Hi there
What a week! After a truly incredible trip to Cairo and the Pyramids (we’ll be bringing you more pics and stories in the coming weeks along with our plans for future NOON Jules Verne expeditions), I arrived back in London just in time to launch our Beyond the Break report.
Beyond the Break is the landmark investigation into Queenagers and divorce. We surveyed 2,000+ women aged 45 to 65, benchmarked against the UK population, and then spoke to another 100 or so women in focus groups around the country and on the phone.
Thanks to our sponsors & others who made this a reality
The research was kindly sponsored by the law firm Mishcon de Reya (some of you will remember the event we did with the Queen of Divorce, Mishcon’s Sandra Davis, Princess Diana’s divorce lawyer who has been a driving force) and the private bank Julius Baer. If you’d like to read it in full, it’s on the NOON website here as a downloadable PDF.
I’d also like to thank all of you amazing Queenagers who came along to our focus groups, and the amazing Sue Durrans (Guilford NOON Circle chief) who hosted us, alongside Jane Gow of Clear Cut Financial Planning in Cheshire, who allowed us to take over her beautiful offices for a research dinner. Jane is going to co-host a new Cheshire Circle with Elaine Church, a NOON veteran, so look out for that
Also in this email (be sure to scroll down):
- How will the Budget affect you? Don’t miss our webinar that will tell you!
- The latest job openings on the Jobs Board
Plus…
Divorce: Is it a good thing?
So what did we find? The biggest takeaway for me is that 30% of Queenagers who get divorced report being “Happier than I have ever been” in the aftermath. This chimes perfectly with what we see at NOON in terms of women in midlife starting a new, more joyful chapter. And in a phenomenon that my brilliant friend Vic Harper at the Independent dubbed The Walkaway Wives in an article she ran about the research: We also found that nearly half of all divorces (46%) are being instigated by women (a big change as men used to be the main drivers of so-called Silver Splitter divorces).
Women are leaving their husbands not because of affairs but because they are unhappy (56%). The old story about men leaving for younger women just isn’t true anymore. We heard that 64% of divorced women said that wasn’t the reason for their split, and only 13% said their husband had had an affair.
In comparison, 23% said their divorce happened because they had fallen out of love, 11% didn’t want to grow old with that person, 16% because of financial pressure and – worryingly – 14% because of domestic abuse/violence.
One thing that’s gone is the old stigma around divorce – which was huge prior to the divorce Olympics of the 1970s, when it became very common. My parents divorced when I was 5 and in my class at primary school, more kids had divorced parents than didn’t. Some 55% of women say there is no shame attached to being divorced anymore. Indeed 76% of divorced women said they would do it again if a subsequent relationship wasn’t working out.
‘The divorce was one of the hardest things I have ever done but post-divorce I am suddenly independent. I can follow my own dreams’
But it’s not all sunshine and roses
That’s not to say that getting divorced is a picnic. Far from it. We found only 19% of women were happy with their settlement. We don’t think it’s unrelated that only 9% of women had taken any kind of financial advice – yup, less than 1 in 10.
Many women said they regretted that.
It can be particularly impactful for women who opt to stay in the family home for emotional reasons rather than fighting for a share of their husband’s pensions or other investments. (Always ask about the pension…)
Repeat after me: ‘Show me (and teach me) the money’
This was a big learning around finances.
Queenagers are a pioneering generation, half of us are the breadwinners in our families, but we were brought up in an era where it was still expected that men would look after the money. After my parents divorced my mum who was a university lecturer couldn’t get a mortgage in her own name; it had to be guaranteed by her father. That is only a generation ago.
We heard some sad tales of women who had believed in the ‘Disney princess’ ending – that their husband’s would look after them financially while they did the house and the kids. Many had handed over too much control in this area. This proved disastrous when it came to the divorce.
We all need to tell our daughters – and ourselves – always to have our own bank accounts and to earn our own money. A man is NOT a financial plan! The very low numbers of women taking financial advice of any kind during the divorce is evidence of a huge need for education around financial planning for many of us. We’re going to be doing much more of this at NOON so watch this space!
(And you don’t need to be divorced or divorcing to start now – come to our webinar to learn how the Budget can affect your finances and what to do about it.)
Divorce = 3 things happening concurrently
One thing that many of us don’t understand about divorce is that it involves several different processes which unfold simultaneously. As Sandra Davis says: “Divorce is a train wreck: There is an emotional, legal and financial process all happening simultaneously, and women need support with all of them.”
That leads to our overwhelming recommendation: Have a team around you to advise and support you with everything from legal and financial questions to the emotional fallout, wellness impact, managing the children’s responses…even having someone help with savvy post-divorce real estate decisions can help.
After all, if you were getting married, you would have a team of people to help: maybe a wedding planner, a celebrant, a bridesmaid, a best lady, perhaps a lawyer… so why – as Jennifer Howze, my brilliant Editorial Director at NOON put it – would being divorced be any different? Just like some people forego a professional caterer for canapés made by a family member, you might decide you don’t require a therapist but a divorce coach suits your needs.
