
Speaker 1:Depends on the dynamics of the relationship too. There's a whole lot of dependent factors, regardless of the age of the children, and a lot of those things are, I think, things that are now considered and we're learning so much as we continue on that. The word trauma has a whole lot. I mean, you think of trauma and you're thinking really awful, horrible things, but trauma can be a lot of different things you know and, and so there there is trauma to have been experienced in a whole lot of different ways that you know. As the kids get older, you might start understanding some of that or seeing how some of what they witnessed or lived through in regard to a marriage that isn't a healthy one is trauma for them.
Speaker 2:Well, and it can transition into their own relationships.
Speaker 1:Absolutely you know.
Speaker 2:Perhaps when they're younger they see these things and, like I said before, they might not know that those aren't normal, but they start to realize that either. A if they see a healthy relationship in some other people, you know, maybe it's their grandparents or maybe it's their friend's parents or something, but they see what a healthy relationship might look like.
Speaker 2:They don't feel the same tension in the house, all those sorts of things, but I think it doesn't probably matter, like you said, which age they are. I think when the kids get older I've seen, like when I was doing this research and just kind of looking through some of these interviews and such, that the kids were like it's about damn time Because they see how unhappy both parents were and how much those parents flourish when they have made that decision I can think of. This is a relative, so I won't name a name or anything but they had married for a really long, really long time and, oh my gosh, the level of complaining and disparaging comments and passive, aggressive comments and things like that was painful. It was just downright painful to be around and I came to the realization that it's probably been that way for a really long time and it stems from a lot of things that have nothing to do with today but have to do with things that had probably happened 40 years ago or 30 years ago, you know that kind of a thing. And so those people had chosen to live their lives together and were miserable, unhappy, miserable, and it was really unfortunate Because you can see that perhaps they I mean I know in particular the one person I'm thinking of really felt like she'd kind of wasted her life because she stuck around.
Speaker 2:But I think she also didn't have the courage to be able to do what she needed to do in order to make her life better, and was also a product of this generation where it was a very traditional household, there was no money made outside of the house, it was raising the kids, all that kind of stuff, so really limited really on a lot of things that that person was able to do. So, yeah, it just makes me kind of sad because I start thinking about this and I'm like we only have one life and I know that sounds really, you know, platitude, ish, but we do. We only have one life and so if you sit there and try your damnedest to make something work and it's not working, nobody gets married with the idea of getting divorced. I don't know anybody that's gotten married with the idea of like, well, if it doesn't work, we'll just get divorced.
Speaker 2:I mean that's crazy, why you can get married in the first place, but at the same time it's like if you can't make something work, you can't work through some of these things that have created this trauma in your relationship, then why would you stick around? Why would you spend the last part of your life in a situation where you're miserable if you have done the work to try to do a better job, I guess, is what I'm saying do to do a better job, I guess is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So not everybody looks at it that way. I suppose it's just easier. It's just like anything else in our modern day society. It's like there's always something better around the corner, there's always something else going on, there's always something it's going to make me feel better. The whole idea of being divorced when you are married and in a place where you're not in a good place, is this kind of fantasy about it being so much better if you're on your own and it's not always better, it's hard work it's a different type of hard work.
Speaker 2:Would you choose that hard work over the life that you were leading before? More than likely people would, because they made such a tough decision to begin with, but they're trying to learn how to navigate this new normal.
Speaker 1:you know for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think that there's a lot of reasons why this gray divorce happens Again. I know I brought up that thing about being married and being married for that long. I love when I see people that have been married a long time and they actually like each other. It makes me happy. I was on Facebook yesterday and there's one couple that I know that are clients of mine. They have three or four kids I think they have four kids the sweetest, cutest, little adorable couple ever and they've been married forever. They're high school sweethearts. They make it work and they're happy and they get along and he's nice and they care about it. You can just see it, you can feel it. When you're around them, it feels different. That is something that would be totally worth fighting for.
