While divorce is becoming less common for younger Americans, among adults age 50 and older, the divorce rate has roughly doubled since the 1990s, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2015, for every 1,000 married person age 50 and older, 10 divorced, versus five in 1990. This means that family lawyers today may be coping with a very different range of issues than those that confront younger couples, in addition to the complexities inherent in unwinding a 20- or 30- or 40-year relationship.
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Although some of these divorces among AARP qualifiers are occurring in second, third, or fourth marriages that are not of long duration, the majority involve long-term marriages. Why are so many older couples calling it quits and why are they waiting so long to take action?
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In some cases, the marriage has been an unhappy one for many years or perhaps never worked very well, but couples stayed together “because of the children” or to maintain a social image that served their business interests or their status in the community. These justifications tend to lose force as couples get older and are facing their “golden years” stuck in an uncomfortable, unhappy partnership.
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In other cases, the marriage once worked well but something has changed. Perhaps there has been a change in the behavior of one partner. Is one of the spouses suffering from a medical condition that impacts behavior? If the mental capacity of a senior client is questionable, an entirely different conversation needs to occur with an expert probate and guardianship attorney.
Perhaps retirement has radically altered the dynamics of the marriage. There may have been infidelity. One spouse may be chasing a vanished youth by seeking a younger partner. Medications aimed at treating erectile dysfunction (sometimes described as “granny abuse”) may play a role in upending the relationship.
Or it may be simply, as one 80-year-old described it: “I don’t want to die married to this man.”