INCREASE IN DIVORCE RATE IN COUPLES OVER AGE FIFTY

                The 2002 US Census Bureau Statistic stated that a trend started in 1998 that the rate for couples, age 50 and older,  increasing.  The average American life expectancy is now 79, up from 47 in 1900.  Reasons that are given by couples for divorcing later are often framed by attitude about aging and the spouse’s realization of fewer years ahead than behind. 

                Late life separation and divorces can happen for the same reasons as relationship problems in younger couples:  family violence, financial pressures, regrets about earlier decisions, the desire for independence and infidelity. Other reasons why older couples break up include emotionally cold,  lack of commitment to the marriage, lack of interest in the physical relationship, the inability to resolve or manage conflict, alcohol/drug addiction and difficult relationships with stepchildren. (1)Saga Legal Services

                As an individual grapples with the realities of time, one’s parents might have lived to be in their 90’s.  If someone is in their 60’s or 70’s with longevity on their side of the family, this gives that individual another possible twenty years of longer to want to be in a relationship that is happy and fulfilling or to be out of a marriage that is no longer happy.

                Marriage vows say “in sickness and in health.”  Serious illness can change things in marriage.  The healthy spouse, in an unhappy marriage, can experience the illness as the last straw or may not be equipped to cope with a serious illness of their mate.  The ill spouse may have a remission, be in an less than fulfilling marriage, and decide that they are going to make the most of the rest of their life.  These situations are loaded with abandonment issues.

                Spouses must make emotional adjustments when a family member leaves the household, such as when a child leaves home to start college or begin their  own adult life or when a spouses retires from a job. Some couples might have stayed together for the purpose of the children.  Once the children leave, the reason for staying in the marriage relationship is also gone.  Interests, professional activities and organizations  and friends, once fueled by the workplace might vanish when retirement occurs.  These major events might cause problems in the marriage if there has been a common purpose lacking in the marriage.

                The loss of a spouse to divorce or death can lead to a remarriage that often ends in divorce.  On average, two thirds of women and seventy-five percent of men will try marriage a second time.  Divorce rate for the second marriage is sixty percent or higher.

                Gender equality, increasing in the last thirty years, both in the workplace and in the home, has contributed to a higher divorce rate in couples past the age of fifty.  The increase in opportunities outside the home has led women to seek independence and fulfillment later in life and will often reject the more traditional woman’s role of caretaker, often when the children are grown and gone from home.

                There is also an impact of the Baby Boomers towards attitudes of divorcewith the Boomers being entirelyThe growth of no-fault divorce laws in the 1970’s reflected society’s changing attitudes toward divorce.  No-fault divorce has also made divorce less stigmatizing.

                As adult children get a divorce, their parents may look differently at their own marriage and see divorce as a real possibility.

                Verbal, substance, emotional and physical  abuse is cited  by AARP as primary reasons for couples divorcing between the ages of 40 and 79.  According to AARP,  substance abuse often goes hand in hand with physical and emotional abuse.  It is not easy for the victim in the marriage to break this abusive cycle later in life and especially when it has happened for years in a long term marriage.  These type of divorce cases are often not seen to completion because an abused spouse will abandon the process and return to their familiar abuse cycle.

                 There is also an impact of the Baby Boomers towards attitudes of divorce with the Boomers being entirely unlike older generations of Americans both in attitudes and lifestyles.  Their wants and needs are different from wants and needs of previous generations.  Well educated, highly individualistic, independent and self-indulgence describe this fifty plus age group.  These years are a time of frustration and crisis for many people.  Self help books are more plentiful, spirituality (not as in traditional religion) is experiencing a rebirth,  there is a search for life’s meaning as Boomers look for a way to escape tedium and boredom, which might result in an increase in extramarital affairs.

                For whatever the reason, statistics do indicate the increase of divorce in couples over the age of fifty as life spans increase, no fault divorce laws reducing the stigma associated with divorce, and independence and self-fulfillment being  some of the reasons.