The breakdown of a marriage is always sad, especially when children are involved. So it may have surprised many to hear that Tess Daly and Vernon Kay were toasting their newly announced split with champagne and wishing each other well.
While from the outside, Daly, 57, and Kay, 52, seemed a rare example of a high-profile showbusiness marriage that was fun and worked, their relationship had quietly been dying on the inside. They insist the separation is 'amicable' and that they 'remain great friends' and, most importantly, are 'fully committed' to their roles as 'loving and supportive parents' to their two daughters, Phoebe, 21, and Amber, 16. In a joint statement, they said: 'After much consideration and with a deep sense of care and respect for one another, we have made the decision to separate amicably. This has not been an easy choice but it comes from a place of mutual understanding and a shared desire of what is best for both of us.'
While gossip columnists sliced and diced their lives for clues, it seemed clear to me. Working with my community of predominantly Gen X fiftysomethings, this is a relationship phenomenon I see quite often: midlife marriage drift. Appearances can be deceiving, particularly when it comes to midlife marriage drift. This is where couples don't particularly row or not get on, neither has an affair, there isn't a particular incident, the couple just slowly fall out of love. Often this is linked to a larger midlife shift, particularly for women, where, having put their own lives on hold to prioritise everyone else's needs (kids, family, husband), when the nest is empty they finally get an overwhelming desire to do their own thing. 'Finally, it gets to be about me!' as one friend put it.
This walkaway wives phenomenon emerged clearly in research I conducted with NOON and law firm Mishcon de Reya earlier this year. In it, we found that 64 per cent of divorces are now instigated by women, with a quarter reporting 'they had fallen out of love' as the reason. In the era of the 100-year life (those of us in midlife now are statistically likely to live to our 90s or beyond), 50 is only halfway through. It's only lunchtime. But as we live longer, many women are looking at their husbands over the breakfast table and thinking: Hmm, nope, not this, not you, not for the rest of my life. In the survey we conducted with Survation for the report (2,000 women aged 45-65 benchmarked against the UK population), we found that more and more women are realising they don't have to stay in marriages which no longer work for them. Indeed, 56 per cent said they would end a marriage because they were unhappy; a quarter reported that falling out of love was behind their desire to split, while another 11 per cent just didn't want to spend the rest of their life with someone with whom they'd grown apart.
The presenters have been together for 23 years and insist that there are 'no other parties involved'. 'They are totally different people now,' one 'friend' told the Daily Mail. 'They used to have so much in common but things have changed. They have changed. They have aged differently.' It seems that over the last couple of decades, their lifestyles and interests have diverged. BBC Radio 2 DJ Vernon, five years younger than Daly, is a classic middle-aged sports nut – travelling to the US to watch the Super Bowl and never happier than when on the golf course. He is also something of a 'big kid' or midlife raver, having been spotted out and about at Oasis last summer. Tess, by contrast, works hard, keeps fit, goes paddleboarding and doesn't seem to share Vernon's laddish passions. The marriage has reportedly simply 'come to a natural halt'.
It is interesting that this personal shift for Daly also comes hard on the heels of her professional split from Strictly Come Dancing after 21 years of hosting, and an empty nest (her elder daughter is pursuing modelling in New York, while the younger is off to university soon). Speaking to the Happy Mum Podcast ahead of her marriage announcement, Daly said: 'It's going to be really weird, I'm going to have way too much time on my hands. If you remove my children from the picture it looks like a very different picture, I can't imagine it yet…' She added that her last two decades had been defined by the needs of her kids and that the future felt exciting but also anxiety-inducing. 'It could be gorgeous just to have the chance to do those things I've never had the chance to do... as a mum I've never been away on breaks with my girlfriends – not once in 20 years because my daughters needed me more.'
That sense of moving into a new era, of everything changing, which gives us a chance to prioritise our own needs again, is common to the women I see in my midlife community. We call the all-change point where Daly is now the 'midlife collision' (or midlife clusterfu**). Daly isn't the only one being hit with change on multiple fronts in her mid-fifties. Our research shows that one in five women by 50 has been through at least five of the biggies: divorce, bereavement, redundancy, empty nest, caring for elderly parents or a Gen Z child, not to mention menopause and health issues. Often, these all hit together, derailing our lives.
