The rise of GREY DIVORCE

Older women are becontimgmore pro. ctive about leaving marriages that no longer work for them, but it’s not always sm6 sailing. Angela Mollard reports on the silver splitters” trend

- 

It was an outburst on a family holiday to Queensland that finally convinced Chrissie* that she had to leave her marriage. Since making some poor financial decisions, her husband's behaviour had been increasingly erratic but his anger during the interstate trip in 2016 left her deeply fearful.

"He had a history of anger-management issues and alcoholism, and when things went pear-shaped financially I was initially compassionate. But he was taking it out on me and people can be scary when they turn into someone who is not the person you know," says Chrissie, who explains that while her husband of 24 years never hit her she was terrified of the intensity of his rage.

For years she'd considered leaving but always told herself to hang in there. But following that fateful holiday she started seeing a counsellor and, with the younger of her two children recently finishing high school, she'd decided that while she loved her husband the relationship was unsustainable.

And that's when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

For the next few months, Chrissie focused on treatment, which included surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Yet as the drugs coursed through her body and her hair fell out, her mind remained focused on one thing: how she was going to leave her marriage.

Six years later and cancer-free, 60-year-old Chrissie is at the forefront of a growing trend of older couples calling it quits on their relationship, with more than a third of divorces in Australia involving people over 50. Dubbed "grey divorces", what's notable about these marital breakdowns is that they are happening to couples who have been together for decades and seemed in it for the long haul.