What Makes Gray Divorce Especially Difficult
- Details
- September 12, 2016
Unlike divorces that happen earlier in life, it’s not the kids.
Every divorce is full of challenges, frustrations and problems. But gray divorces (those that occur when people divorce in their 50s and beyond) has a unique set of issues.
Most couples who divorce later in life are empty nesters. Their kids are out of the house and living their own lives.
You could say this simplifies a gray divorce because you don’t have to worry about child custody or child support or visitation. (But just because the kids are out of the house that doesn’t mean they won’t have difficulty with their parents’ divorce.)
But this seeming simplification for gray divorce is offset by a major complication – retirement.
When you’re over 50 and divorcing you’re at most 15-20 years from retirement. And all those retirement plans you’ve been making for the decades you’ve already been working? They dissolved along with your marriage.
It’s this decreased time to recover financially from divorce that makes gray divorces so challenging.
So what do you do? You think carefully about every decision you make.
After years of marriage, a couple’s shared assets are much greater and probably more complicated than those of couples who have shorter marriages.…
