As more and more Silvers decide to get a life,  rising divorce rates in the Third Age are inevitable

Those in their sixties were shaped by The Sixties

It seems that divorce among ‘Silvers’ (those aged over fifty) is soaring. A couple of press titles were expressing shock about this last night, but being slap in the middle of the age group, I find it totally unsurprising. Marriage is still an important test of character, but a huge variety of things are militating against it.

The rising longevity in Britain is I’m sure a major factor. As recently as 1948, a sizeable proportion of men (from cardio-vascular disease) and women (from cancer) would die by the age of 55. In 2010, the average length of marriage compiled by the ONS was 32 years. So fifty years ago, you got married aged 21-25…and thus before there was any hint of divorce, you may well have popped your clogs. There were no mid-life affairs for them: it’s very hard to pull from the graveyard. Marriages stayed the course because our life-span was shorter.

Closely associated with this was the dramatically different social attitude to divorce then. People literally were shunned if they got divorced. When Kenneth More left his wife in the early 1960s, my mum refused to watch any more of his films. Mind you, she also expressed a desire to chop Gary Glitter’s goolies off. I don’t have a problem with either opinion, to be honest: Alan Bennett said Kenny More was “the most unpleasant man I ever worked with”.

Closely related to that factor was the religious shame and guilt of having given one’s word in the House of God. That sort of thing mattered: fear of Damnation, divine retribution, keeping one’s word, loyalty: in the 1950s, these ideas and values still ruled the roost in our country. We’re better off without religion (I think) but we do need something that will nudge people towards doing the right, not the wrong, thing. Related to this ‘missing higher order’ of course is the rise and rise of atheism in the West: if you’re 57 and feel certain there’s nothing else after the casket, you are going to think “only once round the track, and I’m unhappy – I know, I’ll be happy instead”. In lots of ways, that’s a very hard argument to counter.

There was also the cost half a century ago. As Eliza Doolittle’s father says in Pygmalian, “Morals, sah? Can’t afford ’em”. A terrific Shavian line, and certainly true about divorce in all but the higher middle and upper classes in the 1950s. When you consulted a lawyer in those days, he (it was always he) would deliver a sonorous lecture for ten minutes or more on the moral risks and ghastly consequences of divorce, of scarred children and the cost of having two properties. Most working people struggled to pay the rent on a terraced slum: for them, divorce simply wasn’t practical: one rubbed along.

Lawyers now are, on the whole, not up for trying to put you off. They’re far more likely to encourage the woman to go for broke, and the man to hide his money somewhere safe. It’s only a matter of time before those sick-making afternoon legal ads on telly are churning out the benefits of divorcing through Tryle & Errah. No wonder they call prostitution soliciting. You can hear the voice-over:

“Has your old man gone to seed? Does he fart in bed all the time, have a repulsive beer-belly, and permanent brewer’s droop? Is your missus a sex-kitten who turned into a flea-bitten vixen? Would you rather shag the exhaust on a bus? Well here at Tryle &….”

Middle-aged sex problems are, naturally, frequently at the heart of the problem. For blokes, the peripheral neuropathy problem in the penile region is incredibly common. Forty years ago, the bloke would’ve been relieved to hear about the wife’s permanent headache – and kept his condition to himself. Nowadays, everyone is rather more frank about it. And of course, there’s Viagra. There’s also Cialis, which certainly works for me – but at a Pound a pop it can get expensive if you’re as randy as I can feel at times. That’s still not as often as I’d like, but you can’t have everything.

I’m sixty-five, and constantly give a start when I see a white-haired wrinkly staring back at me in the bathroom mirror. WHO TF is that? There’s been a break-in, where’s my phone oh f**k, it’s me. But all of us think of ourselves as still young in many ways – and this too is a marital risk. Being a boring person born before 1950, I was never unfaithful in either of my marriages, because I don’t see the point of making that level of emotional sharing, parenting, and financial commitment – and then expecting shagging around not to upset the apple-cart. But do I ever want to marry again now? You’d never say never…but it’s unlikely. There are few commitments at my age. It’s a bit like being in an open prison: there’s not a lot to stop you wandering beyond the gates.

For a lot of women, the menopause is a nightmare, but I’m astonished at the way some girlies are dilatory about fixing their hormonal imbalance. I wonder if ‘dilatory’ could be a vibrator shaped like Iain Duncan-Smith? To continue, the most common symptom beyond wanting to take an axe to people much of the time is lethargy, and major (or total) loss of sex-drive. Blokes are absolutely crap at being supportive during this phase, and male GPs are even worse. Because the ladies themselves also completely lack energy, they become apathetic about getting help – which there is in abundance if you’re prepared to look, pester, and if necessary hold the GP receptionists to ransom at gunpoint for a few hours. Replica guns are remarkably realistic these days.