Speaker 1:Selflessness- yeah, there's a lot of that that has to go into a relationship. I think and this is something that I've learned through life and as life goes on, and in the relationship that I'm in now, there is this level of selflessness that has to be there and it's important. It's not like you're giving yourself up. That's not what selflessness is, but it's just being aware of somebody else and what those needs are, and of course it needs to be reciprocated. I'm not saying you just do it, so what if it's not, though? And of course it needs to be reciprocated.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying you just do it. So what if it's not though?
Speaker 1:Well, and that's where in you then have to have a different thought process and you have to ask yourself the questions on what am I doing? This is how I'm feeling, this doesn't feel good, this doesn't feel right and it goes from there. So then the shift happens, and it might seem selfish at that point. If you start making decisions otherwise, that that's what happens. You know when you're married and you have to start making those decisions.
Speaker 2:Well, and when you're getting married at a younger age too, it's like you're, you're not even. I mean depends how old you are when you get married, but I mean let's just say under 30, under 28, whatever 27, you're not really formulated as a complete person. In a lot of ways, Anyway, you haven't had a ton of life experience. So as you progress, the idea is that you progress together, but someone's path may not have been determined, or may have been determined and the other path is different, and so they don't end up going down the same path. It's hard to know that when you're 25 years old, that when you're 40, it's going to feel a lot different, and so it comes back to that whole level of work that you're putting into things. I think a lot of it's directly related to trust, and if a trust is broken in whatever capacity maybe someone has a gambling problem and has depleted the family savings, I mean what do you do?
Speaker 2:with something like that. I mean, you're married to this person. You've got to try to figure it out, right? Maybe they've got a problem, you don't just drop them you know and say sorry your problem doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:That's how that's being married, you know.
Speaker 2:Try to figure things out. But to the degree where you are sacrificing yourself, sacrificing your personal happiness on a regular, ongoing basis, that you don't have a voice, that you don't feel valued, if you can't figure those things out as a couple, then in my opinion it's better to move on, and I don't think there's anything really horribly wrong with that. I do feel that, at least from my perspective, I felt like a huge failure. Yeah, with nothing I ever would have dreamt that I would have wanted to do.
Speaker 1:It was all stuff that, yeah, I never wanted to do. No, I didn't want that for my family? I didn't want that for my kids.
Speaker 2:I didn't want it for any of it, but shit happens, yeah, and we have to work with what we've got, and in that particular scenario, that's how it was, and maybe that's why people wait so long, because maybe they think it's going to change or it's going to get better or they're going to come back together, absolutely, you've got that.
Speaker 1:You've got that, I know you. Just, you have that hope of holding out and continuing on and, yes, for all of those reasons that you were just talking, about.
Speaker 2:But I think when you get to the point where you've been married 20 plus years, you kind of have you know the writing's on the wall good, bad or indifferent.
Speaker 2:You know what you're dealing with, and so the question is do you continue to deal with it or do you try to figure it out on your own? And that's where those big decisions kind of come in. And there's a lot of reasons, like I mentioned before, why people stay in longer term relationships. Some of them are more business arrangements, frankly, and that usually is associated with money or prestige. Someone wants to live a specific lifestyle, and so they stay married so they can live the lifestyle, as opposed to getting divorced and having to start over. They are just comfortable with where they're at doing what they're doing. People might have different goals in life too. My goal might be to travel, for example, and to see the world, because I haven't had a chance to. I'm not speaking about me specifically, I'm just saying hypothetically and the other person might not want to do anything like that. So then you can stay married and one person's traveling without the other person, and then you're not doing anything together anyway.
Speaker 1:I mean, isn't it crazy? These are all things that should be discussed or like talked about in a relationship. As you're getting to know each other, you know.
Speaker 2:But then they change, circumstances change. I mean some people are so afraid of being broke. I mean we all are afraid of being broke, but you know what I mean. They're unreasonably worried about not having the financial means to do things, and so they eat Top Ramen.
