Have you heard people talking about gray divorce? Maybe it was in the context of a greater impact on retirement planning or the fact that this specific type of divorce is on the rise. Either way, you wondered exactly what it meant.
Generally speaking, gray divorce is just a divorce between two people who are at a later stage in their lives, often 50 years old and older. It’s not really a technical term, so different people may define it with slightly different ages, perhaps as high as 65 and older.
But the idea is the same. When most people think of divorce, they often think of relatively young couples. Maybe they’re in their 20s, they’ve only been married for a few years, and it was a mistake. Maybe they’re in their 30s, and they have children to consider. Gray divorce often means people whose children have already grown up and moved out of the house, so they’re dealing with different issues.
As noted, those issues may include things like retirement planning and splitting up significant assets. People may have questions about pension plans or their rights to see their grandchildren. Their finances may be more complex. After all, they may have been married for decades, accumulating wealth together. They could also be thinking about estate planning and passing their assets on to the next generation.
If you are involved in a gray divorce and you have been mulling over these topics, make sure you know exactly what legal steps you can take to address each one in turn.