Gray Divorce – Fact or Fiction

Gray Divorce – Fact or Fiction

Reese Witherspoon, 47, Sofia Vergara, 51, Sophie Gregoire Trudeu, 48, and Christine Baumgartner 49, are all at or nearing the half-century mark. But they also share another life trait: This year, each of them announced their divorce. 

Gray divorce. Diamond divorce. Silver splitters. Whatever the latest tag, in recent decades, a movement among many women nearing or in their 50s is to divorce the person with whom they’ve possibly shared a house, children, holidays, and well, just about everything for the last decades. So what gives?

In my debut novel, “Another Side of the Heart,” released this past September, Mary Devere, at 48 years old, tries to navigate her grief over the death of her only child, a daughter, in a car crash. While staying at her beach cottage on the fictitious Kilkare Island, New Jersey, Mary questions her life’s choices — one in particular, staying married to her neurosurgeon husband.

Throughout time, older couples tended to traditionally stay married whether or not they felt satisfied or fulfilled. But a few years ago, I noticed a changing trend when a couple of women friends over 50 divorced, and I first wrote about it in feature story for a magazine. At that time, studies showed that while the U.S. divorce rate among younger marrieds declined, it had started to creep up among adults aged 50 and older. 

Furthermore, since 1990, divorce rates doubled for those 50 or older, and tripled for those 65 and up, according to studies from the National Center for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey. Notwithstanding a couple of dips in statistics, divorce among women aged 50 and older has remained pretty much at 10.3 per 1,000 married women. Plus, the average age of divorced people in 2022 was 46 for men and 44 for women. 

On top of that, women are the ones tossing aside their wedding bands. Think about a pile of dirty dishes or the scheduling of the dog’s veterinarian check up; women are more likely to intervene than men. It’s the same for a messy marriage; nearly 66% of women age 50 and older start divorce proceedings, according to the AARP.

At a time when her kids have launched, and a woman should be thinking about re-acquainting herself with her husband, why leave? It’s complicated, as the movie bearing the same name in 2009 with Meryl Streep illustrates. 

Studies show that married people tend to have better physical and mental health, and live longer than people who aren’t married, according to a study in Psychological Bulletin. But not if you’re married to the wrong person. 

For midlife women, and as it was for my character Mary, a lack of emotional intimacy might finally be the last straw, especially if a couple is confronted with a tragedy, such as losing a child. Obviously, a weak relationship is more susceptible to breakage in the event of devastation. In fact, lack of commitment, according to the National Library of Medicine, is the top reason why a couple divorces. (Infidelity and too much arguing round out number two and three.) 

And more, according to some scholars, spouses might have quietly tolerated differences in their personalities: He prefers spending time streaming movies, and she wants to travel. This can heighten when one or the other spouse retires, leading to resentment, and a longing for what might have been with someone else. 

In my novel, Mary confronts these thoughts after she has a chance encounter and reunites with her first love, a man she’d left as a young girl, but whom she’d never gotten completely over.

Another reason for the divorce uptick among older couples is longevity: Sixty is the new forty. Seventy is the  new fifty. Some marriages aren’t terrible, but not satisfying, Once the kids have sailed away, many midlife women feel they have too much more living to do to stay in an unhappy marriage.

Furthermore, women in the U.S. have more education and financial comfort than previous generations that hearkens to more autonomy, along with a reduced stigma to the idea of a divorcee.

Regardless, after divorce, life isn’t always greener on the other side. Friends and families find themselves unintentionally confronted by the divorcing spouses — are you with me or aren’t you? — and end up picking sides. In the case of the aforementioned celebrities, there’s additional public scrutiny and judgment. 

Beyond the emotional rollercoaster, economic factors loom large. A divorce is simpler when a prenup is involved. But distribution of assets can still be messy. Bill and Melinda Gates’ divorce is listed as the most expensive for roughly $76 billion. 

As it goes, during a separation or after a divorce, one spouse is typically uprooted from the shared home. Then there are the high legal fees and therapy sessions that gobble up already tight budgets for midlife and boomer women who might be still earning less than men. As a result, nearly 20% of divorced women 65 or older live in poverty, according to a study by the Social Security Administration. Still, even if they might struggle financially, some women still feel it’s worth it to leave.

Despite her divorce, a 60-something friend told me she doesn’t view her “marriage as failed. In fact, he was the love of my life.” She says she and her former husband came together as young people, but unfortunately, didn’t evolve on the same orbit. 

When asked about her divorce, Reese Witherspoon was quoted in USA Today as saying, : All I can do is be my most, honest, forthright self and be vulnerable.” Good advice for all of us.

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C.H. Lazarovich is the author of “Another Side of the Heart.” The debut novel is sparking excitement with early readers: The story “is so much about marriage, motherhood, abortion, resurrecting an old love, decisions a woman makes about childbearing, youth choices … ” and “The novel owes more to literary fiction with its beautifully nuanced and multi-layered narrative … ” Lazarovich, who lives in southern New Jersey, has been a freelance journalist under her real name Catherine Laughlin for magazines and newspapers, and teaches writing at Temple University Klein College of Media and Communication. Lazarovich has said that she gravitates to stories that chronicle the experiences of midlife women, and that there’s a complexity to the lives of older women that’s often underplayed in the arts. She hopes “Another Side of the Heart” fulfills some of that void.

Another Side of the Heart

Nearly a year after the sudden death of her 21-year-old daughter, Mary leaves New York City to spend the summer alone on Kilkare Island while her neurosurgeon husband travels to Europe for work.

When Mary encounters a young woman the same age as her dead daughter, Mary connects with her, only to discover that the young woman’s father is Antonio, Mary’s first love. Mary finds herself questioning the sacrifices she made to live a life she thought she should, and the difficult choice she made as a teenager that changed her life’s course.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing