Is Divorce Easier When You Are Over 50?
Co-parenting minor children with your ex-spouse is one of the most stressful experiences a person can have. Whether or not you have children, getting divorced in your 30s knocks the wind out of you. After building a financial partnership with your spouse, you have to be 100 percent responsible for yourself and your expenses, which is a challenge when you are reeling from the failure of your marriage and feeling insecure about all the things your ex-spouse blames you for. When you are older, though, your confidence is unshakeable. You have raised children, taken care of elderly parents, and weathered the ups and downs of your career. Can getting divorced be that much harder than any of the other hardships you have experienced and overcome? At any age, every divorce case is unique, but a Boca Raton divorce lawyer can help you finalize your divorce in a way that will prevent future conflicts that will require you to go back to court.
Why Do So Many Seniors Get Divorced?
Over the past few years, divorce rates overall have declined; the couples who get married tend to stay married. Seniors are the only age group where divorce rates remain as high as ever. In the first year after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, more than a third of couples who got divorced were above the age of 55. Perhaps seniors are so keen on divorce because they feel that their time on earth is short and they do not want to spend it on an unhappy marriage. Maybe, unlike younger couples who feel committed to working together to raise their children and take care of their parents in their old age, seniors have nothing to stop them from going their separate ways. Maybe today’s divorce-happy Baby Boomers are the same Baby Boomers who, in their younger years, were always lukewarm about marriage.
What Makes Late in Life Divorce Simpler?
Couples above the age of 50 are more likely to be able to resolve their property division issues in mediation and not need to go to trial. Since their children are grown up, they do not have to draft a parenting plan. Likewise, the court is unlikely to order a person who has reached retirement age to return to the workforce, so issues of imputed income are relatively rare.
What Makes Late in Life Divorce More Complicated
If there is an upside to getting divorced while you are young, it is that you have many years ahead of you to earn money to rebuild what you lost in your divorce. Seniors do not have that. The savings and retirement accounts that the court must divide needs to sustain the former spouses for the rest of their lives.
Contact Schwartz | White About Late in Life Divorce
A South Florida family law attorney can help you accomplish your divorce even if you have been married for decades and are close to retirement age. Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.
Source:
equitablemediation.com/blog/gray-divorce
