Reasons for Gray Divorce
- Growing old together can create distance.
- Living together without kids.
- Focused on different things or different values.
- Drifting apart, lack of being fulfilled.
- Abuse.
- Alcohol or drug abuse.
- Lack of conflict with one spouse suffering silently.
- Infidelity.
- Unhappiness after many years.
- Lack of emotional connection with spouse.
- Loss of respect for each other.
- Lack of belief in sticking together no matter what.
- Desire for a fresh lease on life after staying for the sake of the kids.
Janice Green: "Late-life divorces and long-term separations can happen for the same reasons as the relationship breaches of younger adults: infidelity, family violence, financial pressures, regrets about earlier decisions, or the desire for independence. However, many of these reasons are reframed and have new meaning when they surface in the context of a graying divorce -- and some late-life divorces are the result of realities unique to older adults."
Source: Janice Green. Divorce After 50: Your Guide to the Unique Legal & Financial Challenges. 2010. pg. 4.
More Quotes About Gray Divorce
Anita Creamer: "For the most part, it's older boomers who are keeping divorce alive, even while divorce rates are declining for those born in the early 1960s and later -- and even while the national divorce rate has dropped from a peak of 5.3 per 1,000 people in 1981 to 3.5 today, matching the 1970 rate."Source: Anita Creamer. "Baby Boomers Lead New Wave of 'Gray Divorce.'" SacBee.com. 8/15/2010.
Jessica Yadegaran: "Marriages of 40 years or more account for 4 percent of divorces, according to Andrew Cherlin, a Johns Hopkins University sociology professor who studies families. It jumps to 8 percent for marriages of 30 to 39 years, likely because these couples are closer to life's empty nest stage, when children are grown and out of the house."
Source: Jessica Yadegaran. "Adjusting after 'gray divorce.'" Contra Costa Times. 6/28/2010.
Kay Harvey: "Some people, like David Popenoe, are skeptical that divorce among people past midlife is increasing to any significant degree. Popenoe, co-director of the Marriage Project at Rutgers University, cites a declining overall divorce rate in recent years. “If there's an increase among older people, it would run against the trend,” he said. He attributes any increase in divorce past midlife to the size of the baby boom, rather than any societal shift. “To be sure, there are more 55-year-olds than there were 20 years ago,” he said. “What we want to avoid saying is that there's any higher risk of divorce for someone at 55 and older than for someone 20 years ago.”
Source: Kay Harvey. "Saying 'I Don't:' Gray Divorce." Eldr.com. 5/17/2007.
Helen Rumbelow: "In some ways, then, it’s not a fear of death that prompts the change, but the confidence that old age gives you ... In his novel Immortality, Milan Kundera poses a difficult question. If, after death, you were given the chance of another turn, another spin on earth, and you were given the opportunity to have the same life partner for another 40 years, would you? It’s a tough one, because even in the happiest marriages, people do wonder."
Source: Helen Rumbelow. "An inconvenient truth about late-life divorce." TimesOnLine.co.uk. 6/04/2010.
Sherry Parrish: "Often people who've been together for the children, for the careers, find themselves finally face to face and decide maybe there's more to life than living with this person."
Source: Joce Sterman. "Gore's aren't the only ones going through 'Gray Divorce.'" ABC2News.com. 6/02/2010.
Erica Manfred: "According to an AARP study on late-life divorce, we divorcees cope fairly well with life after divorce. Seventy-five percent feel divorce was the right decision for them. 'Their buzz-words are 'freedom,' 'self-identity,' and 'fulfillment.'"
Source: Erica Manfred. He's History, You're Not: Surviving Divorce After 40. 2009. pg. 2.
Helpful Books on Gray Divorce
Calling It Quits -- Late Life Divorce and Starting over. (2007)by Deidre Bair.
Divorce After 50: Your Guide to the Unique Legal & Financial Challenges. (2010)
by Janice Green.
He's History, You're Not: Surviving Divorce After 40. (2009)
by Erica Manfred.
