谁说一定要执子之手，与子偕老？

After Full Lives Together, More Older Couples Are Divorcing
谁说一定要执子之手，与子偕老？

HILARY STEPHENS was 57 when she decided she had had enough ― enough of her job, of caretaking, of her marriage of 28 years. So she did something many people fantasize about: She walked away from it all.

在希拉里・斯蒂芬斯57岁时，她觉得自己已经受够了 - 她受够了她的职业，受够了照料别人，受够了她28年的婚姻。于是，她做了一件很多人都梦想的事：她离开了这一切。

“Sometimes it’s the only solution,” said Ms. Stephens, now 58 and the mother of two adult children. She moved from Washington to the Philadelphia area, where she is now vice president for development at Woods Services, a nonprofit.

“有时候这是唯一的解决办法，”斯蒂芬斯女士说。这位两个成年子女的母亲现在是58岁。她从华盛顿搬到了费城地区，在非营利组织伍兹公司当副总裁。

Late-life divorce (also called “silver” or “gray” divorce) is becoming more common, and more acceptable. In 2014, people age 50 and above were twice as likely to go through a divorce than in 1990, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. For those over 65, the increase was even higher. At the same time, divorce rates have plateaued or dropped among other age groups.

晚年离婚（也称“银色”或“灰色”离婚）正在变得越来越普遍，而且更为人所接受。在2014年，50岁及以上的人的离婚率是1990年的两倍（根据俄亥俄州博林格林州立大学婚姻家庭研究中心的统计）。65岁以上的人，增幅甚至更高。与此同时，其他年龄组的离婚率已趋于稳定或者下降。

One explanation is that many older people are in second marriages; the divorce rate is about two and a half times larger for those who have remarried and are often grappling with blended families or greater financial challenges.

对此的一种解释是，许多老年人都是二婚的。再婚者必须应付混合的家庭，在财务上也负担较大。所以他们的离婚率比只有一次婚姻的人高两倍半。

Life expectancy also plays a role. In the past, “people died earlier,” said Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle, and the love, sex and relationship ambassador for AARP. “Now, let’s say you’re 50 or 60. You could go 30 more years. A lot of marriages are not horrible, but they’re no longer satisfying or loving. They may not be ugly, but you say, ‘Do I really want 30 more years of this?’”

人的预期寿命延长也起了作用。西雅图华盛顿大学的社会学教授佩珀・施瓦茨说，在过去，“人死得比较早。现在一个五六十岁的人还可能活上三十年。很多婚姻并不算太坏，但是这婚姻里不再有爱情，不再令人满意。虽然日子不算太糟糕，还可以过，但是当事人会想：“我真的希望再过三十多年这种日子吗？” 佩珀・施瓦茨还是美国退休者协会的爱情和性关系特使。

Besides realizing that “adequate” does not suffice, separation no longer holds the stigma it once did. Just look at Al and Tipper Gore, who split in 2010 after 40 years of marriage and four children (they have yet to make it official). Or the Alabama governor Robert Bentley, and his wife, Dianne, who filed for divorce in August, one month after their 50th wedding anniversary.

除了不再满足于差强人意的生活外，另一个趋势是，离婚不再像以前那样被认为是耻辱了。看看前副总统戈尔夫妇，他们结婚四十年，育有四个孩子，却在2010年分开了（他们至今没有正式离婚）。或者再看阿拉巴马州州长罗伯特・本特利和妻子戴安娜，他们在今年八月提出离婚，正好比他们结婚50周年的纪念日早一个月。

But perhaps the biggest reason for the increase in late-life divorce is the changing status of women, who initiate about 60 percent of divorces after age 40, according to AARP. This does not mean that the men aren’t disenchanted too. It just means that women actually take the decisive step.

但或许晚年离婚增加的最大原因在于女性状态的变化。根据美国退休者协会的统计，在40岁以后先提出离婚的人群中，约60％是女性。这并不意味着男人没有对婚姻不满，它只是意味着妇女在实际中往往先走出那决定性的一步。

“I think men don’t want to rock the boat, and they’ll put up with a not ideal situation,” said Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, 54, whose marriage dissolved five years ago and who runs 20-first, a gender consulting firm in London. “Part of the shift is that now women have been liberated, empowered, moved around, know how to get what they want. They are increasingly breaking up the relationships to find someone else or to be on their own.”