Speaker 2:It's figuratively not literally, but because they want to save all their money, they're not enjoying their life. And you know how I am, I'm big on that. It's like I want to be able to have my experiences. I want my friend Michelle to have experiences, and so I drag her with me on a lot of cases. But those are the things that you're going to remember. You're not going to remember sitting at home and watching Jeopardy. I mean you know what I mean? Yeah, or TLC or whatever You're not going to. I mean those are things.
Speaker 1:Eating the dinner on the TV tray, sitting in the front room on the couch, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I mean if you're together, I mean I mean so much, though, and you can tell everything they do. They're thinking about the other person, even after having been married for over 40 years.
Speaker 1:That's how my sister and her husband. I love that. Yeah, they're like the coolest couple.
Speaker 2:And you just love being around them too, because they project such good energy. But then you go into a home that you know does not have the same level of respect, maybe, or understanding for the, and you can feel it.
Speaker 1:You can feel it both my sisters that are married, each one of them. I'm like they're probably wondering if I'm talking about them, but yeah, y'all know who. You are the only two that are still married and they both have fantastic spouses. Their husbands are amazing and yeah, Are they on? Their first marriages. One is One is Okay, and one it's her second marriage. Her first marriage wasn't long at all, and it was a really long time ago, so it kind of might as well be her first.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, the starter marriage. Yeah, starter marriage.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Some other things, some other reasons why I mentioned, I think before, but staying together because of the kids. So I have a thought process on that. I think that the kids can feel tension. They can cut it with a knife, they can tell when people are not talking respectfully or not talking, not communicating, not having fun together, not hugging or kissing and they can tell all that stuff.
Speaker 2:So sometimes you have to say, well, I want to stay together because the kids, I want to make sure they're older. Well, it's like you're already creating an environment. That's a little bit toxic anyway, if you're not even together around anytime so that's one thought process on that.
Speaker 2:The stigma of divorce I don't feel like it's as much of a stigma now because it seems really a lot more common. All when I was going through all of this, my biggest worry was my kids and how they would be treated if they would be treated differently. I didn't know, but they were in a private school that was divorced was kind of a no-no catholic I was gonna say that's really interesting, because I didn't worry about that at all.
Speaker 2:Really no I worried for them it was yeah, yeah, yeah but I I mean it was. It turned out to be fine. It wasn't. There was, weren't at least that I'm aware of. There might have been people gossiping, I don't really know, and I don't give a shit if they did or not. As long as my kids weren't affected, I would. They can talk about me all day long, I don't care.
Speaker 2:But they do not with my kids. I did not want anybody fucking with my kids. So people are afraid of starting over or they don't have the means to start over again going back to what, uh, what means you've developed, and I've heard of women preparing to leave in these circumstances because they were worried they weren't going to have the money to do what they needed to do, or to get into a house or to do, you know, whatever. How are they going to manage, you know? Are they going to manage the children?
Speaker 1:on their own.
Speaker 2:They're already doing a lot of that stuff, probably on their own anyway, and it's not like you're quote partnered, probably in the same way.
Speaker 2:Maybe you were the day you got married, right, but it's still that blanket of security knowing that you've got that other person there, I would imagine. So you worry about things for that reason and then I think the biggest one is probably the financial implications, because if you think about going, say, you're in a household that is pretty close to paycheck to paycheck or paycheck to paycheck, and now you're splitting households, how are you going to manage two households when you couldn't even manage one financially? Well, you have to be much more modest with the way you're living. Probably you have to cut a lot of things out, you have to make changes, make a lot of sacrifices. Yeah, to be able to have an environment that's, you know, assuming there's any kids involved that the kids could be there at home. Now, if you're older, your kids are grown, you just, you know, have a dog or two, then you might look at it totally different because, you wouldn't have to necessarily rely on somebody else in that Right.
