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It’s Bad Enough That I’m Getting a Divorce: Now I’m Getting a “Gray” Divorce
The Rate of Divorces Over 50 is Booming
Joke: A couple in their 90’s consult a therapist. They are full of longstanding complaints about each other. The therapist can’t believe how unhappy they have been for so long. They were about an inch away from hating each other.
Trying not to be too obvious, the therapist asks,”You’ve been miserable for so long. Why didn’t you just get a divorce?”
They looked at her incredulously that she would ask something so obvious.
The couple replied almost in unison, “Because we were waiting for the kids to die.”
People don’t die. They get divorced.
The actual number of people waiting for their kids to die isn’t representative of the current trends. In fact, it’s the opposite. The number of divorces of people over 50 has doubled since 1990 and accounts for one quarter of divorces in the US.
Some of this is due to another trend, reported out of Bowling Green University’s National Center for Families and Marriage. Overall the divorce rate is often overblown, since a history of being divorced once, increases the probability of a second divorce, which increases to a third divorce. In fact…
