One day a friend told me, almost in passing, that she was leaving her ‘miserable marriage’. I didn’t know there was anything especially miserable about it, although I’d always thought she was way more fun, interesting and smart than her frankly quite boring husband.

Having been stuck with him for several hours at a friend’s wedding, I’d often wondered since how she put up with him. But, who knows, he probably felt the same about me.

I couldn’t say I saw it coming then, but I honestly wasn’t surprised. After all, she’s not the first to announce imminent divorce. She’s not even the second or the third. 

She is, in fact, about the 15th woman I know in their mid-40s to late-50s who has turned around in the past few years and said… Is this it? Really? For the next 30-odd years? No thanks.

There is one reason why, I think, that there seems to be a divorce and separation epidemic among my heterosexual friends…

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