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Will You Still Need Me When I'm … 84?
By
JEFFREY ZASLOW John and Francis Thomas of
Guthrie, Okla., did not make it to their golden wedding anniversary. In
2001, after five children and 49 years of marriage, John, a minister,
filed for divorce, saying he couldn't handle the nagging and fighting. He
says he was tired of being told, "You made me do it, but I won't do
it again." "We were both in a state
of depression and not giving each other what we needed," admits Mrs.
Thomas, 71 years old. She longs for reconciliation. "I've been
sending him e-mails saying I love him so much." Mr. Thomas, 72, still calls his
ex-wife "dear," but insists he won't return. Due to the stress
of his marriage, he says, "I was constantly fighting health problems.
Now, they have virtually disappeared." As divorce has become more
accepted in the U.S., older couples are often seen as models of how the
institution of marriage is supposed to work. We assume couples that
survive the first few decades have accepted their spouse's quirks and
problems, and are more apt to live out their lives together. But that notion is now being
shattered. Like Mr. Thomas, more and more people in their 60s, 70s and 80s
are seeking divorce as a way to find health, happiness and a new start.
From 1990 to 2000, the population of divorced senior citizens rose 34%, to
2.2 million people, according to U.S. Census figures. While some of these
people split before age 65, divorce lawyers say the numbers are a clear
indication of the divorce boom among seniors. They say that surge will
continue as divorce-prone baby boomers age. These divorces are being fueled
by longevity, economics and self-awareness. Seniors are healthier now, and
don't want to waste two or three decades of the golden years with someone
they can no longer stand. More than in previous generations, older women
today had careers and now have their own pensions , so they're less
dependent on husbands. Meanwhile, Viagra may be giving older men new
incentives to rediscover passion elsewhere. The late anthropologist
Margaret Mead saw it all coming. She argued that marriage was designed for
earlier eras, when parents raised children and then died in their 40s or
50s. Now, as people live longer, they're tied to marriages for decades of
empty-nesting. "I don't think marriage was contemplated to last 50
years. A lot of people grow in different directions," says Constance
Putzel, an attorney in Towson, Md., who wrote the American Bar
Association's book "Representing the Older Client in Divorce." One telling statistic: A full
65% of the people who have passed age 50 in the history of mankind are
still walking the earth today. Marriage is a longer-term commitment than
it ever has been -- too long for a growing number of seniors. That doesn't mean exit
strategies are easy. For divorcing seniors, a breakup can be agonizing and
complex, especially when there are issues involving long-term care and
inheritances. Because Medicaid doesn't take effect until a couple's assets
are depleted, people who delay a divorce can wind up paying for it
financially. Also, splitting up assets for heirs gets hairier if it's a
second or third marriage being dissolved and there are children from
previous marriages. Attorneys warn seniors to
insist that all divorce settlements address health and life insurance, as
well as retirement benefits. Under the Employees Retirement Income
Security Act, if your spouse has a qualified Erisa pension , you're
entitled to share it. But you lose that right once you're divorced, unless
there's an agreement or court order. Before negotiating a trade-off of
assets to compensate for a pension , it's crucial to get a qualified
actuary to value the pension . Some seniors say such financial
nuts and bolts are incidental. They just want out. Don Benjamin, 71, of
Morehead City, N.C., was married 30 years, but the final decade was devoid
of intimacy, he says. "I felt like I was living with my sister.
Emotionally, my life was slowly being extinguished." After getting
divorced in 1998 and remarrying, he now says older divorced people are
reveling in rediscovered sexuality, "even if it takes all night to do
what we used to do all night." Such scenarios are hard for
many adult children of seniors to contemplate. There's an old joke in
which a couple married 75 years visits a divorce attorney, who asks why
they waited so long. They reply: "We wanted to wait until the
children were dead." In seminars given by Leslie
Fram, author of "How to Marry a Divorced Man," older women
complain that a large part of the courtship process is dedicated to
winning the thumbs up from a divorced man's adult children. "I liken
this to an updated version of yesteryear, when teenage boys had to impress
their prom dates' fathers before whisking them off to the dance,"
says Ms. Fram. Meanwhile, some seniors are
remarrying too quickly, leading to a second wave of divorces. That's why
divorce attorneys are advising altar-bound seniors to write prenuptial
agreements, and to include a separate affidavit from a doctor, signifying
their competency to make such decisions. In Boca Raton, Fla.,
psychologist Felicia Romeo says that divorced or widowed clients in her
geriatric practice often jump into new marriages out of fear and
loneliness. Some are pushed along by adult children "who want mom to
find someone so she's not dependent on them," she says. But in Oklahoma, Mrs. Thomas is not looking for a new man. Vowing to do "anything in my power" to reunite with her ex-husband, she's living the sadder side of the senior divorce equation. "It comes across to me like it was time for John to spread his wings," she says, "and for me to take my lumps." Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
