222 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
(Although a truly liberated husband may assist some by taking
the trash out during the halftime of Monday night football).
In fact, one recent study concluded that married men’s average
time spent on household tasks has increased only 6 percent in the
last twenty years, even as women have flooded the workplace.
You should hear the warm and fuzzy sentiments that issue forth
from my female clients when I cite them that statistic.
Does divorce make women sick? A “sickening” study recently con-
ducted by the University of Iowa has shown that divorced women
are more prone to illness over the long term. It appears that dur-
ing the years immediately following their divorces, these divorced
women initially reported somewhat higher levels of psychological
distress than did married women, but they did not, at first, report
any increase in physical illness. Then, ten years later, those effects
on mental health apparently led to adverse effects on physical
health as well. At this later stage, the divorced women reported
37 percent more physical illness. A connection between the higher
number of physical illnesses may well have been triggered by the
stresses and attendant difficulties associated with divorce.
The study pointed out that women can certainly get clobbered
with a cascading set of problems when they divorce. In many
cases they lose financial security and may have to move to a dif-
ferent (and often smaller) place of residence, plus they frequently
must manage childcare alone. Having added responsibility for
the kids, in turn, often means they lose ground at work, making
their job and financial situation even more precarious. It looks
like they are trapped in this vicious circle of financial problems
and other stressful life events.
More scary statistics for women. Here are some scattered sta-
tistics that point up the difficult plight faced by many women:
(1) women are out of the labor force for an average of 11.5 years
for child rearing, thereby vastly limiting their upward employ-
ment mobility and their progress in accumulating a viable pen-
sion or retirement portfolio; (2) women now live to an average
age of eighty, which is 5.2 years longer than men (guys die, on
average, at 74.8 years); (3) 80 percent of all women outlive their
husbands; and (4) the average age of widowhood is a seemingly
way-too-young fifty-six years.