Does Menopause Makes Us More Prone To Divorce?
Does Menopause Makes Us More Prone To Divorce?
Neurologist says we get more independent as we age
Whenever I hear about a couple that divorces later in life, the first question that always pops into my head is, what happened?
Of course, we're all aware of the proverbial mid-life crisis when it comes to men, whereby (sometimes) our STBXH's end up spending the retirement we worked so hard to build up for so many years on some long-nosed, fire-red sports car (which for all intents and purposes is simply a penis extension) in order to attract any and every OW ("other woman") they can possibly get their hands on to relive some child-hood dream they feel they'd been robbed of.
Clearly, that's the cliche'd version of a man's mid-life crisis; men sometimes do have real reasons to leave.
But what about women? Women often leave men too, and at an increasing rate these days I might add. So what is the driving force behind their departure?
Similiarly, it could be that women are also moving into a different life stage, particularly if we were a stay-at-home mom raising kids, not receiving the love or appreciation we had hoped for, or suddenly finding oursleves more independent and looking for more out of the sunset years of our lives.
Either way (and we all know there are two sides to every story), I decided to do some research and found an interesting article that might offer up a more firm explanation, at least from the woman's perspective, which oddly enough had to do with menopause of all things.
Louann Brizendine, a neurologist in California, says that our brain chemistry changes as we go through menopause. It turns out that the chemicals that give us those "maternal instincts" everyone talks about are on the decline as we get older. And Brizendine says that leads us to become more independent as we age.
In fact, according to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, the majority of divorces in couples over age 40 are initiated by women.
Clearly, times have changed, and women are more empowered and have more financial capability to make it on their own, which could contribute quite a bit to those numbers. Nevertheless, I found it interesting and had to think twice about the reasons. Could a decline in estrogen levels be pushing us towards divorce?
Whatever the case, I love learning about things like this. Why? Because it's easy to feel isolated when you go through a divorce, so every time you discover something that lets you know that you're not alone — that what you're experiencing is not unique to you — it's a good feeling.
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