Where Does Your Power and Freedom Live?
March 16, 2019Baby Boomer Phenomenon–Gray Divorce
April 23, 2019When I first saw the words, gray divorce, I was doing some research on testing the sell-ability of an online course that I was thinking of creating. The topic was about helping newly-divorced women pivot from an “ending” to personal “exploration” to building an “empowered” transformative future. I was thinking about how I could reach many women and help them embrace a new beginning and create a new life after divorce.
A gray divorce, not such an attractive name I might add, is when a couple age 50+ and have been married for a very long time decide to get a divorce. I am in the category of gray divorce but I don’t have any gray hair yet! Although the divorce rate has generally declined in recent years, I discovered that the rate of divorce for those 50+ has doubled since 1990, and it is on the rise. Not only that; and if you can believe this, I read in the Washington Post that “For people 65 and older, the divorce rate has roughly tripled since 1990.”
Of course, I don’t know the population of the two different age segments so those facts would be proportional to the numbers in each group.
Although there are many more reasons for gray divorce, here are a few that are common: When children leave home to go to college, begin a career, or start a family of their own, empty nesters now have the time to get back to doing more of the loving things that brought them together in the first place. Unfortunately for some, it is not the case. Once they are alone together, they realize that the children grew to be their commonality all those years. The mother and father roles are no longer part of the equation. The romance they once felt is hardly an ember in the fire. They realize they don’t have a whole lot in common anymore. Some couples realize that they each have evolved into very different people then they were back then.
Some couples did what was expected of them. They wanted their parent’s approval. They did the right thing. Were they in love when they got married? Maybe they were maybe they weren’t. Frankie and Johnny grew up together, went to the same high school, and graduated from the same college. Of course, they were going to get married. It was the next step. Now after all these years, there are regrets and feeling stuck in a marriage that is unhappy. Looking back on their lives and what the future could hold for each of them separately, many want to simply move on to a new life.
Making the transition to a life after divorce is not an easy one. Going through the emotional stages of grief helps one to become unstuck and begin to move forward and rediscover, reconnect, and reinvent herself. Once arriving at this stage, one can look to the future with loving, hopeful eyes and have the courage to embrace a new beginning building a new life.
If you can’t seem to move beyond divorce and create the new life you envision for yourself, I can help you discover where you are “stuck”, guide you through the “pain points”, and get you on the road to creating that new life on your own terms. Contact me for a complimentary strategy session at donna@livingabovetheordinary.com or call 401-662-2707.