It can be very interesting to look at divorce statistics and trends to find out how this institution is changing in the United States. It has historically undergone vast changes at different times. For instance, no-fault divorce laws began in the late 1960s and that led to a spike in divorce cases across the country.
If you fast forward to today, however, you’ll find that the divorce rate is falling for most age groups. There are a lot of different reasons for this. One is that young people are getting married later, and getting married around 32 years old has been shown to make marriages more stable. Another reason is that cohabitation is more common, so a lot of young couples will simply live together without getting married, meaning that it doesn’t count as a divorce if they do eventually break up.
However, there is one age group that has seen an increase in divorce over the years: those who are 50 years old and older.
Gray divorce
The general term for this is gray divorce, but it really just means someone who is getting divorced later in life. Some of these individuals are on their second marriages, while others have been married for decades and were simply putting off getting divorced. But this age group has the only increasing divorce rate in the United States, and so these cases are soaring.
If you find yourself in this position, it’s worth noting that gray divorce cases can also be very complicated. If this is a second marriage, you may have a blended family and many different people to think about. If it’s your first marriage, you may have been gathering financial assets for decades that will need to be divided. If you’re close to retirement, you have to figure out how to protect your retirement funds and make your budget work after divorce.
Because of all of these complications, it’s very important that you know about the legal steps you can take. You must give yourself the best chance to fight for what you deserve and protect your future.