The “classic” — and not so classic — reasons why older people are splitting
Older adults leave their marriages for the same reasons younger ones do — with some exceptions. That’s what Jocelyn Elise Crowley, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University, found in interviews with dozens of gray divorcees.
Men reported ending their marriages either because they grew apart from their spouse, their spouse cheated, the two differed in financial views, their spouse’s mental health issues, or they had disagreements about their children, Crowley found. Women respondents’ top motivators for divorce included cheating, their spouse’s pornography or alcohol addiction, emotional abuse, growing apart, and their spouse’s mental health issues.
Contrary to her original hunch, older adults weren’t divorcing for personal fulfillment — the notion that their spouse was holding them back from living their best life — says Crowley, who published her findings in the 2018 book Gray Divorce: What We Lose and Gain From Mid-Life Splits. “The big surprise were these classic reasons for getting divorced that have been documented in the literature for years for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s,” she says…
Even if the reasons for splitting aren’t altogether novel, the milestones of midlife may push couples to the brink. Once they no longer have to deal with the daily pressures of child-rearing, empty nesters naturally have more time to focus on their spouses. “These couples,” Crowley says, “are basically staring at each other and saying, ‘What is the value of this marriage? What am I getting out of it? What are the problems in this marriage?’” This discontent may have been growing for years, but the distraction of parenting — or the pressure to stay together because of the kids — may have led couples to power through…
Additionally, women are more likely to put their careers on the backburner to raise children, and earn less than men over the course of their lives. As a result, they also may not have been able to contribute as much to retirement savings compared to their husbands, Crowley says. When women take time off to care for their families, it has implications for their Social Security retirement benefits.
“Every year you’re out of the workforce, that gets entered into the complex Social Security formula for benefits as a zero — that you basically did nothing that year, even though you were raising your children,” Crowley says. “As you might imagine, when women emerge from a gray divorce, they are hammered in comparison to men.”