
Since 1990 the divorce rate of people over 50 has doubled, with researchers predicting this will triple by 2030. I am one of these statistics.
Myriad circumstances underlie the rise in what is coined ‘grey divorce’ over the past 30 years. But what resonates for me as a child of the 60’s/70s is a focus on personal happiness and self-fulfilment. I was not prepared to remain in a relationship that was not fulfilling. It doesn’t mean my bloke was not a good man, it means the marriage was completed.
Sounds clean and easy, yes?
On the contrary. Suicide ideation was a force to be reckoned with. Tired of living, seeing no way to move on, a girlfriend gave me life-saving advice: Promise me you will leave him before you do anything drastic.
I could leave him?Â
It was an option I had not considered, but it was the only option when we reached a T intersection and neither of us would compromise. Joseph Campbell wrote: In marriage you are not sacrificing yourself to the other person. You are sacrificing yourself to the relationship.
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Neither of us was prepared to do this.
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Amid the spiralling crisis, I was saving screenshots from Instagram. Poems, quotes and musings spoke my experience. It was only later I came to realise their significance - the ad hoc collection were red flags. I have collated these and created The Little Book of Red Flags. Illustrated by Thomas Corboy, this small thanksgiving is a curated anthology of social media snippets that served as breadcrumbs on my journey toward self-discovery.
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