Wall Street Journal (June 3, 2010).

'Til 40 Years Do Us Part

Al and Tipper Gore have often led us to think about our own marriages.

When they called themselves "best friends" and told how they got married to the strains of "All You Need is Love," the rest of us wondered why we seemed to need so much more than love to run our marriages well. When they shared that overly long kiss at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, we wondered if our passion equaled theirs. Now, as they separate after 40 years of marriage, we wonder why their seemingly ironclad bonds have broken, and whether there are similar surprises awaiting us.

In the wake of the split between Al and Tipper Gore, Jeffrey Zaslow discusses why a couple would get divorced after 40 years of marriage, and how it reverberates across their family and friends.

The Gores aren't offering explanations, but marital therapists and divorce attorneys say the breakup of long-term marriages is routine these days—for reasons of longevity, economics and cravings for happiness and self-expression that were less prevalent in previous generations. People are living longer, and they're less willing to spend their last decades with someone who leaves them unfulfilled. At the same time, working wives are less dependent on husbands for financial support, and husbands have Viagra and other new incentives to find other romances.

"There's a feeling, 'If I don't go now, I'm never going to go,'" says Mona Loeser, a Mobile, Ala., clinical social worker who specializes in marital conflict. She says she is routinely visited by couples breaking up after about 35 years of marriage. Though the recession has put some breakups on hold, the 30- to 40-year window has become the most common time for divorce in her practice, she says.

Her clients have similar stories: Their children are grown, their finances are in order and marital sex is "a vague memory." They've long known that their marriage wasn't great, but for years no one made a move to end it. The trigger for the breakup is often a third party. "It's extraordinarily unusual for men to leave without having somebody," says Ms. Loeser. "It might not yet be an affair, but they're on the brink. They know if they leave there are arms waiting for them."

Mark Goulston, a Los Angeles psychiatrist who developed "recoupling therapy"—helping divorced couples reunite—sees another issue behind later-in-life breakups: tensions related to adult children, who are often closer to their parents today, and needier.

"There's a saying, 'You're only as happy as your unhappiest child,'" Dr. Goulston says. "One spouse may still be overly involved with the adult children, worrying about their happiness, and the other may be saying, 'I've done my parenting. I want to have a chance to have my own life.'" It can lead to conflicts about priorities, with one spouse calling the other selfish.

Sometimes, people finally decide it's time to embrace their true calling. Constance Putzel, a retired divorce attorney in Baltimore, represented a woman who got divorced when she was in her 60s. "She'd been married about 40 years and just wanted out," Ms. Putzel says. "She became a registered nurse and ended up being very happy."

Whatever the Gores' issues—he's 62, she's 61—they are part of a new normal that began with their generation, according to Census statistics. Of the 8.1 million women who were married between 1970 and 1974, just over half made it to their 30th wedding anniversary, compared with about 60% for women married between 1960 and 1964.

That is likely the biggest generational jump in divorce rates ever seen, says Pamela Smock, a research professor at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. From more women in the work force to the gradual acceptance of unmarried couples living together, the Gores' generation "saw a sea change in how people thought about what they were supposed to do with their lives, including their family lives," she says.

A new study of 500 couples, sponsored by the British dating site ForgetDinner, found that people married one year spend 40 minutes of an hour-long dinner engaged in conversation. By 20 years of marriage, they're down to 21 minutes, by 30 years it's 16 minutes. Those married 50 years are talking for just three minutes.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead believed marriage was designed for a time when people died in their 40s and 50s, after raising children together. The concept of decades-long, empty-nest marriages was never considered. "The biggest issue is that we're living longer, we're healthier, and couples are bored with each other," says Ms. Putzel, who also wrote the American Bar Association's book "Representing the Older Client in Divorce." "We have to ask ourselves: Is 'ever after' too long?"

Therapists advise us to set aside time to check in with each other, to see if our marriages are on track and our needs are being met. Long-term marriages also need to be refocused, so they're more about the partnership than the children. Self-help resources are being developed to guide longtime couples through the challenges and mysteries ahead, including books with titles such as "Fighting for Your Empty-Nest Marriage."

It is also important to recognize that a marriage is about two people. It isn't necessary to be publicly displaying affection all the time to prove to others, or to ourselves, that we're hanging in there. Yes, the Gores gave us reasons to consider our own bonds with their televised convention kiss. "But here's a parallel," says Dr. Goulston. "Just as the truest expression of philanthropy is to do it anonymously, the truest form of deep affection is to do it privately."