Speaker 2:I know that was, and I think that's more my personality. I. I didn't want to rely on anybody ever. When I was a young or even growing up, I wanted to be able to be independent, and almost to the point now, when I think about it, that it's kind of ridiculous because you don't need to be that independent in order to be your own person. But I didn't want anyone having control over my finances or having control over me financially or anything where I couldn't do something that I felt I wanted to do or needed to do. Now I didn't make those decisions. Obviously when I was married, without input, I didn't go make big decisions about things for the most part when I was married because it was a dual decision thing, but it was really easy for me to transition to making my own decisions because I felt really comfortable doing that. Not everybody feels that way, so that's just something to think about.
Speaker 1:Either way, regardless of all the reasons, whether they're simple, more difficult, all the things that you just went through. Regardless, I think that divorce is almost always a life crisis.
Speaker 2:I hope so. I mean really. I hope so, because if it's not a life crisis, then we're really taking it seriously. I probably had no business getting married in the first place. Not that I'm making any judgment.
Speaker 1:Especially when you're talking about gray divorce for older people and people that have been married for a long time. Just the thought of you already mentioned it starting over you know, especially for I mean especially for women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know this is more generationally what people our age probably went through or go through when it's a divorce after being married for a really long time To your point, a lot of women did stay home or maybe worked part-time outside of the home. There wasn't a lot of those full-time working moms like there is now a crisis and things that would stop from hastily making those decisions because of the potential crisis that it could be with it.
Speaker 2:It's like, really, is it so bad? I could probably just deal with it. I mean, that's what maybe people are thinking. Maybe it's not so bad, I'm comfortable, I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I'm secure kind of thing, so they just kind of stay in those circumstances. But I mean, are they?
Speaker 2:happy? I don't know. I think starting over is a phrase that you hear and it kind of makes people shudder. You could look at it a couple of different ways. Right, you could be the cup half empty person that shudders, or you could be the cup half full person that goes. This is an opportunity for me to look at things differently and, as scary as it might be, I think that's my alternative, that I'm going to choose.
Speaker 1:I think too, there's going to be a level of anxiety and depression, especially for the one that didn't initiate or want the divorce Right. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I think the anxiety and depression itself, if you think about just how us going through it ourselves. There's this feeling of loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Whether it was a failure or not, there were good times. There were obviously things that were wonderful that came out of it. If you have children or you have the resources to be able to make those decisions. Then there's good stuff. Obviously, at some point there has to be. Why would you get married otherwise?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, right, but the idea of starting over and having someone learn your story all over again or trying to figure out what your story is all over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's like part of you now, yeah, and that that there's a lot. That's how I say there, there's a lot that comes with me, you know, and for any woman.
Speaker 2:I'm a handful. Yeah, I'm a handful.
Speaker 1:There's a lot that comes with me. I got a lot. I mean, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean think about those things that are happening in a great divorce any divorce really. But let's talk great divorce, because we're talking about a different generation here. There are things that have taken place in that marriage that were not healthy, obviously, so what stops either one of those people from taking it into another relationship, right, unless they choose to consciously do the work on whatever it is that created the failure? Yep their part, because everybody has a part.
Speaker 1:It's not one person's fault, it's not another person's.
Speaker 2:Both people play a role. For sure, and so that is something else to kind of think about. But I think that the idea of loss, the idea of you have to go through and kind of grieve, even if it wasn't the most fabulous thing in the whole world, it's still probably a big, big portion of your life.
Speaker 2:So you have to go through and kind of grieve what took place and figure out how to reset yourself, or you will end up in a state of depression that you might not be able to get out of, and that's not good for you or for anyone else either.
Speaker 2:Just something to think about. One of the things that I ran across was this woman who was talking about gray divorce, and she was an individual like we've been talking about that had stayed home and raised the children and husband, was very successful, powerful, traveled a lot, you know kind of a thing, and had had an affair and was leaving his wife of 30 plus years for this other woman who happened to just coincidentally be younger, right, and so when in this interview she's talking about no one wants a washed up old lady, that's how she felt. Yeah, maybe that's how she was told she was, or maybe that's what you see, I mean society's brutal. You know they they think of you being of a certain age and that you're like kind of discarded in a lot of ways. We've heard that before the whole.