But when your partner packs the quest in and says something along the lines of “Typical bloke, that’s all you ever think about”, then a lot of men – I’d say with some justification – feel they are being archetyped as a defence against the indefensible: if you love your partner, surely you want them to enjoy fulfillment in all areas of the relationship? If I’m prepared to be attentive to what brings a lady off, why shouldn’t that lady consider my needs too?

Either way, the point is, blokes do get Wandering Eye Syndrome – and in this department too, things have changed. In our local village down here, the tradition of women’s bodies schussing south after 35 (and the donning of five layers of clothing all in black) is still alive and well. But go beyond our odd little coin, and 50+ women are looking after themselves a whole hell of a lot better. They have better diets, more effective skin-creams, and they work out. I’m reliably told that, among the young folks these days, there is an acronym ‘MILF’ – which stands for ‘Mum I’d like to f**k’. Walk about the streets of most towns, and there are MILFs in abundance.

Growing old disgracefully can be entertaining if you make an effort. I’ve lost sixteen pounds over the last year, and my latest relaunch fad is skinny-fit stretch denim jeans. They feel great and they look terrific. My Dad would’ve looked like a toffee apple with two sticks in skinny-fits. The point is, we all look after ourselves more, and so there are more potential distractions.

And it’s easy to be distracted when you’re bored: once the kids leave, many couples are suddenly faced with the awful truth that they don’t have a lot to say to each other. Still, when the Mad Max wing of the Conservative Party has finally sacked the Kingdom of Camerlot, kids will have to stay at home forever, if only to avoid being stuffed up chimneys. Just watch that divorce rate plummet. Mums and Dads are, effectively, a United Front against the Yoof Liberation Collective: if you’re busy having a blazing row with your daughter about the ghastly and uncouth nature of the men often found in her room, you tend not to notice that your old lady’s become addicted to Eastenders and has started reading chicklit.

But – and yes, I’ve saved the Big One until last – I think there is definitely a hangover for my generation (and slightly younger) from the 1960s. Hard as it may be for most youngsters to imagine, your mum was getting her tits out at Woodstock and every other rock festival when she was your age. She was on the Pill, she was smoking dope, she was tuning out and turning on, Man. Far out.

On January 1st 1970, instead of dropping out almost all of us got a haircut and looked for a job. An enormous amount of Sixties philosophy was of course complete tosh, and most of us had rejected almost all of it by the end of the Seventies – at which point, Thatcher swept to power very much on the back of baby-boomers fed up of high taxes and bullying trade unions. But we were changed forever by the Sixties.

It happened on a great many levels. Jobs weren’t for life, careers needn’t be boring, there was no point in respecting those above you if you thought them stuffy incompetents, the Pill was freely available, and Cosmopolitan had revealed the wonders of the hitherto unknown female orgasm. With each issue, it came to the fore about eight times. Very much like the best female orgasms, in fact. Good grief: you mean they don’t lie back and think of England at all? Wuhey!

The Sixties was an infantile decade, but ironically it has engendered a far more mature attitude to Second Halfers and what they should be allowed to get up to. Although much of society is appallingly ageist (as a problem, it is by far the least regulated bigotry on the planet) the fact is that we Boomers simply do not see our 60s as the twilight zone any more. It’s a lot easier to live up to ‘Until Death do us Part’ when it’ll part you within 20 years of the wedding. I’ve been married twice, and each one lasted almost exactly eighteen years – twenty years if you count living together beforehand. I have spent 47 years out of 65 in medium to long term relationships. In mid-Victorian times, 47 for the working class was a reasonable innings for a life.

If you’re 67 and suddenly want to take up painting or go on safari, today the chances are you’ll have at least twenty years to indulge the whim. If your partner wants to sit with his or her feet up on the sofa and watch programmes featuring estate agents, antique dealers and auctioneers, it’s a bit of a bummer.

So let the tabloids go on about ‘Silver divorce swingers in marriage breakdown epidemic shock’. It’s neither surprising nor shocking – and far less likely to melt the glue of society than marital problems where young kids are involved. As I write endlessly, assuming you want children, parenting is easily the most important thing we do: because if our efforts turn out a tactless, selfish wah-wah brat or a feral, feckless dick-artist, then things will get much worse without some form of cultural intervention.

The debate about what such an intervention might be is an argument for another day. In the meantime, its 32 degrees here and I have supper guests tonight. So the chances are today is a wrap as far as blogging is concerned. Wherever you are, enjoy the weekend.

Related at The Slog: Abandoning the Sovereign duty of care is the last thing we should be doing.