Divorce After 50

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Why is divorce after 50 so different?

To some extent, the younger someone is in Florida, the more likely they are to become divorced. This is a statistic that many Americans are pretty familiar with. The odds of someone being married for a longer amount of time increase with age if for no other reason than it is impossible to have been married for longer periods of time. But new data shows that people over fifty are more likely to commit to divorce than they ever were before.

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Adjusting to a new life without someone who has been an integral part of our daily life for years is difficult work and we would argue, generally significantly more difficult than it is for a couple who has been living together for only a few years.

Socially

Having been seen as a couple by family and friends for so long creates new personal and social challenges and being seen as “newly single” can be a little scarier after fifty than it is in our twenties. The supportive and often even celebrative community that hopefully rallies behind the newly separated can be a little thinner as we age.

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Many of the events that we’ve been invited to over the years can feel strange when not with a partner, and may take some serious adjusting to feel natural again.

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Living alone can also present its own challenges from changing daily routines as mundane as taking out the trash, to deciding how meals are to be approached. It’s important to remember that as much as it may feel that way, we’re not alone and many before us have made healthy adjustments to their previous lifestyle.

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Financially

The tangle of finances in an divorce is generally pretty tricky, but a divorce involving two people whose finances have been tied together for a long time can be especially difficult to unravel. Most can expect adjustments to their current lifestyle even as they try to find a new normal that can be more expensive as a single person. Asset division, alimony, separation of marital businesses, and debt are just a few of the obstacles that come along with divorce. 

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From filing taxes to paying a mortgage, things can be very different given a newly separated lifestyle and will have to be approached with an open mind. On top of this is the stress of knowing that we have less time to recover from the financial drains of the divorce process.

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It’s not easy

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The benefits of divorce can certainly outweigh the inaction of staying in a bad relationship. Being married is hard, but divorce doesn’t have to be. Accepting that we’re on the right path is an important step in finding our new norm.

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Finding a way to get through the process financially, emotionally, and socially intact can be difficult but is much easier with the help of professionals from counselors to divorce attorneys, and there may be more supportive social circles around you than you think!

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