This sense of drift in midlife marriages, and that sense of anxiety, excitement and not being done yet, which Daly articulates so well, is behind many divorces. But the good news is that the women who go through the most and shed what no longer serves them end up the happiest. They end up with what I call a life which is 'resonant' – finally matching on the outside how they feel on the inside. That is where Daly is headed.
This sense of drift in midlife marriages, and that sense of anxiety, excitement and not being done yet, which Daly articulates so well, is behind many divorces. Many at this age talk about wanting to take the road less travelled, explore aspects of themselves which have been damped down before. In women, as oestrogen levels decline, we become less interested in being pleasing and more open to the call of the untethered self, that sense of 'if not now, when?' This gives the courage to walk away from the familiar, as Jane articulated in one of my groups:
'It was on our 25th wedding anniversary weekend away that I knew I had to leave,' explains Jane. 'We'd met when we were both solicitors in the City, then I didn't go back after I had our first child and we moved to Sussex where I had two more boys. My husband went on working in the law, I retrained as a teacher to fit around the kids. We had a happy family but there were underlying issues, always. We'd always split our finances 50-50 because when we were first together we earned the same money. But by the end, he was earning five times my salary but resented the fact that I had been at home a lot and around while he was doing a job he didn't love. It all came to a head because on our anniversary weekend I asked if he would help pay for my half of the ski trip. He told me I 'needed to learn to budget better' and refused to ante up. It was as if that moment crystallised everything that was wrong in our marriage and also all my anxieties about staying together with him in the future. I could see him being just like that about his pension. I realised that although we had been a good team at parenting our sons, there really wasn't anything left between us. When we got home from our – ha – romantic break, I told him I wanted a divorce. He wasn't even that upset. He just nodded. We knew there was more to life than staying in a marriage which had run its course.'
Jane moved back to her native Northumberland to be by the sea and near her parents. 'I love my new life,' she says. 'I'm doing up an old listed cottage. Everything in it is something I chose; it is like a living tribute to my new life which is all about what I want to do. After nearly three decades of putting everyone else's needs first, it feels so freeing to make my own choices.'
While divorce used to be seen as a personal failure carrying a stigma, our report found that nearly two-thirds of the women thought there was no shame attached to ending a marriage, while a third of women who had walked away from their marriage said that in the aftermath, they felt 'happier than they had ever been'. Few were worried about being alone and 76 per cent of women who had already divorced said they would do it again in a heartbeat if a subsequent marriage wasn't to their liking.
Zoe Ball recently opened up about her midlife divorce as well, describing the decision as 'scary'. When we asked the women to describe in one word how they felt about their divorce, the top answers were sad (of course), but interestingly, the next three were 'relief', 'happiness' and 'liberation'. Does Jane feel sad? 'Not really, I am so relieved to be in charge of my own destiny again.'
As we live longer, the emotional longevity of a marriage – that sense of putting the other one first, of still being interested in what they had for lunch, of feeling like you are still great friends and want to hang out – can fade. So it makes sense that more women are deciding not to 'settle' for the safety of a stale marriage but to strike out on their own. One piece I read had 2027 as the 'hot divorce' summer in terms of fashion and attitude. Of course men can change too and some couples, rather than splitting, can renegotiate their relationships. Perhaps conceding that interests change and that rather than separating, each can indulge their own passions.
In one of my groups last week, I heard of a couple where the husband has become obsessed with long-distance cycling while the woman wants to paint: they have come to a deal where each can pursue their interests for three months of the year over several trips, but they have decided to stay together. Having a tough conversation, really talking about your needs going forward and what happiness from 50 to 75 looks like to each of you, can save couples from midlife marital drift. But both sides have to want to try.
The beauty of the 100-year life is that we can have many acts. Midlife marital drift is real – but it can be arrested. But perhaps, post-fiftysomething, a whole new second-act chapter lies ahead. I wish Vernon and Tess all future harmony and joy and may their split help many others to rethink their own unions.
Eleanor Mills is the author of 'Much More to Come', published by HarperCollins, and the founder of NOON, the UK's premier network for midlife women.