Speaker 1:Talking about the invisible one.
Speaker 2:But here you are in a situation where you're creating potentially more anxiety for yourself because you're actually calling yourself a washed up old lady, which is complete bullshit.
Speaker 2:In my mind, it's like everybody brings something to the table, regardless of where they are in their life, absolutely so that has to do with self-esteem, sure, yeah, and having, uh, you know, being able to put your big girl panties on I'm not talking the thong, I'm talking the big girl panties and figure out what you're going to do, what your next step is, because it's your again going back to your one life.
Speaker 1:And it's not easy. It's not easy. They might fall off a few times because they are so big trying to put those panties on, but you just got to pull them back up and keep on going.
Speaker 2:Michelle's going to put her thong over them. Yeah, that'll keep them up, yeah. So I think I may have mentioned this before. Let me ask you. I just want to ask you the question Do you think it's okay in these circumstances? Of course it's okay. It depends. Everybody makes their own decision. But in those scenarios where people stay married and they just live separate lives, you know if that's what works for them.
Speaker 1:I can't say if it's okay or not. Okay, honestly, well like for you. I'm just saying scenario wise, I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2:What would you be missing? What do you mean, like if you stayed married and you just lived separate lives? It's kind of like you're married but you're single, but you can't be. You're not single, right, so you could go do stuff with your friends you can but you can't have like romantic entanglings or anything like that because you're married, right. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't either.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't do that. And if you're staying married because of money or whatever, whatever the reasons are, sometimes people have business arrangements and stay married I have come across people that do that and because it financially is better and it's just. You know, there's a whole lot of circumstances that surround that. But for me I would. No, I would want the full I need my person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just. It's like you already are going to have. You know, if you have kids, you're going to have that in common. You're already going to be tied to that person for the rest of your life because of the children, and so just let that be the tie that is, you know, that keeps you together. That's always going to be and there's nothing wrong with that. You will always be a family, no matter what you know, but the ability for both people to move on is there and you can, you know, continue through life and, you know, figure out what happiness is going to be for you and what that looks like.
Speaker 2:I was as you've been talking. I was just kind of thinking about, you know, the episode that we did on different types of relationships. Maybe this would be a good scenario for an open relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, staying married or just, oh, just have an open relationship, yeah.
Speaker 2:You're still married, but you just have an open relationship. I think that also corresponds with probably more financial reasons to stay married. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just I wouldn't. It seems icky to me. I just have no interest in that. I would rather wait tables or do whatever I would have to do and be scrappy and figure the shit out and move on than try to have to depend on that and be in that kind of. That's like not healthy. I agree At all.
Speaker 2:I was just curious what your thoughts were on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that before people get divorced when they're in that scenario, they've been married for a really long time. They're already probably living separate lives in a lot of ways, and so add fuel to the fire by an open relationship. I'm 100% with you. I would want a clean slate that's my own slate to be able to figure out. Do you think it's better to stay together because of the kids? No, tell me why.
Speaker 1:It depends on what's going on in the marriage, but chances are there's going to be that. I've learned a lot about. You know vibes and good vibes and the bad vibes.
Speaker 1:You can feel all those vibes and kids are very in tune to that underlying tension that is going on, whether it's because of money, all the things. If there's been an affair outside of the marriage by one of the partners, just like all the things, that is all going to be very. They might not know the reasons or understand what's going on, but that tension is felt where there's supposed to be harmony and it is not healthy.
Speaker 2:It's palpable. I really believe it's palpable. You can feel, yes, you can cut it with a knife in some respects, so and and they learn to live in that environment. So they might not know any different and this is like I was saying this these are trauma situations.
Speaker 1:There's, there's so many things that can can create that trauma for the child that you just don't even know. You don't know until they're adults later. And then you start seeing it or hearing things and then you start understanding oh geez, maybe there was some trauma there.
