The Grey Divorce

A surprising statistic is that about a third of all recent divorces are occurring with spouses over 50 years of age.  These divorces have taken on the name, “Grey Divorce,” for obvious reasons.  This is twice the number that was true in 1990.  As with younger divorces, women initiate the divorce twice as often as men, but this could be deceiving.  Historically, women have initiated divorces more often than men because many women had been abandoned by their husbands.  This does not appear to be the case with Grey Divorces.

A number of possible causes have been offered, although there has been little hard research to support this, other than questions asked at the time of the divorce.  Some of the guesses are:

1. Longevity. People are living longer and many of the tasks of early marriage, such as raising children or even helping raise grandchildren are no longer holding grandma and grandpa together.  Additionally, fewer children lived near their parents these days, exaggerating the “empty nest.”
2. Longevity II. Another possible effect of living longer, and therefore having a longer marriage, is the curse of boredom. Some boredom in marriage is usually inevitable.  The 300^th kiss is not the same as the first five.  This is called saturation.  Successful couples counteract this by engaging in new activities with one another.  Increased financial security, for example, can open the door to stimulating travel.  Taking on new individual activities can also stimulate novel discussions with one another.  A failure to keep stimulation alive in a marriage might lead to overwhelming boredom.  Sexual saturation might also be playing a role, because affairs are often described as the reason for a Grey Divorce.
3. Cultural values of Baby Boomers. In the famous song written by Kris Kristofferson and sung by Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby Mcgee,” recorded shortly before her death in 1970, famously celebrates two people in love, but leaving one another to follow their own paths.  Ken was living in San Francisco, two blocks from the streets, Haight and Ashbury, in the mid to late 1960’s.  The culture was turning many of the values of the prior generation on their head. One of those was viewing spending a lifetime with the same man or woman seemed ridiculous and seemed to explain a divorce rate that rising to close to 60% at the time. Many of those over 50 lived through those years.
4. Financial problems: The stress of long-term financial problems, which often includes ongoing conflict in the marriage, is given by some as the reason for their Grey Divorce. One might jump to the conclusion that the stress is from being too poor, but does not appear to be the case. In some of these cases, the spouses are well-off.
5. Growing apart. This is actually the most common answer of divorcing people over 50 when asked at the courthouse.  Another effect of having children and grandchildren move away combined with reaching relative financial security is that spouses legitimately ask themselves how they want to spend the rest of their lives.  It is not surprising if the answers include incompatible lifestyles.  From this perspective, the marriage might well be considered a success, but with an episode that means separating and divorcing.  If this is true, a marriage can be a great success, but not last “until death.”

Your authors find the Grey Divorce sad.  We acknowledge that post-divorce, these divorcees might have better lives, but for Ken, he cannot imagine anything in a future that would entice him to leave his wife of 45 years.  Besides that, a Grey Divorce does pose risks.

1. Financial Risks: An Attorney friend of one of your authors once said, “When people divorce, they each get one-third of the estate and usually believe that the attorneys got the other third, but that is not true. In a divorce, a third of the estate simply disappears.”  Statistics from Grey Divorces indicate that the standard of living for each spouse is cut in half and they are too old to build their wealth back up.  Women tend to carry this burden more often than men, according to statistics.
2. Extended Family problems: A Grey Divorce can greatly disrupt relationships with their children and, as a result, with their grandchildren. If nothing else, it sets up complicated situations but can also have substantial effects on parent-child relationships.
3. Health: It is a well-established fact that there are significant health benefits to a successful marriage, derived from: the dynamics of family life; social connections; financial benefits; practical team-work; and even the simple fact of companionship.  Happily married people live, on average, 5 years longer than single or unhappily married people.  They have milder reactions to life’s stressors, lower blood pressure, healthier heart, better sleep, faster healing from sickness and injury and some research suggests even a healthier gut.  This is likely the result of getting the benefits of a set of hormones called the happy hormones (e.g., those released from physical affection), and fewer stress hormones.

            After researching the Grey Divorce, your authors conclude that the real reason for a Grey Divorce is that the spouses just do not have a successful marriage and when fewer reasons for staying together happens because of aging, they just get tired of being together.  We acknowledge that this is speculation on our part but we put our faith in Occam’s Razor: when there are competing explanations for a phenomenon, the one that has the fewest assumptions should be selected.  In other words, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.