Divorcing after 50 comes with unique challenges, but it also offers unexpected opportunities for renewal. It often involves complex assets like retirement accounts, inherited wealth, or even adult children’s emotions, requiring careful planning and emotional resilience. Yet, this life transition can also be a chance to rediscover independence, pursue long-delayed dreams, and build a fulfilling next chapter. Let’s begin by reading our guide below.
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Divorce can disrupt your life in more ways than you recognize, and adjusting to this significant transition can be exceptionally difficult. However, if you are facing a gray divorce – or divorce at the age of 50 or over – the challenges can be even more pronounced.
As you round this corner in your life, there are fewer years left to regain your financial footing, and the path forward can be far less certain. If this is the difficult situation you find yourself in, it’s important to recognize that you’re not alone and that an experienced Texas divorce attorney can help.
The Statistics
The American Psychological Association shares several enlightening statistics about divorce over 50. While divorce rates for those who are in their 20s and 30s have decreased, the rates for those who are 50 and older more than doubled during the decades from 1990 to 2010. The percentage of divorces that involved couples who were at least 50 years old in 1990 was a mere 8.7, but that percentage soared to 36 by 2019 – and has been holding fairly steady ever since.
Amplified Concerns
If you divorce during your 50s or beyond, all the following additional complications tend to apply:
• By the time you and your spouse are in your 50s, you’re very likely to have amassed more wealth, which complicates property division.
• As an older couple, you are more likely to have adopted traditional spousal roles, which means the wife may have given up her own career to raise the children, do the homemaking, and support the husband, and as a result, alimony is more likely to apply.
• After many years of marriage, your social ties as a couple likely stretch back for decades, which can be especially difficult to sort out in the aftermath of divorce.
• While the children involved are likely to be grown – or very nearly grown – they can still take divorce exceptionally hard, and navigating the path forward with them can present unique challenges.
Decline in Standard of Living
The American Psychological Association also shares that divorce post-50 can significantly decrease the standard of living for both spouses but that women are generally hit harder. While men, on average, experience a 21 percent decrease in standard of living post-divorce, the decline for women is 45 percent.
In fact, those facing gray divorce cite financial issues and loneliness as their most significant worries.
Common Challenges
Many of the difficulties associated with divorce over the age of 50 are emotional in nature. Consider the following concerns unique to gray divorce:
• Many of those going through divorce at this stage in life are also facing an empty nest, which can be a double whammy. Not only is their parental role permanently altered but their spousal role is also, and it can be a lot.
• If the divorce correlates with retirement, there is also the matter of one’s identity in relation to career to deal with, and the two can compound one another.
• Those who divorce later in life can also experience a sense that they cannot forge another close, intimate relationship, such as a marriage. However, many people who divorce after the age of 50 go on to remarry.
These identity-related issues can prove very difficult to overcome, and when they’re coupled with the very real financial challenges that are associated with gray divorce, it’s a significant hurdle.
On the Plus Side
It’s also important to recognize that by the time you’re 50, you’ve weathered some considerable storms in your life, which leaves you far more resilient and better prepared to cope with whatever comes your way.
Many people who make it to the other side of gray divorce share that their overall happiness has improved based on getting out from under relationships that may have been less than fulfilling – or even downright toxic. Further, the sense of independence and freedom that shedding a difficult marriage brings can be liberating.
The Signs that a Gray Divorce May Be in Your Future
No two divorces are ever replicas of one another, and the same is true of gray divorces. However, certain circumstances tend to play a role in most divorces that happen after 50.
Financial Independence
There is a modern trend toward greater financial equality between spouses, which means women are more likely than ever before to have the financial security necessary to support their independence in a gray divorce. This security provides women who are considering divorce as they near retirement age more options and may support the rising number of divorces that happen after the age of 50.
However, women tend to face a more significant financial decline after divorce, which is especially pronounced when they put their careers on hold during marriage.
Increased Expectations
In the past, there was a prevailing “it is what it is” feeling about marriage, but over the years, this has evolved into increased expectations about what a marriage should offer.
Most people want relationships between equals who work together as a team, share common goals, and grow together. This search for meaning in marriage leaves some spouses wanting more, which can push them outside the boundaries of marriages they may consider empty. The feeling can be more pronounced once the children grow up and leave home and as life expectancy rises.
