The age when men are most likely to leave an unhappy marriage. It’s later than you’d think – and their wives never see it coming, reveals divorce lawyer CASSANDRA KALPAXIS

There is an old saying: ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus’.

And when it comes to divorce, it won’t surprise you to hear that men and women couldn’t be more different in their approaches.

Cassandra Kalpaxis, who has handled hundreds of divorce cases in her fourteen years as a family law attorney, says men and women who initiate divorce typically do so at different stages of life.

Men, she finds, are most likely to leave an unsatisfactory marriage in their 70s. They usually stay there fifteen to twenty years longer than unhappily married women who throw in the towel in their late forties or fifties.

Women are often blindsided when their husbands in their 70s call it quits, assuming that they are both too old to consider divorce as a realistic option.

There are many reasons why men decide to separate at age 70, but Cassandra discovers that it is usually because their own parents have died and they feel free to separate without causing disappointment to the family.

She discovers that many of these men were never convinced of the benefits of marriage in the first place, and only got married because it was expected of them.

“A lot of people in this age range got married just to cross it off the list,” she tells me.

“In many cases they didn’t love the women they married, but they don’t consider it a lie; they regard it as fulfilling their duty.

“All their lives they wondered what their father would think if they ran away.”

Cassandra has heard countless stories of older men who have suffered strokes a life of marital misery and who, had they been young today, would never have married.

“They tell me that if they hadn’t married, they would have been considered the black sheep of the family,” she says.

“They say they didn’t have the luxury of marrying for love, that they never wanted to marry anyone at all.”

A common refrain from these older, divorced men is that although they have built a life with their wives, they want to be alone in their final years..

The woman’s response is often utter devastation: ‘In these cases, the women are usually very shocked, they did not see it coming.’

This is not the only reason why men divorce their wives at age 70. Sometimes they go through a ‘post-employment crisis’ after retirement; they look for excitement and their marriages are often thrown away during this time.

‘In their minds they are in their twenties, they need that excitement. They may say things like their wife no longer wants to sleep with them,” says Cassandra.

Some men have difficulty with their wives getting older, while women tend to be more tolerant of their aging husbands, the lawyer adds.

‘Women like to play nurse to their husbands and help him when he gets old and sick. I notice that men are less able to endure these moments.

“They don’t want to stop living to care for an older partner.”

As for the age at which women are most likely to leave their husbands, it’s usually in their mid-forties, and that’s when they “stop worrying about what others think.”.

They no longer feel obligated to stay married out of duty and begin to seriously question whether the man sleeping next to them is the person they want to spend the next four to five decades with..

Cassandra says that most unhappily married women decide in their mid-40s that their marriage is over, but they typically don’t ask for a divorce until their early 50s..

“One woman I saw desperately wanted to leave her husband of 30 years, but knew this was what she had to do if she wanted to be happy,” she tells me.

The woman thought she would remain single for the rest of her life and asked Cassandra to arrange the divorce so that she could live independently in her later years..

Then she unexpectedly found love – and the new relationship made her realize how unfulfilling her first marriage had been.

“She walked in and said, ‘I can’t believe I’ve waited all my life to experience happiness with a man who loves me,’” Cassandra recalls.

In the case of a marital breakdown like this, where it is purely dissatisfaction and there is no violence or infidelity involved, Cassandra says the process is relatively simple..

‘Once the other party gets over the initial shock, everything usually goes smoothly.

“People don’t want to fight over property, their kids are grown, they just want to walk away in the easiest way possible.”

Cassandra advises that the first thing you should do if you are considering divorce is to have an open and honest conversation with your partner.

But if there is abuse in the marriage, skip this step and go straight to an attorney and make a plan to have the conversation safely.

Cassandra uses a strict definition of “safety” in the context of asking for divorce.

“When I ask a client ‘is it safe’, he or she should be able to say with confidence that they have free access to their finances, that they can come and go home without question, that they have access to their phone without question . keep a close eye on who they contact, and they are safe from physical harm,” she explains.

Some clients, when they finally make the decision and broach the subject of divorce, are surprised to discover that their spouse actually feels the same way.

The conversation might even move in a positive direction, with both parties deciding that they are willing to work through the problems in the relationship.

‘Many people, especially people who have had children, feel disconnected. They feel like they no longer know the person they married,” Cassandra says.

“This is because they haven’t taken the time to maintain that connection. And they might discover that it’s still there; they still like each other.’

In some cases, Cassandra has helped people through divorce, only to find out later that they decided to remarry after living apart for a period of time..

Cassandra is the author of the book Dignified Divorce, which teaches unhappily married people how to divorce their spouse and “keep it out of court.”

In Australia, couples must be separated for 12 months before they can file for divorce. They must also be citizens or consider Australia their permanent residence, or have lived in Australia for 12 months before applying.

Both parties in the relationship can file for divorce, or it can be a single filing. All property matters and decisions regarding dependent children must be finalized before a divorce can be finalized.