As my children turned 17 and 20, and I turned 53, I realised it was time to reclaim my own independence, leave my marriage and get back out there. And it seems that I am not alone. While it used to be the seven-year itch that ended marriages, a recent report indicated that 20 years now seems to be the most common crunch time with celebrities such as Colin Firth and Hugh Bonneville separating from their wives and famous couples such as Tess Daly and Vernon Kay calling it a day.
For me, it was very much a matter of pull and push factors.
The pull factors were the age-old concerns of kids, family and plain old inertia. I wanted to give the children a stable start in life and everything I had seen or read said that this was best with two parents at home – as long as home was calm, pretty conflict-free and provided structure and security. We managed that for as long as we could through gritted teeth, repression, a heavy dose of daily gratitude and thinking about people around the world who were much worse off. Strangely war, death and poverty are quite good for prolonging a marriage.
I also really liked having a large extended family with adult stepchildren and grandchildren, and we had a lot of fun with everyone round at ours for their weekend breaks. My own children were adored by their half-brothers and sisters and ever-increasing nephews and nieces, who did a great job of relieving any tension between me and my husband.
And then there was just the fear of change and things being not that bad. Other people leave their husbands because they are abusive or are alcoholics or gamblers. Mine was a good man but just not quite right for me. A First World problem and enough to make it hard to justify going.
Then, as the years went on, the push factors got louder. I often felt like I had wedged myself into a dustbin with the lid held on tightly in order to be a good mum and wife but, over time, the lid started to rattle. I needed to find my old self again, have fun and get out to make the most of whatever time I had left. I felt that I had been dutiful enough and was, perhaps, at last, allowed to be a bit selfish.
And so, we separated, and now eight years later, I believe are we all better for it. My ex and I are great friends without having to be partners, the children love us both, and as they build their own relationships, they can see what was right and wrong with ours without having to be the solution.
But that’s my story. What about Colin, Hugh, Tess and Vernon, along with everyone else who also finds that 20 years is plenty?
As a psychologist, I think there are a number of reasons why my generation are different from those before us, which make us able to withstand the seven-year itch but not the massive scratch all those years later. We are a product of our time and that has changed how we see ourselves and what we see as a good life.
First, we are all Thatcher’s children. Like me, many others may have taken to the streets to protest against the poll tax and welfare cuts and rail against the idea of “no such thing as society”, but whatever that did to our politics, it definitely left us with a sense of power. It was a time of get-up-and-go and making the most of yourself and, while at the time that all seemed horribly individualistic, we were left feeling we could be whatever we wanted to be. So when a marriage feels done, Thatcher’s voice tells us we can be a bit selfish and put ourselves first.
Next, we are the generation of helicopter parenting. Bizarrely, while our own childhoods were a product of grazed knees, concrete play parks and a heavy dose of benign neglect, we managed, watched and organised our children through homework, clubs and play dates; determined they would be socialised, accomplished and safe. But it’s exhausting being the perfect parent, so we burned out and crashed. Just in time for them and us to leave home and start the next stage of freedom.
We are also either late boomers or young Gen X and – through the luck of the draw – have had stable careers, a flourishing housing market and now the grey pound to give us a house big enough to split and money enough to reinvent ourselves as a single person.
Then, we have a good dose of biology thrown in, and with all that yoga, swimming, non-smoking and moderate drinking together with HRT, multiple varieties of lube and over-the-counter Viagra, we know we will probably live longer and that the time we have left can be more active than it was for previous generations.
But most of all, we have a lifetime of comparing ourselves to others convincing us that we can do it differently.
By the time we decide that 20 years is plenty, most of my generation have watched their parents and their parent’s friends being stuck in a life of bickering, raised eyebrows and tutting, loneliness, or just pure misery and regret. We also have seen the creeping onset of age and illness as joints get stiffer, memories weaker and hospital visits become a regular day out. And we have realised that time flies as you age and that the gap between us and our ageing parents is nothing. So, we think: “It doesn’t have to be like that. I mustn’t waste my time.”
We also compare ourselves to our friends – and the domino effect starts. Once one couple breaks up and we hear tales of swiping right and being matched, first dates (good and bad), new fun, new love and new nakedness, then it all seems much more doable. With time, being divorced becomes the norm and those still married feel like they have been left behind.
There’s the media and the fabulous algorithms, too. Our phones know what we are looking at and make us look even more. New outfits, skincare, live bands, travel, supplements and new men (and women) – all are out there just waiting for us. The more we look, the more we see it all modelled by people who could be us, or dated by us, when we reach the other side of marriage. And now joined by Colin, Hugh, Tessa and Vernon. Maybe they could even be ours.
So, we leave. Twenty years of marriage really does feel long enough, but also short enough, to allow us to do this next stage well. A new last stage to do all the things we still have left to do, to do them properly and for as long as we are able. Because one day soon we will want to look back and think: “I made the most of it all.”