In our previous blog we spoke about some of the difficult financial realities of “grey divorce”. When you end your marriage after decades together, your financial picture looks different than it did as a young couple. Beyond finances though, there are more complex, emotional issues involved in these divorces as well.
When a couple has been together for decades and has a family, they’ve built their lives together. They are not the same people in their 50s and 60s as they were in their 20s or 30s. They’re often parents and grandparents, and they’ve grown and matured together as they are now coming apart.
Here are some of the social issues that couples need to watch for if going through separation and divorce later on in life:
Care Planning
You may have heard about, or know of, couples who have split and then later reunite because one needs to care for the other. The reality in some families is that this is a necessity if one partner comes down with a serious or terminal illness. They may no longer be in a relationship, but their former spouse feels a sense of obligation or want to care for them.
To paraphrase the great Paul McCartney, it’s important to think about who will still need and feed you when you’re 64 and well beyond. The baby boomer generation may live well into their 9th and even 10th decades, and while many of those years will be healthy, circumstances can change at any moment. If you’re no longer married, what is your plan in case you unexpectedly take ill and need care? Who will step in as your Power of Attorney for Personal Care and/or Property to assist with managing your personal and financial affairs, if needed?
This is something older couples need to consider both emotionally and financially. Do they have children they can count on to oversee things, take them to appointments, and check in frequently? Do they have a social circle who would be willing to check up on them, bring them meals, if necessary, help them drive to errands if they can no longer do so themselves?
These are practical considerations that may not change the decision to separate, but definitely require serious thought. If you’re healthy and working at 60, it may be hard to think about an unpleasant future. Yet divorce is often final, and if your personal circumstances can look different at 85, or even at 65, that may influence the decisions you make today.
Estate Planning
If you planned on being married forever, then you may not have thought much about estate planning. Your spouse would inherit everything after you’re gone, or vice versa, and then when you’re both gone it goes to the kids – right? Except estate planning is not that simple.
Estate planning is often used to avoid probate, which lowers the tax burden for those inheriting your estate. A common strategy is to place as many assets as possible into both yours and your spouse’s names, so that they can inherit things clearly once you are gone. However, if you are separating from that spouse, you’ll need to make a clear list of all the assets that need to then be untangled.
If you are separating or divorcing later in life, it’s time to revisit your estate plan. Your assets are suddenly not going where you thought they would, and you’ll likely have a range of new decisions to make. Would you prefer things to be distributed to your friends instead? Would you change your charitable bequests? Or would you spend differently and travel to places your former spouse never wanted to go?
Your estate plan may also change to giving gifts while you’re still alive, known as ‘inter vivos’ gifts. This can also help avoid tax burdens and make sure that your assets have a clear direction which you can monitor while you’re still here. There is, however, one frequent hiccup that can happen with older divorcees that puts all plans into question.
Second Marriages or Common Law Relationships
Even in their senior years, the newly single do not always stay single forever. It can be common to find new love in later years after separation and/or divorce, potentially with a widow or widower or another divorcee. In a perfect world both families approve of the match and everyone gets on wonderfully, but things are rarely perfect.
Second marriages as well as new common law relationships, especially those later in life, often come with friction. Grown children become concerned that their surviving parent may be taken advantage of, or to put it more bluntly, that someone may be coming after ‘their money.’ Even though it may be your money, grown children often think of it as theirs while you’re still alive, and may even be making plans for after you’re gone.
With a second marriage or new common law relationship, there’s often the fear that the new spouse will intervene in any estate plans and that a Will will be re-written to favour them over the children. If the new spouse has their own children or grandchildren, including them can dilute the pool of inheritance even further. These relationships are often a source of friction, especially if grown children are still coming to terms with their parents’ separation and/or divorce.
Once a parent dies, these situations often result in ugly legal battles. While there is no guaranteed way to avoid litigation, keeping your estate plan up-to-date in the event of a remarriage can help your partner and your children understand exactly what you want done with your money.
Final Thoughts
Separation and divorce are never simple, but there’s much to think about in your later years. Just like we accumulate a lot of ‘stuff’ if we live in the same place for decades, marriages accumulate ‘stuff’ as well – assets, property, business interests, children, and emotional issues as well. Untangling all of that is a big job, but we’re here to help. We provide family law advice at any age all throughout the Cambridge, Kitchener, and Waterloo Regions. Contact us today to make an appointment.