I’m in North Bay at my pal Heather’s cottage. Heather’s dad built this cottage with his bare hands in 1960. As a surgeon, his hands often worked magic, and this is a very magical place. Modern mega-homes have popped up all around Trout Lake in the ensuing decades, but this cottage remains originally rustic. There are munificent spirits too—Heather’s dad’s and mom’s ashes are spread across the back lawn.

I’m staying in a room that has been frozen in time circa 1970. It has a dresser with “groovy” flower power stickers bearing the names of Heather’s sisters. When you have six siblings you do your best to delineate “mine” from “yours” and carve out a little space of your own—even if it’s just a drawer in a dresser. Heather is kid number four, squished smack dab in the middle of the septet line-up. She learned to protect her boundaries at a very young age, which has served her well in life.

Heather married her high school sweetheart (Varsity Rower. MBA. Family Guy) and intended to live happily ever after like her mom and dad (Dr. and Mrs. B. were the poster couple for a happy sprawling family). But her alcoholic husband left her with two small boys and a pile of debt, and vanished from their lives. She told me, “I know there are some women who, when one man walks out the door, the next one walks in 10 minutes later because they need the money.”

Heather would have rather starved than subject her kids to a daddy merry-go-round. While she often lamented about the lack of a male role model for her young sons, she did not want another person wading in on important child rearing decisions. She captained a tight ship solo giving her children the structure and stability most two-parent families envy. She is the only mom I know who successfully enforced a one-hour per day screen time policy. Not surprisingly her sons grew up to be well-rounded young adults.

Too many of my friends feel they are less than complete without a mate, but Heather is confidently single. She never re-married and has no desire to be in a serious relationship even now that her boys are older. She says, “I like myself better single.” I have to say that I like her better single too, and I’ve known her since university days. Her combination of challenges—financial, single parenting, chronic disease—have made her confident and resilient. She has a belief in herself that is uncompromised.

Heather is part of a new wave of middle-aged women who are re-drawing the boundaries in their own lives. The divorce rate among baby boomers has swelled more than 50 percent in the past 20 years, and more women are opting to go it alone. Many feel that they have nurtured their kids and their husbands long enough and are now ready for “me” time. The stigma of divorce doesn’t exist like in their mother’s generation, and no one is going to paint a Scarlet letter on their forehead for an extramarital encounter.

According to a study, newly divorced women report feeling “liberated” significantly more than their male peers. Men are reported to suffer more psychologically. They turn to drink, have more casual encounters, and re-marry sooner than women. Women engage in more positive activities like spending time with friends. Divorce isn’t easy on anyone, and neither men nor women get an easy ride—but more and more women are now willing to gamble on themselves rather than continue to invest energy in a relationship that has run its course.

Irina Dunn, an Australian educator, journalist and politician, coined the phrase (often mistakenly attributed to Gloria Steinem), “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” It’s not that Heather doesn’t value men but says, “The key is to have a friend who is a plumber, and brothers-in-law who can fix anything.” With five married sisters, she has quite a few brothers-in-law to borrow when she really needs a man around the house.

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