They *do* plainly see that Chuck. That's why they're ditching their loved ones and trying to pretend it's not happening.

The kids are grown and marriage was never what it's cracked up to be. And if you've taken good care of your body for sixty years, there's still some lust to be found.

The secret of life is that it's alive.

In their 60's, for the first time in their lives, perhaps, many people find themselves free of wants, worries and burdens. Their children are grown and self-sufficient, their mortgages are paid off, their retirements secure. Their life expectancy is perhaps another 20 years or more. It's a time to break out and live, and so they do.

Perhaps it's foolishness. Perhaps it's a sign that they didn't make the right choices earlier in their lives. But, fuck it, on some level you have to admire them, not being dead and all, or asleep in front of the teevee.

They're old, not dead.

Every stage of life means assessment. And if you haven't had a great marriage or sublimated what you want to do for someone else, well, then things might change. It's always good to give making it work, being honest and asking for change but if that can't happen, you might move on.

Who wants to get to their deathbed and say, "Well, that was pleasant"?

Charles, this is an article about India. In the 1960s, you get an arranged marriage at 12, have kids at 18, have them grown up and interdependent and out of the house by 50-60, and then you finally have time and space to realize that the person who was arbitrarily chosen for you on the basis of tribal and familial status and wealth 50 years ago is not compatible for you. Go figure!

@1-4 : please keep in mind we are likely talking about the majority of these divorces nullifying ARRANGED MARRIAGES in India. The social preconception of what our parents' marriages at 60 are like do not apply.

@5-6 Actually, it's got nothing to do with India, other than Charles chose to link to their article about the article in the UK's Telegraph newspaper about UK divorces amongst the olds. The original article is here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/975…

I did say it was UK. i did.

Symmetric relationships are obsolete.

yyyyyeah, it's not really a choice between "lust for life" or "happy, faithful marriage" for anybody who has ever actually divorced ever. People divorce because they are miserable in their marriages.

This post could only be written by a very young person.