He never wanted a divorce, but I had finally come to accept the fact that I was married to an angry, critical and self-centered man.
I finally had enough.
Two choices were in front of me.
1.
Stay and continue to adapt to his behavior and lose more of myself or 2.
Divorce and start over.
I chose to ask him to leave.
Does this sound familiar to you? Read on and see if this speaks to you today! I now needed to write a new script for my life.
I was a divorced woman who needed to go back to work.
The two years preceding the final divorce decree were filled with countless emotions.
I was hurt, embarrassed, frustrated, angry, depressed and fearful.
My years growing up in the 50's had not given me the skills to know how to handle this new situation.
I was walking into new territory.
An air of optimism surrounded many of us born just before or at the start of the boomer generation.
This optimism was both a good and a bad thing.
It gave us a sense of self that was hopeful but it also left us ill equipped for divorce after many years of marriage.
You may feel as ill equipped as I was for the changes a divorce makes in a woman's life - especially women in their 50's and 60's.
If you feel that way, let me assure you, you are not alone.
Many of us are facing or have faced this painful reality.
As older women, we hold a position with a special privilege.
We are straddling two generations that have very different cultures.
The generation before ours viewed the role of women in very traditional ways.
The majority of women were expected to stay at home to care for the children.
If women obtained a college degree in my mother's generation, the focus was most often education or nursing.
Many people viewed divorce as a shameful thing even if the wife was being physically abused.
A major change has occurred in the way our society views older women.
We have more opportunities than our mothers and grandmothers.
Today women work in most of the fields once held to be appropriate only for men.
According to the Women's Financial Network women create start-up businesses as a rate twice that of men.
You and I can draw from the best parts of two worlds.
We can look back at the world that assumed we would not work much past 60 and yet saw great value in our ability to nurture.
This same ability also allows us to create and nurture businesses and other creative activities.
The generation of women who follow ours had not yet experienced what it is to be older.
As we create our new futures, we can begin to define the 50's and 60's as a time to explore new passions and experience growing creativity.
No loner do we need to see 60 as an age to be tired and retired! As women on our 50's and 60's we can define this as a time to enjoy being courageous, creative and fabulous! We older women have a link with a past generation very different from ours.
Future generations will look to our examples of courage and resilience as models for their lives.
We have an important role to play! Whatever pain your divorce has brought you, whatever stressors it forced into your life, you now have the opportunity to recreate yourself! A fabulous new woman can rise from the pain and stress.
I know you can do it.
I have done it and continue to do it.
Together we can create an amazing new model showing the future generations an amazing new model showing future generations what it is to be an older woman who chooses with thoughtful intent to be fabulous.