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With all eyes on the recent Bill-and-Melinda-Gates divorce after 27 years of marriage, there is increasing recognition of the rise of “grey divorce,” a term used to describe older couples calling the quits.
According to CNN, the divorce rate for Americans 50 and over has doubled since 1990. In Canada, while divorce rates among younger adults fell by about 30 percent in the last decade, divorce rates for older people have increased slightly through the 1990s and 2000s. The Vanier Institute of the Family, a national research and education organization that conducts research on the diversity and complexity of family life in Canada, said that the increase is nothing as significant as the “grey divorce revolution” in the U.S. In Canada, divorce rates for those aged 50 and older between 2008 and 1991 increased from 4.02 to 5.17 divorces per 1,000 married persons during this period, an increase of 25 percent. In the U.S., divorce rates for this cohort during the same period jumped from 4.87 to 10.05 per 1,000 married persons, an increase of 100 percent.
There has been a change of attitudes towards marriage in the past decade. Years ago, the vast majority of couples who weren’t happy in their relationship chose to remain married out of convenience or routine, or even a sense of familiarity. Over the past few years, however, many are deliberately choosing to part ways.
Couples are not simply “drifting apart” over time anymore. One or both people in the marriage are making an overt choice to change course for the time they have left. Recognizing that life is short and precious, one or both partners choose what they feel is the most fulfilling path. If a marriage is not working for one, they tend to believe that it really isn’t working for their spouse either. So, they create for themselves the space to start a new chapter and regain happiness and fulfilment.
According to Kiplinger, an American publisher of business forecasts and personal finance advice based in Washington D.C., the climbing rate of grey divorce stems from a host of societal factors.
First and foremost, in today’s world women are more empowered and educated and the reduced divorce stigma is giving more women to walk away from a less-than-ideal or emotionally draining situation.
Longer life experiences are also upping the stakes for women who are unhappy in their marriages. Better medical treatments, more healthcare awareness and enlightenment around what will help us live longer have also extended the years spent together in marriage. This ups the ante for those in unhappy marriages and may prompt them to question whether they can put up with their spouse for such a long time.
Other unhappy couples have been putting off divorce until the kids are grown and possibly even starting families of their own. When couples who stay together for the kids are free from their responsibilities of raising children, new light is shed on the relationship, and a late-life re-evaluation of their marriage comes to the forefront of their thinking.
Some baby boomers are on their second, third or even fourth marriages. Research shows that these marriages tend to have lower success rates. The divorce rate for people over 50 who have been married more than once is 2.5 times higher than those who have been coupled with the same person throughout their life.
The in-home quarantine as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic can also be blamed for some of the recent rising divorce rates. The in-home isolation puts a sharper focus on issues in the marriage that may have otherwise been overlooked. Loss of income, employment and separate routines that allowed healthy time away from each other have produced a perfect storm.
Even in Canada where the divorce rates are much lower than those in the U.S., broken marriages are becoming the pandemic’s other toll. The CBC reported that during the pandemic, what would ordinarily be a bump in a regular marriage is amplified. Some couples are seeing a different side of their spouse that they didn’t know existed. That’s leading people to decide their partner is not right for them.
Other couples didn’t know how to deal with the many pressures that the pandemic was imposing on them. If the couple doesn’t know how to deal with that pressure in a way that brings them together, it’s going to pull them apart.
Russell Alexander, a lawyer specializing in separation agreements and divorces, told CBC that his seven family law offices across Ontario have grown by about 30 percent since the pandemic began and they have hired five new lawyers recently to help them with the workload.
According to a national research conducted by Finder Canada, a financial services firm, 12 percent (4.67 million) of Canadian couples have called it quits since COVID broke out last year. Nearly 13 million Canadians say that cabin fever is their most significant stressor during the pandemic. Cabin fever describes psychological symptoms that a person may experience when they are confined to their home for extended periods. Such symptoms may include feelings of restlessness, irritability, and loneliness. Over 50 per of Canadians aged 55 – 64 say they are having the hardest time with it.
Statistics Canada is still crunching the numbers on “changes in relationship status since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic” and said results will be published later this year. There is already anecdotal evidence indicating that not just grey divorces, but the number of “COVID quits” in Canada is indeed on the rise.