No one ever thinks it will happen to them. In fact, every married couple wants their marriage to last forever. However, sometimes divorce is inevitable if two people just can't work out their differences. Today, your chances of a successful "until death do us part" marriage is a 50/50 venture. So how do you cope when you come to terms that it just isn't going to work out?

Marriage: The Age of Dividing Assets
by Jennifer Lofquist

My husband is three years younger than me, not a huge difference, but enough of one to see the generation gap that can happen in those three years. Four or five years ago, I was attending the wedding of the first of my friends to get married. Now Andrew and I attend his friends' weddings, and I get e-mail notices of the first of my friends to get divorced.

Actually, that was me. I was the first of the friends to get divorced, but now I'm getting more and more of these painful e-mails as each of my friends try to explain to me and to themselves why they have to write an e-mail to everyone to say "it's over."

In high school, college, and post-college, break ups were something privately mourned and selectively shared. Someone would ask about your boyfriend, and you would go "oh, we broke up." End of conversation. Maybe some whys and wherefores, but not really. You certainly didn't announce it. You simply made it clear that you were in the market again�and you were on the market again seconds after you said goodbye. There was no such thing as a mourning period. It was simply over�period. As one brilliant person I can't remember said: "The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else."

The breakup of a marriage is far more serious, far less private, and far less understood. While no one scoffs at the break up of a long-term relationship, marriage is supposed to be forever. We all want it to be forever, and the ending of any of these marriages calls that forever into question. Those getting a divorce are supposed to be a little ashamed, take some time to mourn, quietly show disappointment. And the parties have to make all of this public.

Miss Manners suggests you announce your marriage's impending demise with a change of address card with only your name on it. Subtle and brutal. That way people can call you and go "oh, you and Jake are moving�did he get a better job?" "No," you stammer, "you see, it's just not working�" and wait patiently for the next call. E-mails seem to be the much more common approach. I know I did it, along with phone calls to everyone I knew. I went through my entire address book within seconds of moving out, causing some awkward moments with people I hadn't spoken to since the wedding.

I have this odd belief that in the first few days of any break up, you're stunned, so it's best to get all the unpleasantries done then when you won't actually feel it. I tested this theory during my own divorce, and I found it worked. Just got it all over with before I actually began to feel as horrid as I eventually did. So when the "hey, it's official" came down the pike, it was old news.

One of my friends didn't tell anyone until the judge was looking over the papers�though we all knew. You don't live in two separate states, come back to your spouse's city without visiting her, and show up at big events alone without people putting one and one apart. So when the announcement came, quietly over a beer, I didn't exactly look stunned. I looked sad.

Others have sent e-mails, done calls, asked for the names and numbers of lawyers. All with the same silent look of disbelief still haunting them. I was at many of their weddings and obviously at my own�we all had similar faces then too. Joy, hope, and faith in a future together. And it has now come full circle.

In a day of 50% divorce rates, you can't help but look around and wonder who's next. I have the hope that none of my circle will become part of that statistic, but reality has reared its ugly head before and it probably will again. We've reached that age. We all go through life's stages with our friends: puberty, first loves, proms, marriage, babies�and sometimes�unfortunately�divorce.

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Jennifer Lofquist is a freelance writer and Gen �Xer in Sterling, Virginia. In 2001, she married "the Beloved," bought a house, and supposedly became an adult, though many of her friends would disagree. Her interests are writing, history, cooking, crafting, and her cat Jasper. She is convinced that she would have been able to make Henry VIII a happily married man.

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