Concerns Related to Aging
The stressors that naturally accompany aging can also move the needle in relation to gray divorce. Marriage is stressful to begin with, and when compounded with the following kinds of concerns, it can leave those who don’t feel adequately supported looking for more:
• More health concerns of their own
• Aging parents who require caregiving
• Relationships with adult children, which can include unique complications
• Recognition that the marriage isn’t a partnership between equals
• The profound effects that retirement can have on a marriage
Additionally, the older you are, the more likely you are to have been married before, which is statistically significant when it comes to a future divorce.
What Could Have Been
It is difficult to overstate the devastating effects that come from letting go of what could have been when divorcing after the age of 50. The longer the marriage, the more history you have together, which can make calling it quits more painful. Even when the relationship isn’t perfect, couples who have been married a long time generally come to rely upon one another in all the following ways:
• As a sounding board
• As a shoulder to cry on
• As someone to weigh in on important topics
• As someone who acts as a buffer in the face of other difficult relationships
A spouse of many years is a symbol of the hopes and dreams you’ve shared over the years and of the plans you made together. Your marriage is your backstory, and letting go of it can be especially jarring – leaving you to begin again without a firm foundation to fall back on.
It’s also important to recognize that there can be a profound sense of failure that comes with gray divorce. When you married, you intended for the relationship to last, but it hasn’t, and overcoming the inherent sense of failure can be problematic. There can also be a social stigma that’s difficult to overcome.
Further, while you may not be hit with a wall of loneliness upon divorce, the prospect of not meeting someone new can leave you with concerns about whether or not you’ll be alone from here on out. These feelings are not unique to you, but you should know that they needn’t be self-fulfilling prophecies.
The fact that you remained married for many years attests to your ability to go the distance when it comes to relationships, which is the opposite of failing, and it also speaks to your ability to forge deep relationships, which will serve you well moving forward.
How to Survive Divorce at 50
There is no denying that divorce at 50 is likely to be more difficult than it is earlier in life, but you are also more likely to have the resources you need to overcome the challenge. In addition, the terms of divorce after 50 tend to be abbreviated because the matters of child custody and child support are far less likely to be concerns.
The most important first step in a gray divorce – or any divorce – is seeking the skilled legal guidance of a dedicated divorce attorney early in the process.
The Division of Marital Property
After a marriage of many years – as mentioned – you’re likely to have amassed more considerable assets, and if you have separate assets, they’re likely to be more entangled with your marital property.
In Texas, anything that you, your spouse, or you and your spouse together purchased or acquired during your marriage is considered marital property. The very few exceptions to this rule include the following kinds of assets:
• Inheritances left in one spouse’s name alone
• Gifts given in one spouse’s name alone
• The pain and suffering portion of one spouse’s personal injury settlement or court award
While Texas is a community property state, this doesn’t mean that your marital assets will necessarily be divided between you evenly upon divorce. Instead, the state seeks a fair division of marital assets when a wide range of relevant factors like the following are taken into consideration:
• The length of your marriage
• Your ages
• Your and your spouse’s overall mental and physical health
• The contributions each of you made to the marriage, including in relation to homemaking and raising the children
• The contributions either of you made to the other’s career
• Whether fault, such as adultery, played a role in the dissolution of your marriage – even when the divorce is no-fault
• The tax considerations in relation to the proposed property division
Alimony
Alimony, which is called spousal maintenance in Texas, is never a foregone conclusion in a Texas divorce. However, it is more likely to be ordered in a marriage of many years – especially when one spouse was a stay-at-home parent. In other words, alimony awards are more likely in gray divorces.
The Basis of Alimony
Alimony is intended to afford the recipient the financial resources they need to cover their own reasonable needs in the aftermath of divorce – when the payor has the resources to help. Reasonable needs here relate to the standard of living achieved during the marriage.
While alimony is generally intended to allow the recipient the time they need to increase their earning potential, those involved in gray divorce are often at or near retirement age, which means there is a greater chance that alimony will be awarded for a longer term.
The Factors that Affect Alimony
Texas courts take all of the following factors into consideration when making alimony determinations:
• The number of years the marriage lasted
• The contributions each spouse made to the marriage, including in relation to staying home with the children
• The contributions either spouse made to the other’s career, such as supporting them through their education
• The size of each spouse’s separate estate
• Each spouse’s level of education, overall employability, and earning potential
• The chances that the recipient of alimony could secure gainful employment
Consult with an Experienced Texas Divorce Attorney
Divorce is extremely difficult, but divorcing after the age of 50 can present unique challenges. If you find yourself in this situation, you need the guidance of an experienced Texas divorce attorney.
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Reference: [https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/divorce-at-50-and-beyond-67400]