The modern divorce includes technology
We also discovered some modern aspects of divorce: Many women talked about the day they were thrown out of the wider family Whatsapp group. (An alternative for Paid Members: Join OUR Divorce Support WhatsApp group – email me for info.)
Some in the Focus Groups did their divorce using Chat GPT. At the launch at Mishcon de Reya last Wednesday, the model and wellness guru Jemma Kidd, who got divorced during lockdown, said she had found everything online, through Instagram.
She wasn’t alone – we were surprised by the high numbers of women using the internet to both research and carry out their divorce.
Saying yes to the Divorce Dress
But perhaps our favourite story was that of the woman who had said YES to the Divorce Dress. She’d been out shopping, saw a dress, bought it, hung it in her cupboard and told us: “I bought that dress as my divorce dress – because I’d bought it I knew there was no going back.” A bit like buying a wedding dress but in reverse!
When women are done, they’re done
What we were told over and over again in the focus groups was that when the women were done, they were SO done. It wasn’t any one incident which convinced Pat, 55, from Cheshire that she had to leave her husband – just 25 years of feeling taken for granted.
“It was ok while [my husband] was working,” she explained. “We both had our separate lives, he was a workaholic and travelled a lot. But then he retired and he was under my feet. He was pretty lost, I suppose. But he just undermined me constantly.
“It was like every day he’d say or do something which hurt; forgetting something important to me, not noticing something I had done for him, being negative. Each thing in isolation wasn’t that bad, a bit like a paper cut on a finger which over time built up until both my hands were bleeding and raw.
“I can remember looking at him one day across the breakfast table and thinking: I just can’t do this anymore. I’m only 55, I might live for another 40 years. I thought: There has to be more to life than this. So I told him I’d had enough. At that point he said he’d come to couples counselling, something I’d been suggesting for about 15 years. But by then it was too late.”
The personal stories that touched me
I was so proud of the Queenagers who were getting out of stultifying relationships to live their best life.
Strikingly, although when we asked the women for 1 word to sum up their divorce, although the top one was ‘sad’ the next 3 were: “Happy”, “liberated” and “free”.
While the women complained that often they had been shunned by a couple-dominated social circle (not being invited to dinner parties or their friends coming alone to see them without their husband), they also talked about the ‘reframe’.
‘I stopped being invited to dinner parties by our social circle and realised my ex was now going to them with his new girlfriend. That really hurt to begin with, but then…’
“I stopped being invited to dinner parties by our social circle and realised my ex was now going to them with his new girlfriend. That really hurt to begin with, but then I remembered they had been his university friends first and I had become friends with their wives. Now I’ve reconnected with own friends and made new ones and I am much happier and much more me.” Others talked about how “since the divorce my career has taken off. I realised I’d made myself and my career smaller as his got massive. Now I have a chance to live my own life again.”
Thelma in the London group said: “The divorce was one of the hardest things I have ever done but post-divorce I am suddenly independent. I can follow my own dreams. I am empowered, optimistic and grateful. It was hard to break up the family unit but four years on we are in a good place. I love my life and my kids are thriving.”
What helps with divorce?
We found that exercise and yoga– particularly taking up something new (one woman swears by the hard training of boxing) – was an important part of getting through the process.
Another vital element is the support of a community, people who understand, like our NOON network. We need women who have been through it and yet are not involved as friends or family. They are uniquely placed to provide informed impartial advice, insights we might not have thought of and a safe place to vent. There was lot of talk of resilience too: “I don’t get anxious anymore: the worst happened. I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore. I know I can survive anything.”
Some stories shocked us
To me the most shocking aspect of the groups was the number of tales of coercive control, abuse and physical violence. This was true across ALL social classes. Many of the women described meeting what they thought was their dream man only to have him turn into a ‘charming, lying bastard’.
Some of the scenarios the women had endured (one had been raped within earshot of her children by her ex; another punched in the stomach on a caesarean scar) were horrific. Tellingly, the rates of domestic violence reported by those who had divorced were strikingly higher than in the non-divorced women, suggesting that abuse is a big driver for women getting out. (Our results were also in-line with national statistics about domestic abuse.)
There is a lot more work to be done.
A lot happened in 7 days
So, dear Queenagers, it has been a high-octane week…Pyramids and the most inspiring NOON Circle on the Nile with our Egyptian sisters. (They loved it so much they want to set up a Cairo Circle. I was thrilled to see how excited they were by our community and our Much More to Come ethos.)
And then returning to the hullaballo around the launch. There have been articles in The Times and The Independent. NOON board member and longevity guru Avivah Wittenberg-Cox wrote about in her column for Forbes, and I penned a piece for The Telegraph – I was also on Vanessa Feltz’s radio show on Saturday talking about it.
I’d love to know what you all think. Please do see our top takeaways and read the report and send your thoughts to eleanor@noon.org.uk. Does this chime with you?
I’m going to leave it there, as I am knackered – even a swim in the pond this morning, the air temperature at zero degrees, in bright sunshine – only re-energised me for a bit. I am signing off now to go and have a well-earned sleep! But hope to see you all soon.
Xx
Eleanor
