Marriage is supposed to last forever, “for better or worse.” Sadly, try as they may over a protracted period of time, some marriages just haven’t got it in them to make it to full term, and should mercifully be aborted along the way. Life is too short, after all. It’s the bad marriage that makes it seem long.

Few people emerge from one of these toxic relationships unscathed. Even fewer bother to emerge at all. Instead, they just hunker down—often for decades—confined in that God-forsaken limbo known as “quiet desperation.” Then, just as most of those masochists are resigning themselves to the “death do us part” scenario, some “external force” rudely extracts them from their self-imposed misery, and sends them reeling into the foreign environs of “singlehood over sixty.”  

At a time when I had barely approached that stage of life, a particularly aggressive external force (the nature of which I will not disclose here for the sake of discretion) came whipping through my life, and taking my husband along with it—er, her. ”

So there I was, a soon-to-be single mom of an away-at-college student, an “acting out” teenager, an aging dog, and a protesting pet parrot. I had no career to fall back on and few available funds for putting a roof over our collective heads. Now I was on my way to starting my life over, whether I was prepared for the journey or not. And, clearly, I was not. First on my agenda was to wade through the traditional stages of withdrawal—from denial to anger to depression to acceptance to an odd-like sense of euphoria—in that general order. After pacing the length of our rented Beverly Hills home for the first two sleepless weeks, and answering a barrage of “what if’s” from deep within my psyche, I acknowledged there was nothing I could have done differently that would have changed the ultimate outcome, and the only thing left for me was to embrace my uncertain future—which by now I was beginning to see as riddled with a range of possibilities—both good and bad.

It was around that time that I vowed to make it my life’s mission to serve up my cautionary tale to other women and men like me—who I was convinced ought to think twice before selecting a mate, and twice again before stubbornly overstaying an unfortunate marriage.

Once the garage sale and hasty move were behind me, I decided to heal my broken heart by writing the seminal book that addressed these core issues for all those over-60 “suddenly singles” of the world. The process began with a series of interviews I set up with divorced men and women, all of whom had been married for upwards of twenty years. In every case without exception, when asked when it was they knew they had made a mistake, each of them admitted they had known as early as the weeks following the wedding, or even—in the case of one particular man—“the week before.” I asked him why he hadn’t bowed out of the commitment before it was too late, but he was unable to find words to express his thoughts, except with an incredulous shake of his head. All of my interviewees were in agreement that after the birth of their firstborn child, their fates were sealed—at least, “until the kids went off to college.” Of course, as the children were growing up, their own fates were sealed, as well. After all, where would they find a role model for the kind of marriage they wanted for themselves as adults? How would they recognize a potential soul mate when they met one? Was there even such a thing as a happy marriage?  

So, there I was—older, but not necessarily wiser, and blaming my spouse for having done precisely what I should have done on my own many years before—opting out of the loveless marriage and getting on with my life. My reality now was that I would be compelled to function independently in a world where the rules of the past no longer applied, nor would the charms of my youth sustain me. I had wept, slept, and thought myself dry. And now I was ready to take action.

What had been a bumpy ride at first became a fascinating period of growth. The good news is that time heals, whether you help it along or not—and, surprisingly, sooner rather than later. 

For those who have found themselves “cheated” out of a lifetime of love due to divorce or the death of a spouse, the news is promising indeed, and the path is strewn with possibilities—more good than bad.

I’ve put the book on hold for now. My immediate goal is to connect with the tens of thousands of men and women like me who are starting their lives over in Singlehood after their 60^th year and help them discover ways, personal and professional, to make the rest of their lives the best of their lives.