Bill Gates, 65, announced on Twitter on Monday that he and his 56-year-old wife Melinda are divorcing The couple have had a decades-long agreement that Bill could vacation for a long weekend at the beach every year with his venture capitalist ex-girlfriend Bill dated venture capitalist Ann Winblad, 70, in the 80s but broke up in 1987, the same year he met future wife Melinda In a 1997 piece in TIME Magazine, Bill said, 'When I was off on my own thinking about marrying Melinda, I called Ann and asked for her approval' The former lovers kept their vacation tradition alive, with Bill spending a weekend with Ann at her beach house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina