[Music] foreign are you curious about why more and more older couples are getting divorced there's a growing Trend called gray divorce more and more couples aged 50 and older are getting divorced in higher numbers than ever in the past in the group of people who are 65 age and older they're getting divorced at even higher rates than ever in the past so why is it that so many older couples are calling it quits after all these years seems kind of sad huh well there's a number of reasons that I like to talk about four very common reasons that I see I'm a divorce attorney who has practiced in San Antonio Texas for more than 35 years one reason I'm seeing more and more older couples getting divorced is financial reasons it may be that as they were raising a family and and maybe they thought about getting divorced years ago but they couldn't uh think of doing that financially the the thought of that was just not economically possible perhaps the woman was a stay-at-home mom you know women are the ones who initiate divorce 70 of the time if the woman was a stay-at-home mom and didn't feel she could support herself or didn't know how she would live as a single person it may be that was the only thing that kept her from filing for divorce earlier but now they're looking at some accumulated savings and she feels like she can survive economically on her own maybe even better if she feels that she's the one that manages the money better than her husband then she may feel that she might be better off financially getting divorced another reason is the emptiness syndrome it could be that they were raising children busy with life and so busy raising a family they didn't realize they were growing apart and as the decades went by they evolved into different people and they didn't take the time to date one another and to learn to do things together that they enjoy doing together and now that the kids are grown and out of the house all of a sudden they find that they live with somebody that they just don't enjoy being with anymore and it could be that you know they're looking at maybe you know they've got tenor a good 20 years left in life and they don't want to spend that last 20 years of their life with somebody who doesn't want to do any of the things that they want to do so they want that freedom and they'd rather just be single than have to live with someone who is holding them back for the rest of their lives third reason could be that many divorcing couples are just not in their first marriage they have lost their first spouse either through divorce or death of their first spouse second marriages are always harder than first ones for a number of reasons one can be that one of or both of the spouses is constantly comparing their current spouse to their former spouse and that can just really destroy the relationship because they're constantly making those comparisons to another spouse and it could be that the adult children from the former relationship are interfering in the current relationship a lot of times as the couple gets older then their adult children decide that perhaps that inheritance that they thought that they were going to get from their parents is now all going to go to this new spouse and they don't like that idea so they are working and doing their best to tear apart this relationship because they don't like the new spouse or because they feel that this new spouse is going to keep them from getting the money that they would otherwise get from their parent when their parent passed away finally it could be that there was a stigma in getting divorced 40 years ago that Society no longer carries it's not nearly as unheard of to get divorced these days it's more accepted I should say in society our culture and our society has changed over time and it could be that they wanted to get divorced 30 or 40 years ago but they were worried about what their parents would think what their friends would think now their parents have passed away their friends are passing away and they're looking around and realizing that it's such a common thing and nobody really cares anymore if they get divorced and so with that stigma gone that was holding them back now they're willing to file and so that is four reasons why we're seeing a lot more gray divorce in why it is a trending thing these days in America [Music] foreign