Gray Divorce in CT: How Collaborative Approaches Help Couples Over 50

If you are one of the many Connecticut couples over 50 considering divorce, you may have concerns about what separating somewhat later in life will do to your prospects, your assets, and your retirement. Taking a collaborative approach to gray divorce in CT can help you control your own destiny while honoring the lifetime you and your spouse have built together.

What is a Gray Divorce?

“Gray divorce” is a term family law attorneys use to refer to divorce proceedings involving couples over 50, usually after a long-term marriage. There are many reasons gray divorces happen, from couples who wait to end their marriage until their children move out, to disagreements that arise when making financial plans for retirement. Most gray divorces focus less on the children, often because they are all grown and living on their own, and more on issues like spousal support, retirement assets, and insurance concerns.

Special Issues in Divorce Among Older Couples

Although the types of legal issues that can arise are exactly the same as every other divorce, one reason gray divorces get a special title among attorneys is because they often involve concerns specifically related to older parties.

Maintaining a Consistent Standard of Living

Due to the long-term nature of the marriage, spousal support or alimony is more often awarded in a gray divorce than in divorces between younger couples. This ongoing support can last long after the marriage is over, so it provides a tool to ensure that both the wage-earner and the homemaker are able to maintain a consistent standard of living after the divorce is final. But impending retirement can also be a factor in considering the duration, amount, and potential modification of any alimony award.

Untangling Complex Marital Estates

Older adults often have larger and more complicated financial portfolios than young couples. This might include:

• Multiple real estate properties (like rental homes, investment properties, or vacation properties)
• Investments
• Stock brokerage accounts
• Business assets from family businesses or startups
• Shares or equity interests in past employers
• Inheritances from deceased parents

Placing values on and dividing up all this property can be challenging, especially when you anticipate using those assets to transition into retirement in the near future.

Pay-Out Status for Retirement Assets

If you have already reached retirement age, you may be receiving pension benefits or mandatory distributions from a 401K or IRA. This can make negotiating the interrelated issues of property division and alimony challenging, since you are spending down your assets rather than relying on your income. Any resolution will need to take into account how much each party needs for their care and support, and where that money will come from once their careers have sunset.

Planning for Future Long-Term Care

Insurance does not often become a major issue in divorces between younger, healthy couples. But in a gray divorce, maintaining your health insurance or life insurance coverage may be a far bigger concern. If your policy comes from one spouse’s employment or pension, you may need to consider the cost of replacing it post-judgment. In other cases, one spouse may qualify for Medicare coverage sooner than the other, or have different priorities for supplemental coverage. Understanding these policies and their costs and benefits may be important to providing for your long-term care.

Keeping Your Promises to Support Adult Children

In most cases, parents’ child support obligations end when their children turn 18 or graduate from high school (up to their 19th birthday). But many couples over 50 still want to provide for their adult children, particularly when those children are attending college or struggling with a disability or special needs. Connecticut law may require parents to contribute to a child’s educational expenses up to age 23 in connection with a divorce judgment. You can use these laws to make sure both parents keep their promises to support your adult children as they transition to adulthood.

How the Collaborative Approach Helps Older Couples Getting Divorced

Given the emotional maturity that often comes with age, gray divorces often include concerns about treating one another with dignity and respect. Often, couples over 50 are concerned about how their divorce will affect their relationship with their adult children and grandchildren. You may place a higher priority on preserving your existing family dynamics.

These are all areas where a collaborative divorce approach can help. Collaborative divorce is an alternative dispute resolution strategy that avoids the “us vs them” mentality of traditional divorce litigation. Instead, couples work together, along with attorneys and third-party experts, to create a plan for how to move forward as single adults. The collaborative approach ensures that both you and your spouse will negotiate in good faith, openly sharing information about your assets, debts, and financial situation. Your collaborative agreement will also include a promise to maintain civility, which can be important to older couples not interested in fighting or “having their day in court.”

Because of its focus on problem-solving and conflict resolution, collaborative divorce encourages cooperative coping strategies. These can become especially useful as older adults adjust to new life phases such as living in an empty nest, retirement, and eventually assisted living.

The collaborative model also prioritizes working with subject matter experts to guide you to the best resolution, not just the easiest solution. Working with a financial planner, accountant, realtor, family specialist, divorce coach, and other experts can give you the assurance that you aren’t making a bad decision that will leave you short on funds or other support when you need them most.

Protect Your Legacy in a Connecticut Gray Divorce

Divorce later in life doesn’t have to disrupt your plans for a comfortable retirement. The family law attorneys at Lawrence & Jurkiewicz can help you consider the various collaborative approaches available to couples over 50 and choose a path to divorce that respects your history together and your interests going forward. We represent clients in Hartford and Litchfield County who are dealing with difficult issues like divorce. To schedule a confidential consultation to see how we can help you, please contact us today online or at 860-264-1551.