Why can’t love keep longtime partners together?
Singing duo’s split after 39 years raises questions
TORONTO — The ubiquitous “Love couldn’t keep them together” headlines blanketed social media and websites after news broke that musical duo Captain and Tennille — who are both in their 70s — are divorcing after nearly four decades of marriage.
The couple had no children together and no reason was given for the split.
While there are all kinds of factors at play when partnerships in business and love dissolve, is there anything in particular that can distinguish couples who divorce after decades together?
Markham, Ont.-based family therapist Shyamala Kiru says after more than 10 years in practice, it’s a pattern she’s seeing more frequently — particularly among retired couples who’ve made the decision to separate.
While it’s sometimes a mutual decision, oftentimes it’s one partner who decides to leave the other. And anecdotally, from her own practice, Kiru says increasingly it’s women who are leaving men later in life.
“This generation that we’re looking at is women in their 50s and 60s leaving their partners …” said Kiru, chair of public relations for the Ontario Association for Marriage & Family Therapy. She added: “I’m finding that as they’re getting at a different stage — whether in the family life cycle or in their career — and they’re experiencing a little bit more freedom, they’re also experiencing that freedom to make different choices and to think differently about what they want.”
Toronto-based couples therapist Karen Hirscheimer said the question of why any couple breaks up is complicated, but boils down to the primary focus on love, partnership and goodwill getting “lost to other things,” citing resentment, unresolved grievances, neglect and diminished trust as possible examples.
Kiru recently worked with a couple who had been married for 37 years and were contemplating separation. Looking back at their relationship history, there had been issues that surfaced during the time of their engagement that were never really addressed.
Whether it’s financial pres- sures, launching careers or having kids, there are many pressing issues that may need the immediate attention of a newly married couple — possibly causing the relationship itself to be left on the back burner, she says. “Now that kids have moved out and moved on, careers are winding down, and then you actually look at each other and say: ‘Wow, we never really dealt with this stuff, and I’m not sure that I would have stayed in this marriage that long.”’