It seems in the good old days once a couple had been married 25 years or so they stayed married for life. Or maybe that was just the situation among the couple I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.
These times are different, as pointed out in a recent article in the Dallas Morning News. More and more couples over the age of 50 are getting divorces, and this brings about many financial problems not faced when couples divorce at younger ages.
The newspaper article is a bit lengthy, but if you or someone you know might be facing such a situation, it’s well worth reading. Here are the opening paragraphs:
When you see an older couple happily celebrating their 50th or 60th wedding anniversary, you can’t help but congratulate and respect them for achieving such a milestone.
Unfortunately, not all older couples can claim this achievement.
The divorce rate among adults age 50 and older doubled between 1990 and 2010, according to a study by Susan L. Brown and I-Fen Lin, sociologists at Bowling Green State University.
“Roughly 1 in 4 divorces in 2010 occurred to persons aged 50 and older,” they said in their study, which was released last month.
What’s more, “the rate of divorce was 2.5 times higher for those in remarriages vs. first marriages, whereas the divorce rate declined as marital duration rose.”
The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world, with roughly 45 percent of marriages expected to end in divorce, the study said.
“Although divorce has been studied extensively among younger adults, the research to date has essentially ignored divorce that occurs to adults aged 50 and older,” Brown and Lin said. “This omission is notable, considering that the United States is an aging society.”
Baby boomers were the first group to divorce and remarry in large numbers in young adulthood, the study said.
“Now they’re aging into their 50s and 60s, and this portends that a growing number of older adults will experience divorce because remarriages are more likely than first marriages to end through divorce,” the study said.
The way to reduce the rate is to recognize that most humans are serial monogamists and to live together with a binding contract rather than marrying. Not as romantic but way more practical.