While you may have read that divorce rates have been declining, you may not have known that divorce after 50, AKA grey divorce or silver or diamond splitters, is on the rise. Personally, I would have thought that the older you get and the longer you’re together, the better your chances are at staying together. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. I recently read an article about this very thing and so I started reading a little further.
Top Reasons For Grey Divorce
I’d like to think that after spending so much time with someone, you wouldn’t possibly consider leaving or cheating or causing any kind of drama that would end up in a divorce. Especially after your kids that you raised together are finally grown and out of the house. I totally get the whole, “empty-nest syndrome” but, in some ways, this is your opportunity to be “free” and come and go as you please. Not to mention, you could be a little better off financially since your kids are now all grown and working and handling their own financial issues in their own homes! But, sure enough, the stress and pain from “empty-nest syndrome” could also end up causing a lot of heartaches.
From what I’ve been reading, a lot of the reasons people after 50 choose to divorce are very similar to the typical reasons anyone divorces. There could be issues with infidelity, money problems, or simply not getting along. Some couples end up having been so busy all of their lives with raising their children, working, doing all of the things that life requires of us to lead “happy” lives that they end up sitting there, staring at the person they married years ago, wondering, “Who is this person?” Maybe to find that they don’t particularly like the person they married whether it’s due to their partner changing or even themselves. Either way, I think a good lesson learned here would be to try to slow down a little more and focus on the things that matter in life rather than being too busy to pay attention.
There are so many stories out there about money problems and I believe this has always been one of the leading causes of divorce. Apparently, this doesn’t change for couples over 50 either. Especially if you are now living on a limited income since retirement or maybe since you’ve been so busy with raising a family and working to get where you are that you didn’t realize that your partner has been shopping and spending everything you thought you had saved for your later years! You could also run into issues with the spending habits either getting worse or staying the same. Research shows that marriages grow stronger when the husband’s income increases but grows weaker when the wife’s income increases.
No matter what the reasons for wanting a divorce after spending so many years together, and no matter how old your children are, divorce will always take a toll on your children. Tampa divorce attorneys can help with not just the emotional toll but, they can also help with all of the legal and financial burdens that divorce brings.
Sure, you may think that waiting until your children graduate, move out, have their own families, is a selfless act but, they will still be as lost and as sad as they would have been when they were younger. Sure, there won’t be any bickering over visitation, child support, and no wicked custody battles. But, expect an emotional strain on your grown children and even your grandchildren. One of the top worries among families with “Grey divorcees” would be trying to determine who will be there to take care of the parents as they get older and may be in need of help due to injury or illness.
Take time to consider what your children and grandchildren may be going through too! While they will almost certainly understand that you and your spouse have ‘grown apart” or one of you just decided to renew yourself and change your lifestyle completely, remember that they are also struggling to understand.
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