In October 2021, Cheryl Kaplan and her husband moved to North Carolina. They were in their late 60s and ready to leave West Orange, N.J., where they had lived for 38 years, raising two daughters. “It was my idea,” Ms. Kaplan said. “I really wanted warm weather, and I wanted an older community where we didn’t have to travel out for clubs and swimming.”
The house they bought, in a development for homeowners 55 and older, seemed like a place where they could be happy for the rest of their lives.
The move, however, lasted only three days.
In one of their first mornings in the new home, the couple realized that their 38-year marriage was over. Ms. Kaplan told her husband she wanted to move out of the house they had just moved into.
“Leaving was something that I had wanted to do, and I was afraid of being alone,” she said. “I’m not afraid of being alone now.”
Ms. Kaplan reloaded the car with her personal belongings, got behind the wheel, and drove away on her own. “It was my decision,” she said. “I didn’t have to ask anybody, ‘Should I do this?’ In the past it would’ve been, ‘Let me ask somebody what I should do.’ But I didn’t ask anyone. I just did it.”