Dying alone after a happy life is one thing, dying after decades of hell with a bad partner is another, and yet another to pay someone you hate until you die, like many men in California do.
Presumably it's a reference to California not having a statutory limitation on the time horizon for alimony payments (and also allowing for courts to reopen alimony decisions years later) after a marriage of more than 10 years is dissolved.
I think he meant a large number of divorced males in California although relatively speaking, California has one of the lower rates of divorce among all states, with the highest in the South.
It’s not. Life is not rose colored. Some people get lucky and find their life partners, while others die alone.