“我觉得男人们不想破坏现状，他们宁愿容忍一个不理想的状况，”54岁的阿维娃・维滕贝格-考克斯说。五年前她的婚姻解体，现在她在伦敦经营“二十一(20-first)”，一个性别咨询公司。 “而变化在于：现在妇女得到了解放和权力，自由迁居，知道如何得到他们想要的东西。她们越来越多地打破既有的婚姻关系，找其他配偶或独身生活。

Dr. Schwartz, the sociologist, agrees. “Women have higher expectations for their emotional life,” she said. Dr. Schwartz, 70, has personal insight into the issue: She and her husband divorced 15 years ago. They had been married for 23 years, she said, but “the marriage had run out of juice.”

社会学家施瓦茨博士对此表示赞同。“女人对自己的感情生活有更高的期望，”70岁的施瓦茨博士说。她对这个问题的看法包含了她本人的体验。她和丈夫在15年前离婚，此前他们有23年的婚姻。她说，他们的婚姻就像电池耗尽了电能。”

Dr. Schwartz added that she and her former husband were still friends and often celebrated holidays together when their two children were younger. She is currently engaged to her boyfriend of nine years.

施瓦茨博士补充说，她和她的前夫仍然是朋友。在他们的两个孩子还小的时候，他们经常在一起过节。她现在有一个男友，已经交往了9年。

By the time most couples enter their mid- to late-50s, children usually have their own lives, and it becomes painfully clear that their parents don’t need to stay together “for the kids.” Not that adult children don’t want their families to remain intact. They usually do, experts say, no matter how old they are, unless the relationship is exceedingly hostile or volatile. But many “happy enough” people feel that their children no longer get to dictate the terms of their relationship.

在大多数夫妇50多岁近60岁的时候，孩子们通常已经有了自己的生活。显然这时他们的父母没有必要再“为了孩子”而住​​在一起。这并不是说，成年的孩子就不希望家庭保持完整了，他们是希望的。专家认为，不管孩子有多大年纪，除非家庭关系过于敌对或过于不稳定，他们都希望保持这个家庭关系。但许多“开心就好”的人觉得自己的孩子不再是他们保持关系的决定性因素。

Many women also feel they should be good role models for their children. “What you are really showing your kids is whether to live for love or for fear,” said Ms. Wittenberg-Cox, who remarried in the spring. “Will you stay because you love what you have or because you fear the unknown? In the end, I chose love. I hope they will, too.”

许多妇女还觉得她们应该为孩子做出好的榜样。 “你在向你的孩子展示你是为爱情而生活还是为恐惧而生活，”今年春天改嫁的维滕贝格 - 考克斯女士说。“你留下来，是因为你珍爱已有的东西，还是因为你害怕未知的前程？最后，我选择了爱情，我希望他们也做同样的选择”。

Beyond the emotional toll, personal economics factor in, both in keeping people in unhappy unions and in inspiring them to check out. Women still earn less than men. Because they also tend to live longer, they face greater economic risk on their own.

在选择是保持不愉快的婚姻还是决定离婚的时候，除了情感代价，个人的经济条件也是重要的因素。妇女的收入仍低于男性。因为她们往往寿命更长，所以他们面对的经济风险也更大。

Current research by Susan L. Brown, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green, has found that “gray divorced” over-62 women receive smaller Social Security benefits, on average, than other single women and men. And more than a quarter live below the official poverty line.

博林格林的社会学教授苏珊・布朗最近发现，62岁以上的“灰色离婚”的妇女拿到的社会保障福利平均来说低于其他单身男女。而她们中超过四分之一的人生活在官方贫困线以下。

On the other hand, more than half of women from 55 to 64 are employed, which means they have an independent source of income.

从另一方面看，一半以上的从55至64岁的妇女都有工作，这意味着她们具有独立的经济来源。

“After retirement, male spouses are around 24/7, the cracks in the relationship deepen into crevasses, and the emotional distance becomes more apparent,” said Julie Schwartz Gottman, a clinical psychologist at the Gottman Institute in Seattle. “As women gain financial independence, they feel safe leaving an unhappy union.”

