Men in their sixties are the most likely to move on quickly after a divorce, UK research has found. Photo / Coen Staal, Unsplash
Some older gents seem addicted to matrimony. Telegraph writer Nick Harding thinks he knows why.
The invite drops into my inbox. “Dinner with Mike and Ilse. Accept Decline Maybe.” I accept, knowing that whatever date my wife has chosen for us to meet our friends, I’ll be free. This is how my social life is arranged, via delegation.
Household admin is conducted the same way. I get diary notifications telling me the cleaner is scheduled, or someone is coming to paint the hallway. The one job I proudly held onto in our marriage was “Chairman of Holidays”. I was awarded the title several years ago after I arranged a multi-stop tour of Vietnam. This year my wife decided to take over and did a very good job facilitating a two-week sojourn around southern France. I probably won’t bother next year.
Like many middle-aged comfortably married men, I have become a lazy shadow of my former self. I’m an advocate of lifelong learning and at 53 I have learned helplessness. I still arrange events with my children and social engagements separate from my marriage, but for everything else I defer to a higher power, my wife, because frankly she’s good at it.
I’m not alone. I’ve seen many older male relatives struggle with the very basics when their relationships break down. Unless they find someone else, they become lonely ghosts drifting through life unattached and unable to remember their children’s birthdays or their own waist size, struggling even to buy a nutritionally balanced basket of food.
It’s perhaps why men in their sixties are the most likely to move on quickly after a divorce, research has found. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, more than half of all divorced men who married again in 2020 were aged over 50. The study found that men in their sixties were more willing than any other age group to marry a second time. Remarriage by men aged between 60 and 69 has increased by 11 per cent in the past five years. And it’s driven by Women-Dependent Men (WDMs).
Some men appear addicted to matrimony, despite evidence that suggests they are not very good at it. Take media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 92. With the ink on his last divorce (from Jerry Hall) barely dry, he is reportedly dating Russian billionaire molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, a sprightly 66. Could it be fifth time lucky?
Like other multiple married men (Gary Oldman, Martin Scorsese, Sean Bean, Richard Burton – all five times), Mr Murdoch appears unable to get by for long without a female companion. In the past 67 years he’s been on his own for just four. And while his millions are no doubt an attraction, what’s less attractive is his seeming dependence on relationships.
I know my wife, Stephanie, would rather I was more proactive in many aspects of our relationship, such as arranging for a plumber to fix the dripping taps in the bathroom. After two years of asking me to arrange to have our building regulations passed off by the council, she gave up and did it herself.
While society is prone to mock these older men in whom romantic hope springs eternal, they may just be following survival instincts. Studies show that married men are healthier than men who were never married or who are divorced or widowed. This fact was first documented by British epidemiologist William Farr more than 150 years ago.
One reason for this longevity benefit is the influence of marital partners on healthy behaviours. Married people eat better and are less likely to smoke and drink excessively. This I know is true because my wife religiously monitors the biscuit tin.
A 2018 study published in the European Economic Review looked at whether marriage has a protective effect or whether the correlation between health and marriage is simply because healthier people are more likely to get married in the first place. The evidence suggests that marriage provides partners with a sense of belonging, more opportunities for social engagement and reduced loneliness, thereby reducing the risk of hypertension, heart disease and suicide. Middle-aged men who are divorced or live alone are much more likely to suffer ill health than their happily hitched counterparts because they have higher levels of inflammation.
Women in similar situations showed no signs of inflammation. The study theorised this was possibly because middle-aged women, compared with men of the same age, typically had larger friendship groups offering more emotional support.
Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, explains: “Probably the commonest club for married men is the club of the husbands of wives’ girlfriends. They don’t choose to go out for a regular beer together but are thrust into the situation.
“Men are socially lazy, they would rather be in a club with a schedule or an organiser who tells them when and where to turn up.”
Indeed, in most marriages the wife is the glue that keeps the extended family together and organises the social diary, whether she means to or not.
Psychologist Charlotte Armitage says this role is often hardwired from what we have witnessed in childhood. “Once you’ve been in a relationship where one person does everything for long enough, it becomes the dynamic of the relationship. The man loses confidence and when the relationship breaks down he struggles to cope.”
Dr Armitage suggests that the best insurance policy against such outcomes is for men to maintain equality of roles and independence within the relationship.
Dr Jess Carbino, former sociologist for dating websites Tinder and Bumble, says there is an anthropological element to this. “Women relied on other women for caregiving support because the men were off hunting,” she says. “Despite the changes in evolution, there is a continuation of those roles.”
But she cautions against the tendency to view men’s dependence on women as a bad thing. “People have been relying on each other for generations. There’s been a long push in society encouraging people to be independent and discouraging what is seen as over-reliance, but that’s fundamentally flawed because individuals partner to complete their psychological arcs. They should rely on each other, but they should also develop independent avenues.”
That’s good news for all the WDMs out there.
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