If you are in your 50s, 60s or even older and are contemplating getting divorced, you are far from alone. Many other couples in Connecticut and around the United States are in this position as the rate of divorces in this age group has grown from five per every 1,000 married persons in 1990 to 10 in every 1,000 spouses by 2010. In total, these gray or silver divorces as they are often called account for roughly 25 percent of all marital dissolutions in the U.S. today.
Psychology Today explains that financial challenges may be one of the contributing factors to a divorce at this stage of life. This is actually opposite what some people might have thought. When a couple gets divorced when they are close to retirement age, the financial realities of this major life change can have serious consequences for them. As assets and debts get split in a divorce, a newly single person might find themselves with less money to live on and less money to retire on. They also have less time left to work to recoup the money they had planned to use for retirement.
This fact may well keep some couples together out of the fear of what they might lose financially. Those couples with smaller marital estates may be more willing to make the change at this point in their lives.
If you would like to learn more about how getting divorced later in life might impact your financial future, please feel free to visit the gray divorce and retirement savings page of our Connecticut family law and divorce website.
