Human beings are creatures of habit. It is our habits that define the person we become and the older we get the more attached we get to patterns and a way of life built over the years. As we get older, our relationships become our mainstay and we fall back on them to derive comfort, joy and identity.

Divorce at any age is painful as it is the end of dreams, hope and love. However, at an older age our significant other becomes a part of how we live and who we are. To have to separate and give up on the life we know and start all over again is no mean task. Of course, a marriage could have been in trouble for a long time and a couple could have been leading separate lives and then the divorce could be just legality.

Divorcing at an older age means having to start life all over again, break relationship habits that have been built up and be open to new experiences which may all be too much. Even in unhappy marriages that have pulled on for years there is a sense of dependence that partners unconsciously develop and breaking up and leave them feeling vulnerable and lonely. While one partner may move on, the other may never get reconciled to the break up and find age proves to be stumbling block to moving on.

The Dynamics of Age

The dynamics of age is rather sexist in nature. While an older man is always an interesting proposition and will have almost equal opportunity to start over with a new partner, with women it is different. An older woman has fewer opportunities of meeting new people and older divorced women have even fewer takers.

Having to deal with the emotional aspect of breaking up is hard and having doors previously opened now closed, can make moving on extremely difficult. As we get older we also get stuck in a mould of behaviour and being single again can be hard to get accustomed to.

While youth allows for mistakes and second chances, age is rather harsh and makes it hard for second chances. The emotional baggage that people who get divorced at an older age carry is far more than a young couple. Oftentimes, one of the partners may have lived a domesticated life and had minimal interaction with the rest of the world. To start over and establish contact with the world can be pretty hard.

One also assumes that a couple who get divorced at an older age have not does it frivolously and so would mean that a drastic breach of trust has occurred. To learn to trust again when someone one has loved and trusted for so long is truly difficult.

The Flip Side

While we talked above about how difficult it can be to get divorced there is a flip side. Being older affords a couple a financial comfort that helps make life easier. When one is younger on has to deal with both emotional and financial loss. Older couples are fairly well settled and do not have to contend with fears of how to manage financially.

One also assumes that being older, the decision to get divorced has come after much thought and not an overnight decision. If a couple who are older decide to part, it is perhaps because life together just wasn’t working out. Having made a mature and rational decision, an older couple can understand the ramifications of life after.

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