Speaker 2:You know we had interviewed a guest who had Elizabeth I don't know if you remember several episodes ago. That was talking to us about a variety of different things, but one of the discussions that we had had, she had talked to us about the divorce process and what the experience was like with her kids and stuff. And one thing that she said that really has stuck with me, it resonated with me then and it still sits with me now, is that in the relationship she currently has, that they actually regroup every year and just sit down and talk about what could we have done better, what could we have done without what? Do we apologize? Do we want to be married?
Speaker 2:I mean not to say that they're trying to get divorced or anything but they're just basically doing a recap of the year, for example. Now, some people do that every day. I imagine you know they. But I think that some of those things can get very routine and maybe not have the same significance or value, whereas the way she explained it I was like what a brilliant idea. Yeah, really, because nobody talks about that. Because you're supposed to be married for the rest of your life, maybe quarterly would be good. Yeah, quarterly, whatever works for you as a couple, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but point being is that it's like it's you're able to work through things if people communicate more in real time, I mean bottom line, don't you think?
Speaker 1:okay, so, so we are products of great divorce. We were older when we got divorced. We were married for a long time, got divorced, but I truly feel I have learned so many things, not just from the divorce, but all the experiences throughout the marriage the good, the bad, the ugly, and then continuing on, and all the things that I learned through the self-growth that you have to go through once you make the decision and you are moving on. That you have to go through once you make the decision and you are moving on. Hence, for me, it was my decision and I initiated the divorce.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, so that's why I say, as I you know, continue on, you know, in that self-growth period and all the things that you learn through that time period, and then you can look back and this hindsight I know it's really cliche, the saying is 2020, but truly it's not all 100% crystal clear but you can look back and know that me now, put me back. Then I could have handled so many things differently and I think there could have been a better outcome on my part I can't speak for my ex-husband, but on my part in putting in, looking back, and I know that's the case. So as you move on, in years too, we learn and we grow and we mature, and hopefully for the better I think a lot of times it is for the better and as you maybe move into a new relationship, or you're looking for that new relationship or not looking, and happen to stumble upon one, whatever the situation is, there's a lot of positive things that you're able to bring into that because of what you have learned.
Speaker 2:Experience.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the outlook that you have in regard to those things. So it's it's a lot different, I think.
Speaker 2:So well, I think getting divorced at any time is like we said it's going to be a traumatic experience. If you, if you look at it like I'm free, I have this burden lifted from my shoulders, I can speak. Whatever the case may be, however you're feeling after that, if you don't do anything with that, you're back in the same place where you started before.
Speaker 2:So it does put you in a position where it certainly prompts you, hopefully, to have an opportunity to look inward at your responsibility, because everybody has responsibility, it's not one person's over another. If you don't take accountability for yourself, you're just going to repeat the same problems over and over again. Yeah, anyway, that was a lot, it's a lot but it's a lot. It's a very valid topic because we're at a place in our lives where we're seeing this kind of thing happen with a lot of different people and I don't know that people really dig into it or look at it or really kind of dissect.
Speaker 2:I know I didn't really. When I was going through all of this I was so overwhelmed with just the emotion of everything that was going on that it was very difficult for me to even keep my head above water, frankly. But now I look at it a lot differently and I don't look at it with the same feelings of negativity or anything like I felt before, because I see the good stuff that's come from it and I'm a different person now because of the choices that I've made and the path that I've chosen to take, and I think I'm the better, I'm a better person for it. Honestly, yeah, I'm a much nicer. I'm just kidding. I don't know. It depends who you talk to, I guess, right. So on that note, michelle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on that note, I just want to remind everybody that you can find us out on YouTube now A blonde, a brunette and a mic. Just go search us. We've got a few episodes. So if you are curious those of you that don't know what we look like and aren't necessarily on social media you can find us on YouTube and watch some of our episodes there, and in the meantime, we still are on all the socials as well.
Speaker 2:And Michelle has a fountain on her head today. So in case you want to go, look at YouTube she's got a fountain on her head. We've got a fountain on the head. Yeah, and I have a puppy in my lap, see, there she is. There's my baby, Anyway well, have a good one. Thanks for listening people, you, you.