“男性配偶退休后每周7天每天24小时都在妻子身边，这样一来家庭关系中的裂痕就会加深变成裂缝，情感上的距离变得更加明显，”西雅图的高特曼研究所的临床心理学家朱莉・施瓦兹・高特曼说。 “因为女性经济独立，她们感到离开一个不愉快的婚姻会更安全。”

Other women, even if they might have to struggle financially, said they still felt that it was worth it to leave.

另一些女人说，即使她们因此可能不得不过拮据的生活，但她们仍然觉得离开很值得。

Celia Jeffries, an editor, writer and teacher in Northampton, Mass., married shortly after she turned 20, in 1970. Thirty-seven years later, she and her husband split.

西莉亚・杰弗里斯是马萨诸塞州北安普顿的编辑，作家和教师。她在1970年刚满20岁的时候结婚。在结婚37年后，她和丈夫分开。

“He went in one direction and I went in another,” said Ms. Jeffries, 64, who has a son and four grandchildren. “You reach a point where you say, ‘This is not the way I want to live.’”

64岁的杰弗里斯女士已经有一个儿子和四个孙辈 。她说：“他往东我往西，结果我们来到了一个分手点，在这个点上我说，‘这不是我想要的生活。’”

In retrospect, she points to her diagnosis of breast cancer at 45, which led to a mastectomy and breast reconstruction, as the first fissure in their marriage.

现在回想起来，她在45岁患了乳腺癌，这导致了乳房的切除和重建。她指出，这是他们婚姻的第一个裂痕。

It didn’t help that her former husband, who had been in the tech field, had sold his company and they made a lot of money on paper. During that period they were living parallel lives, which was not ideal but manageable. But then the stock tanked, and they lost everything. “When the money ran out, we had to face each other,” she said.

她的前夫是搞技术的，无可奈何地卖掉了自己的公司，他们虽然挣了许多钱，但只是在纸面上。那时候他们两人各过各的，情况虽不理想，但还过得去。但随后股市重挫，他们失去了一切。 “当钱用完了的时候，我们彼此不得不正视对方，”她说。

Although she is not financially secure, “I’m certainly living a much better life than I would have if I were still married,” Ms. Jeffries said. She moved to a new home. She finished her master’s in creative writing. She spent two years in Botswana with the Peace Corps, where she received the most questioning of her divorce.

虽然她的财政并没有保障，但她认为她的生活比离婚前好得多。她搬入了新家，她获得了文学创作的硕士学位。她在博茨瓦纳当了两年的和平队，在那里她的离婚受到了最多的质疑。

“No one knew what to make of me,” she said with a laugh. “I was a 63-year-old white woman walking around the village. When I told people I was divorced, they were like, ‘Really, you can do that at this age?’ The other response was, ‘You’ll never find a man, you’re too old.’”

“没有人理解我是怎么回事，”她笑着说。 “我，一个63岁的白人女子在村子周围走。当我告诉人们我离婚了，他们会说，‘真的吗？在这个年岁还能离婚？’另一个人说，‘你再也找不到男人了，你太老了。’”

That, Ms. Jeffries said, is the least of her concerns. “I’ll never say no, but it’s highly unlikely,” she said.

杰弗里斯女士说，找男人在她心里不重要。 “我并不拒绝找，但找到的可能性很小，”她说。

Similarly, for Ms. Stephens, remarriage is not a high priority. It was scary to take the leap into the unknown, but she is thrilled with her newfound freedom, and her new town.

同样，对于斯蒂芬斯女士来说，再婚并不是她的优先考虑。跳入未知是可怕的事，但她很喜欢新获得的自由，和她居住的新城市。

“I had to take this giant leap of faith and believe somehow that I would be O.K. when I came through it all,” she said. “It was a very, very frightening experience.”

“我不得不进行巨大信仰飞跃，相信我在经历这一切的时候会没事，“她说。 “这是一个非常，非常吓人的经历。”

But it was worth it. She has taken up horseback riding again, a childhood passion that she never expected to revisit. Recently, she competed in her first horse show in 38 years and won first place in her division. “I would never have had that opportunity to ride if I had stayed in Washington,” she said. “It’s given me such joy to go back to doing that again.”

但是这是值得的。她又去学骑马了，她从来没想到还能重新体验童年时的激情。时隔38年，最近她又参加了赛马，而且赢得了年龄组的第一名。 她说，“如果我还住在华盛顿，那我永远不会有机会赛马。重上赛马场给予我极大的快乐。”