Family Law

In the past few weeks there's been a spate of news reports and TV sound bites about an increase in divorce among older Americans. Frequently they include the story of a couple in their 90s seeking a divorce. When asked "Why now?" they explained they were waiting for the children to die.

Most of the women in my quilt group had heard that joke when I brought up the subject at lunch. All the totally irrelevant news of the day and even some important stuff gets dished at noon around our table. Politics, religion and weight are not permissible subjects. Otherwise we're pretty much free form.

If the divorce rate among our peers is increasing, the obvious question is "Why now?" One woman recalled having the "Why now?" conversation with her mother. Her mother's answer was that after decades of marriage she'd caught her husband having an affair. "But, Mom," she said, "he's had affairs for years. You knew that. There was always a girlfriend." Her mother's response, "This time, it's the neighbor."

If you're in a marriage that's not working, eventually there is a line that's crossed and behavior once tolerated becomes intolerable For another woman, divorced in her 50s after 25 years in an unhappy marriage, it was an act of cruelty against a dog she didn't even like much. It was his dog. The dog was adult, untrained and in the habit of chasing cars. To cure him, her husband struck the dog with his car as a "lesson" and then refused to take him to the veterinarian for medical care. "I knew then, no matter how much I tried to ignore the bad stuff, I was just like that old dog with one blind eye and a scarred head," she said.

The reasons women choose to end a marriage don't appear to be much different regardless of how old they are. For men the reasons may change as they grow older. A few years ago, AARP magazine produced "The Divorce Experience: A Study of Divorce at Midlife and Beyond," which surveyed 1,147 men and women ages 40 to 79, who divorced in their 40s, 50s or 60s.

Among the study's many findings: Women cited alcohol and drug abuse, physical or emotional abuse and infidelity as reasons for divorce. Men in the survey listed falling out of love, or different lifestyles or values as their primary reasons. This study followed another completed in 2003 by the National Institute of Aging called the "65 + Report." Its researchers found that 12.2 percent of men and 15.9 percent of women in their 60s were divorced. This compared with the 1960 census when only 1.6 percent of men and 1.5 percent of women 65 or older were divorced. A 2002 Census Bureau survey found about 2.5 million senior citizens reported their marital status as "divorced."

There is more at the HeraldNet.