Starting a new chapter at 50+

When I got divorced nearly 30 years ago, many people, including friends and family, would say, “You’re lucky you’re young (I was 30) and don’t have any kids. It’s so much easier that way.”

Easy? Who were they kidding? There is nothing easy about a marriage breaking up, even if you are relatively young and don’t have children.

Now though, I better understand where they were coming from. My six-year marriage was short compared to many that end in divorce. The fact that we were young and had no children did mean we could each move on with our lives relatively unencumbered. We shared a past but not a future.

But what about marriages that end in divorce after 20, 30, even 40 years together? And what about ones that end in the death of a spouse after decades of being married? How do you start to pick up the pieces and move forward? 

That’s basically the premise behind a new book by longtime friends and writing partners Margaret “Meg” Crane and Barbara Ballinger. It’s called “Suddenly Single After 50: The Girlfriends’ Guide to Navigating Loss, Restoring Hope, and Rebuilding Your Life” (Rowman & Littlefield, $35). 

(For purposes of complete disclosure, I was colleagues with Barbara for eight years at the Post-Dispatch, and then with Meg, in her capacity at Federation and mine at the Light.)

Meg, 69, worked as a senior writer for the Jewish Federation of St. Louis (and previously for the Jewish Light) before retiring in 2013. After being married 42 years, Meg’s spouse, Nolan Crane, died in 2011 after a five-year illness. He was 68 years old at the time. She has three grown children, including Adam Crane, who is a vice president at the St. Louis Symphony, and she is a member of Congregation Shaare Emeth.

Barbara, 67, lived in St. Louis for more than a decade with her husband and two daughters and then on her own for another eight years. In 2000, her husband of 29 years walked into their newly remodeled kitchen one Saturday afternoon and told her the passion was gone from their marriage. Barbara, who belonged to Temple Emanuel and later attended United Hebrew Congregation, has since moved to New York. Her divorce was finalized in 2004. 

When the three of us spoke recently, Barbara noted that she and Meg tend to finish each other’s sentences. Clearly, the two know each other very well; Meg and her late husband were a strong source of support to Barbara when her marriage was dissolving and Barbara greatly helped Meg as she adjusted to widowhood.

“We decided to write about this with great care because we didn’t want to embarrass anyone or share any confidences — we were very careful to use anonymity,” said Barbara. “Our objective was to use what we’d been through, and learned, to help others.”

The book itself is part self-help, part-memoir, though the authors carefully meld other people’s stories into the mix, along with advice from therapists, financial planners, attorneys and physicians. The result is highly readable, very informative and in some cases, pretty darn funny. 

For example, after not dating for 30 years, Barbara writes that she eventually became “the kid in the candy store looking for a new man to replace the one who left her.”  After asking friends, relatives and neighbors she barely knew to fix her up, she ultimately gave internet dating a try. 

“I wanted the validation that someone wanted me after being dumped,” Barbara explained. “When I got online and started looking, I realized it was like a supermarket, with a lot of merchandise on the shelf. I quickly became hooked.” 

So hooked, she says, that at one point she devised a spreadsheet to keep track of her various dates, which numbered 350 (and included multiple dates with the same person). “I mixed one guy up with another so I knew I needed help, ” she joked.

Like most chapters in the book, the one on dating is chock-full of colorful anecdotes and useful advice. Among the latter:

• Don’t wait so long to meet an internet date in person. Expectations and fantasies build up and become huge—and probably impossible to meet.

• Put aside your checklist. What you think you want in a partner and what you actually want are likely different. Also realize that what you wanted at age 22 isn’t necessarily what you want at 50 or 60.

• Don’t whine. If you hate your parents, siblings, former spouse, or current or former boss, you don’t need to share that online or even on the first or second date. Being upbeat is important; perky, however, can be overkill.

Before dating though, both women strongly advise becoming comfortable being alone and doing things on your own. “For me, the hardest part was navigating my finances because my husband always took care of that,” said Meg. “I had no idea what we had. I literally had to put on a detective hat and start digging.

“I really overreacted at first and started dumping everything — club memberships, subscriptions, cable. I would take two-minute showers to keep my water bill down. I never completely filled my tank with gas. I clipped coupons.

“Finally, I decided to interview all these financial planners and wound up picking one who was fantastic. She walked me through everything.”

Reaching out for help, be it a financial planner, a therapist, even a close confidante, are vital first steps, the women said. They also suggest being “socially aggressive” by making new single friends and hosting social gatherings. In one chapter, Meg provides tips for throwing your first solo formal dinner party.

“There’s no question our lives are very different in many ways than they were,” said Barbara. “I think there is a sense of liberation that I don’t have to do things the way I always have. You can try out new situations.

Adds Meg: “We have learned you can lose part of yourself and the love of your life and still move on. It’s difficult but we found new places to love.

“There are days when I am angry that I lost my husband. Losing a spouse after 42 years is like losing an appendage. But I joined a grief support group that was immensely helpful and I met a lot of new people who really understood what I am going through.”

Another thing Meg says she learned: never say never. She had vowed to “never date again” after the death of Nolan. Then, two years later, she ran into a man at the Apple store that she had gone out with in high school.

“We went out for wine, had a great time and really connected. I’m still dating him after three years.”

And Barbara? 

“After all those internet dates, a friend said to me, ‘Would you like to meet someone I think you would like?’ We clicked and are still dating after 3½ years, though we live in different cities.”

“Suddenly Single” is available through Amazon and Left Bank Books. You can also read Meg and Barbara’s blog at lifelessonsat50plus.com.