Of his 1980 defeat, Gravel later recalled: "I had lost my career. I lost my marriage. I was in the doldrums for ten years after my defeat,"Politics1, "P2008: An Interview With Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel" by Ron Gunzburger, April 17, 2006. and "Nobody wanted to hire me for anything important. I felt like I was worthless. I didn't know what I could do." By his own later description, Gravel was a womanizer, and had an affair while in the Senate, and he and his wife Rita separated in December 1980.Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 196–197. They filed for divorce in September 1981; she later received all of his Senate pension income.
