By Larry Muhammad
June 8, 2010

High-school sweethearts, known for public displays of affection, breaking up two weeks after celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary?

That's exactly what Al and Tipper Gore did, telling friends they "grew apart," a development that's incomprehensible to some Louisville couples married just as long.

"Grew apart? I can't understand that," said Gary Kinney, a retired insurance executive married 40 years to his wife, Darlene. "It's hard to see what's going on there. When you're married that long you learn to work through things. What problems could the Gores have? They have all the money they could probably use."

But divorce lawyers and relationship counselors say calling it quits is becoming more common in later stages of a marriage, especially among Baby Boomers who are living longer, healthier lives -- and who never regarded divorce as taboo.

"When I grew up, my parents stayed married, most of their friends stayed married and divorce was really unusual," said Robert Stenger, who taught law at the University of Louisville for 30 years, specializing in divorce. "Then with the Baby Boomers, the divorce rate shot up. I don't know whether you can blame it on the 1960s, but it became more acceptable. There were changing expectations; people got married for as long as it worked; guys in midlife crisis turned in their wives for younger models. But the Gores have another 20 or 30 years to live, they look forward to doing something else. When life expectancy was shorter, people didn't have to stay married as long."

Baby Boomers also grooved to the Beatles' hit single "We Can Work It Out," and indeed, today's divorce rate is lower than it's been since the 1970s. Some experts don't see a new generational divorce trend in the offing.

"Late-stage divorce makes a lot of sense because you have more people living longer who are married," said John Turner, a family therapist in Louisville. "But in my practice, I haven't seen it. Statistically, in my professional experience, I haven't seen the divorce rate of older people changing."

Couples married for 40 years or more accounted for just 4 percent of divorces nationally, according to the most recent U.S. Census data -- the only statistical evidence in an otherwise anecdotal trend. According to the AARP 2009 Sex, Romance, and Relationship Survey, infidelity is not the reason.

But the trend is real to Marlene Eskind Moses of Nashville, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

"It's an option to terminate a long-term marriage more now because people live longer. ... Staying in the relationship for the purpose of longevity is not necessarily a good reason."

When physician Robert Butler first started looking at aging in 1955, he says life expectancy was around 70. Now, he says, a 65-year-old man can expect to live 18 more years and a woman another 20 years.

Butler, 83, is founder of the non-profit International Longevity Center in New York City and is founding director of the National Institute on Aging. He says he's also aware of those in long marriages contemplating divorce -- and he says it's usually the women who bring it up.

"They wanted out," he says. "They were tired of too much pressure or inadequate emotional support from the husband. He was too preoccupied with other things. He didn't carry his weight. He didn't help around the house. They didn't have the kind of support they wanted to have."

Butler's new book, "The Longevity Prescription," says people are not only living longer but also are healthier in older age. "If they don't feel totally happy and have possibilities for new relationships, late-life divorce is not totally uncommon."

Turner, the family therapist, said that shared interests help couples weather marital storms. And Kinney said athletic pursuits have strengthened the bond with his wife -- he works out three times a week and she's an avid runner. Anne Klingman and her husband David, a Louisville attorney, have been married 45 years. They travel together regularly, visiting the Netherlands, Ireland, France, Austria, the Bahamas.

"That can be key," Turner said. "Very definitely, in all our work with couples, that is one of the strengths and assets. People need to make certain they have shared areas of interest."

Lewis Bass, a retired Louisville businessman married for 63 years, said, "I think in essence, too many people have their own agenda in marriage. When two people get together in marriage, they should function as one."

His wife, Gladys, says, "Things happen in a marriage but you have to learn how to negotiate with one another -- give and take, you have to be able to compromise."

The Gores are empty nesters now, which could also be a factor, said Joe Brown, a UofL professor emeritus and director of Families in Transition, the court-mandated divorce education program in Kentucky.

"What I've seen happen clinically, that prior to the children leaving home," he said, "one or both spouses have checked out, disengaged from the relationship, wait for the children to leave and file for divorce."

A proven strategy for older couples, according to Michael Boggs' and Jason Millers' "Project Everlasting," a 2007 book of marital advice from couples together 40 years or longer, is to keep dating. "Whether it's a vacation in the Bahamas, or simply spending a night at a local motel once a week ... keep stoking the fire."

Brown said, "When people aren't together enough physically, which apparently happened to the Gores, their lives take on different trajectories and often the marriages suffers."

A USA Today report is included in this story

Original Story: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100608/FEATURES/6080310/1011/SCENE/