After 40 years of marriage, Louise Cornet did something previous generations of women her age would have never contemplated, at least out loud.

At age 61, she divorced her husband.

He had changed so unforgivably, she said, in ways she doesn't want made public, that staying in the marriage she entered at age 21 was unthinkable.

"I once thought we would grow old together," said Cornet, who quit her job as a North Carolina math teacher and moved to suburban Lake Worth, Fla., after her wrenching divorce two years ago. "But I just couldn't stay."

Today, Cornet has a hard-won contentment and a new live-in boyfriend but no desire to remarry.

"And I don't know if I ever will," she said.

Call it the mid-wife crisis, a new rite of passage for midlife marriages.

The kids go off to college, the dog dies, and someone, increasingly the wife, wants a divorce.

While divorce among older couples was once rare, those over 50 are shedding their spouses at double the rate of two decades ago.

One in every four divorces is now a boomer couple untying the knot, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage, up from 1 in 10 in 1990.

And a majority of those "gray divorces" – 66 percent – are instigated by women, said the authors of a 2004 AARP survey.

Just as they shattered social mores around premarital sex, procreation and women's rights decades earlier, boomer women are irrevocably altering the template of "till death do us part."

Financially buoyed by their own paychecks, many of this first generation of career women are approaching retirement with secret reveries. Can I leave my job and a marriage that feels like a second shift? When people are living longer, does marriage have a sell-by date?

In his new book, "Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone," author Eric Klinenberg says 28 percent of Americans now live alone, in part because women can leave a bad marriage and support themselves for the first time in history.

"There's no doubt about it," said Rosalind Sedacca, a Boynton Beach, Fla., relationship coach and founder of the Child-Centered Divorce Network. "This is the first generation of women to say, 'I don't have to sacrifice the rest of my life in a marriage that doesn't make me happy.' "

With children out of the house, a couple's growing incompatibility can become too glaring to ignore, said Amy Sherman, a Lake Worth mental health counselor and Sedacca's sister.

Together they wrote "99 Things Women Wish They Knew Before Dating After 40, 50 and Yes, 60!"

"Previously, people divorced because of infidelity or money issues. With boomers, it's different criteria. Now that the kids are gone, some realize their relationships are boring and full of resentment," said Sherman, whose website is called bummedoutboomer.com.

For many women, their 50s are a time of reinvention, when they're ready to loosen the ties that bound them to home, children and husbands, said Sherman. They're weary of the incessant work of housekeeping, not to mention husband-keeping, especially if the couple have grown apart through the years.

"Women want fulfillment at this stage of their life, they're ready to find out who they are. They're feeling stronger and more empowered. They don't need to rely as much on a man," Sherman said.

That's exactly what drives women to her office, said West Palm Beach divorce lawyer Robin Roshkind.

Men leave marriages because they find someone else, she said. But by the time a woman gets to Roshkind's office, she's simply fed up with an unsatisfying relationship.

"Women are working and feel they can be economically independent and are tired of picking up after him," she said.

At 50, women – and plenty of men – are doing the calculations and figuring they still have 30 years ahead of them and will never look better or be healthier than they are right now.

"You re-evaluate. You look at your personal bucket list one more time and realize it's now or never," Roshkind said.

Then there's the clash between women's midlife energy surge and their husbands' recliner time.

"Women are much more active as they get older, where men really slow down. All they want is the computer and TV," Bass said. "Many women leave just because they've just had it."

After a certain age, following a lifetime of nuturing others, some women long for an independent life alone, posited Dominique Browning in a New York Times essay last month.

Unlike men, most have built strong social support networks of friends and family for when they want company.

It was certainly true for Cornet, whose loyal cadre of friends and family helped pull her through her life's radical changes.

"My friends, especially my sister, came to my rescue," she said. "That's something women have that men don't." Looking back now, she credits her divorce with a newfound confidence and independence she didn't have during her marriage.

"Before, I would never have gone to the beach, or a movie or restaurant by myself. Now, I'm not afraid to do those things," Cornet said.

And one more thing, something she almost – but not quite – feels guilty about.

With the old resentments and tangled emotions wiped away, "I'm having a lot more fun," she said.

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