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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that 'Mid-life Ex-wife' is a very depressing column?

161 replies

grumpysquash · 20/06/2015 21:42

Published each week in the Sat Guardian (and online) by 'Stella Gray'. This lady is 50 and dating after a divorce. The guys she meets appear to be dreadful and rude and she has incredibly low self esteem. This week it was written to suggest that once the date saw her thighs (through her clothes), he clearly wasn't interested any more. And a couple of weeks ago she slept with a slightly younger guy (42) who afterwards (the same night) broke up with her by text saying that he felt in a different generation to her.
For some reason, I compulsively read it each week. But I want to cry sometimes. Surely dating at 50 isn't as bad as that (someone please tell me a nice story)? I have lots of friends who are over 50, lovely, engaging, funny and sexy. That is more usual, right????

OP posts:

wtffgs · 27/09/2015 14:14

I think it's depressing that all mid-life ex-wives are supposed to care about is bagging another marvellous () man.

There really is more to life and the column's real message is 'put up with your shite marriage or face a dismal life alone being humiliated'.

LisbethSalandersLaptop · 27/09/2015 14:14

lol no my knickers are firmly in place ...so far

LisbethSalandersLaptop · 27/09/2015 14:15

exactly what I meant wtffgs - as though your life will be meaningless without one.

Autumnnights1 · 27/09/2015 14:17

Of course theres more to life but I for one would like a partner again. Im not ready to let my lady garden shrivel and die. Id like to be in a committed sexually fulfilling relationship again

ALassUnparalleled · 27/09/2015 14:21

It's not as irritating as Man with a Pram. The Guardian of course has form with these really irritating smug columnists wittering on about their humdrum lives as if they had anything new or revelatory to say.

There was the awful Julie Myerson one and before that some woman wittering on about a teenager called "Precious"

Oh and Lucy Mangan- my was she dull.

BrendaandEddie · 27/09/2015 14:25

oh i slagged off the notion of man with a pram on twitter and Stewart Heritage BLOCKED Me - there you are - the patriachy

what a twat

The concept that a man who has a baby gets a column in 2015 is just depressing

nortonhouse · 27/09/2015 15:13

tamaralamara exactly! The Stella character hasn't developed at all; she makes the same mistakes and holds onto the same misperceptions and insecurities through relationship (or rather non-relationship) after relationship, without growing or learning at all from her experiences. I only continue reading the column in the apparently futile hope that she'll change. Today's instalment was excruciating: stalking the man she'd met one time at her neighbourhood coffee shop!

Original poster

grumpysquash · 27/09/2015 16:42

Man with a Pram is truly awful. It's as if no-one else has ever had a baby.

Imagine if it was written by a woman. Woman with a Pram - catchy, and would definitely be commissioned :)

I miss Lucy Mangan but mostly because she irritated the hell out of me. Saturday mornings just aren't the same! I like Sophie Heywood, although I could do with less of the 'single mum' stuff.

I read Stella Gray because I read all of the Guardian, except the sport and some of the political stuff. It wouldn't seem right to just turn the page!

What do we think will happen in the end? How about meeting a middle aged woman with big thighs and realising it is possible to fall in love with such a person????

OP posts:

ShebaShimmyShake · 27/09/2015 16:48

It'll last either until she finds a long term partner and stops online dating (like the very short lived one by the 30-something divorcee that preceded it), or until she decides for personal reasons that she wants to jack it in (like Diary of a Separation, which I really enjoyed too). At the moment it seems to be reasonably successful.

Original poster

grumpysquash · 27/09/2015 17:12

Was Diary of a Separation actually Sali Hughes?

OP posts:

ShebaShimmyShake · 27/09/2015 17:13

I don't know, never looked into who it might have been...

hackmum · 27/09/2015 17:16

Some of the columns in the Family section have been very dull. There was the awful Charlie Condou one about bringing up his child with his male partner and their female friend, where he tried to sanitise it as much as possible, with the result that nothing ever interesting happened.

I also didn't like that Marriage in Recovery one - the one where the woman left her alcoholic husband and then after a very long time got back together with him. I really wanted to tell her to get a grip, I'm afraid.

