There is little to lean on for support. When a marriage begins to break down, that old privacy becomes part of the cage. There is no longer a shared experience or, more significantly, a shared drama. You find yourself on the stage that has been the final years, still speaking your lines but playing to an empty house. The play is not concluded, or wrapped up.
Somebody just shuts off the lights.
So you find yourself in a new place. Either the old house of the marriage, now bigger and emptier, or a new place that looks suspiciously like the places you lived in when you were young and just scraping by. And you begin to wonder if instead of moving forward you are falling back, instead of starting over with a clean slate you are starting over with all the responsibilities of middle life but no way to pay for them. Divorce robs you of much. It takes away your mid-career wealth.