Trivializing Inconstancy

"I think a lot of times people are quite floored when they see a 75-year-old who wants a divorce. In my personal experience, I would say that grey divorces are becoming a lot more prevalent."
"I appears that people are living longer, and there is a shift from the age groups for divorces."
"Maybe initially they believed that this was the right person. And as you grow older, you may grow apart. And so the way they see it is ... I have less in front than there is behind so I need to focus on what's left of my life and really maximizing my happiness."
Diane Isaac, family lawyer, Shulman Law Firm, Toronto

"If we have a 30-year marriage, it's not that we have ten years left, but we may be only halfway through that marriage."
"People are looking at that and saying 'I have a long way to go and do I necessarily want to continue in an unhappy relationship?"
Eva Sachs, Mutual Solutions mediation service

"They weren't in the same position that my mother would have been, who didn't have any financial security outside the family [pre-two-earner families]."
"Millennials are less likely to divorce and there is a trend among millennials now to be more focused around planning their relationships, so writing co-habitation agreements, pre-nuptial agreements."
"And it could be because they are the children of divorce, they've seen a lot."
Marion Korn, co-founder, Mutual Solutions

Once the legal liberalization of divorce laws -- now ancient history -- occurred, divorce rates ratcheted up to the point where at the present time almost fifty percent of marriages over time, with or without children, end in divorce.Those who consider themselves experts in the field have their theories which, for the most part sound trite and superficial. Perhaps the most obvious and realistic explanation is expectations and failures relating to those expectations which are likely fixed within social constructs of everlasting love bypassing that human emotions and intimate relations are complex beyond expectations.

Aided and abetted by emotional immaturity and love that fails to go deep enough to exemplify what love truly is, that one cares about another human being not with the passion of a sexual relationship without context, but a sexual relationship complementing a deep and abiding concern for the well-being of that other and yes, placing that other person's well-being, satisfaction with life and happiness above one's own in that their emotional state is critical to the satisfaction of one's own. Health and happiness flow from a generous, not a selfish love.

That being been said, people will be people. And as such it is beyond the capacity of most people not to place their self-interest first, failing to recognize that their self-interest lies in the fulfillment of sharing a love with someone you plan to live with for the foreseeable future in a mutual engagement of trust, respect, friendship and shared aspirations. Free and open communication and due appreciation of the attributes that the other brings to the relationship is critical to its success. Self-absorption rings the death knell of any marriage.

The 1980s seems to have been the apex of divorce which some researchers believe is now descending in numbers. At the same time a new trend appears to be developing among older married couples who have decided for reasons, obviously, of their own to sunder a marriage of long standing. This may go beyond the old canard of couples hanging in until their children are old enough to manage on their own, then splitting. These are marriages of thirty years' duration and longer. They've been dubbed 'silver splitters' and 'diamond divorcees'.

Boomers in the United States, Australia, India and the United Kingdom are now, it would appear, distinguishing themselves by seeking in greater numbers, to end long-term marriages. In Canada, the median age for divorce rose between 1991 and 2008 for men from 38.3 to 44 years; women from 35.7 to 41 years. According to the Shulman Law firm, its own experience with numbers for the past decade led them to believe that grey divorce is steadily rising. In 2010 clients of 50 and over represented 10% of their business. Now however, that same demographic "constitutes approximately 40 percent".

Although the age group of 60 and over remains the minority of cases they see, that demographic has nearly doubled over the past decade. Divorce experts are linking the rise of elderly divorces to the fact that people are living longer, realizing a gain of about 20 years between 1921 and 2005, where life expectancy rose from 58.8 to 79 years for men and from 50.5 to 82.7 years for women. Older people examining their marriages now discard 'Can I manage on my own?' to adapt to an 'Am I happy?' self query.