I like Stuart Heritage as a writer but I agree Man with a Pram is a bit feeble. I mean, he does as well as he can with unpromising material but there's not much new to say about looking after a baby, is there? Years ago Zoe Williams did a fairly similar column in the G2 section and again, while that was fairly amusing, there wasn't much to say that we hadn't all heard before.

nortonhouse · 27/09/2015 17:20

Sali Hughes - how interesting! That's the first time I've heard that rumour. It would make sense. I did enjoy that column - if "enjoy" is the right word for such a painful story.

flightywoman · 27/09/2015 17:25

I read Stella Grey, usually with a lot of wincing. How does she not know that they just aren't interested?

ShebaShimmyShake · 27/09/2015 17:48

I think she does know...I don't think I've ever seen her suggest otherwise. But she's so anxious to get into a relationship, so conscious of the cutthroat nature of the dating world she's in (might be different for people in other circumstances) that she just can't bring herself to pull away when she should. I honestly get the impression from the writing that she does know that, but she's presenting what's happening and who she is rather than what she 'should' be doing.

It's one reason I find the column believable.

Moanranger · 27/09/2015 22:23

I know quite a few singles in their 50s-60s ( me being one) who have successfully partnered up. I did 6 weeks after my marriage broke down & new man & I are still together 2+ years later & v happy. This idea that your ( the woman's) life ends after a long marriage ends is utter tosh. I did not do OLD, but met in RL; lots of places to meet other singles at any age, just have to know where to look! So, OP, there are different outcomes than the Stella column would suggest.

BabyGanoush · 27/09/2015 22:40

it is painful reading

ShebaShimmyShake · 27/09/2015 22:57

Stella's said on more than one occasion that it's just her experiences she's writing about, and she's not claiming this is some kind of empirical study. (I always thought that was obvious.) In her case, she's hampered by some spectacular gracelessness regarding dating and she seems to view herself as unattractive, which is probably affecting the vibes she's giving off. It's a personal column, no more, no less.

SiobhanSharpe · 28/09/2015 01:58

Stella Grey is a whinger. I like Tim Dowling's column myself. And I really like the sound of his wife. She heckles him at his gigs.

hackmum · 28/09/2015 07:59

When we had Tim Dowling on for a web chat, I asked him if his wife was as fierce in real life as she appears in his columns and he said, yes, she was.

I think it must be quite bracing being married to her.

BrendaandEddie · 28/09/2015 08:37

I'd never read diary of a separation. Sounds totally like Hughes

Scremersford · 28/09/2015 09:56

The Guardian is full of weird articles like that. Its like it gathers the ordinary together and tries very hard to turn them into a freak show to get an audience. Just browsing online after the awful mid-life-crisis stalker woman article (when she went to a coffee shop in her pyjamas without brushing her teeth and wondered why she can't get a boyfriend), and there was an article about a man complaining that his girlfriend didn't let him indulge in his foot fetish when they were having sex. The advice was

"Partners of people who enjoy such erotic styles as yours are commonly not so much judgmental as confused. They simply do not understand how they could fit into a type of erotic scenario that’s different to what they’re used to." and to basically ignore the fact the woman didn't like it and wasn't interested in doing it.

It simply didn't occur to the "sex therapist" (Pamela Stephenson) that the woman didn't like her feet being touched, or preferred all the other many things that you can do together during sex. I'd dump the guy for persisting with something I didn't like tbh.

Its a weird newspaper.

ALassUnparalleled · 28/09/2015 10:39

Its a weird newspaper

It is indeed. I often wonder why I stick with it. I was about to give up during the Scottish referendum as all its commentators were so pro Yes although the editorial finally came out for No

pollycazalet · 28/09/2015 13:38

I think diary of a separation was written by the woman who has the Belgian Waffling blog - she went into great detail on the blog when she split up from her partner and lots of the details were the same.

UncertainSmile · 28/09/2015 13:50

All this self-obsessed nonsense was fantastically satirised by Chris Morris in a column he did quite a few years ago in the Observer, under a pseudonym. That bloody idiot India Knight had quite the meltdown when she found out about it.
As for 'mid-life ex-wife', if she keeps going after these weird ex-military types then she's going to be forever disappointed.

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