Late last year, we saw rankings of the states with the highest divorce rates. Mississippi did slightly worse than average, coming in with a divorce rate of 3.4 per 1,000 people. The rate is 9 percent higher than the national average. So that’s not too bad.
More recently, we saw an article about an age group that is seeing a divorce boom: Baby Boomers. So-called “gray divorce” (a divorce involving anyone age 50 or above) now accounts for one out of every four divorces. It makes people wonder why so many older couples are ending their marriages.
Part of the reason lies simply in the aging of the nation at large: the nation is older than ever. Back in 1990, there were 63.5 million of us age 50 and above. But by 2010, that age group had soared to include 99 million Americans.
So there are simply more older Americans. It then makes mathematical sense that larger numbers of older folks are ending their marriages. Plus, people are living longer. So as they look at an unhappy marriage, they might well reason that they could be in that relationship for a few more decades. They might well opt for making a better go of things with so much time ahead yet.
There are, of course, no surveys or studies that will account for any particular marriage. If your relationship is no longer working, it is time to sit down with a family law attorney experienced in helping to craft lasting resolutions of difficult problems in matters such as child custody, property division, spousal support and more.
