People are increasingly questioning one of the oldest assumptions about marriage: that if you have stayed together for 30 or 40 years, you may as well stay together forever. Known as “grey divorce”, separation later in life is reshaping families, retirement plans and financial futures. Sydney family lawyer Catherine Heath explains why more couples are walking away from decades-long marriages — and why divorce at 60 can be far more complicated than divorce at 35.
For generations, the script for later life seemed fairly settled.
You worked. You raised children. You paid the mortgage. Then, somewhere between retirement and grandchildren, you finally had time to enjoy the life you had spent decades building together.
Increasingly, however, that is not how the story ends.
More couples are separating in their 50s, 60s and even 70s. The phenomenon is commonly described as grey divorce — divorce or separation later in life, often after a marriage lasting several decades.
According to Catherine Heath, a Sydney family lawyer and Principal Solicitor of Consort Family Law, grey divorce often raises very different legal and financial issues from separation earlier in life.
“People often assume that a divorce after 30 or 40 years of marriage must have been caused by one dramatic event,” Heath says. “In reality, the person initiating the separation may have been thinking about leaving for years. By the time they finally say the marriage is over, the emotional separation may have happened a long time earlier.”
And while divorce at any age can be difficult, later-life separation raises its own questions.
There may be no young children arguing over school-night arrangements or weekend changeovers. Instead, the issues may involve retirement, superannuation, investment properties, family trusts, businesses, inheritances and a confronting financial question: can two people afford to fund two separate lives after spending 30 years building one?
Why are long marriages ending?
Why would a couple who survived nappies, school fees, teenage years, mortgages and career pressures separate when they are finally approaching the supposedly easier years?
Sometimes, the answer is that the marriage did not suddenly fail.
It simply stopped being disguised by busyness.
For decades, family life can provide an extraordinarily effective structure. There is always something requiring attention: a child to collect, a bill to pay, a renovation to finish or a career crisis to manage.
Then the children leave home.
Retirement approaches.
The house becomes quiet.
Two people who may have functioned exceptionally well as parents, financial partners and household managers suddenly find themselves sitting opposite each other with very little left to organise.
For some couples, this becomes a period of rediscovery. For others, it exposes a relationship that has been emotionally distant for years.
Heath, who has practised in family law since 2000 and leads the North Sydney-based family law practice Consort Family Law, says later-life separation is rarely as impulsive as it may appear to friends or adult children.
“Very often, one person has had an internal conversation with themselves for a long time,” she says. “They have asked whether they can continue living in the relationship for another five years, another 10 years, perhaps another 20 years.”
People are also living longer and remaining active for longer.
A 55-year-old contemplating divorce may reasonably expect decades of life ahead.
That changes the question.
It may no longer be simply: “Can I tolerate this marriage?”
Instead, it becomes: “Do I want to live like this for the next 20 or 30 years?”
Women are often reconsidering what later life should look like
The changing financial and social position of women is also relevant to the rise of grey divorce.
Many women now approaching their 50s and 60s have careers, professional identities and a greater degree of financial independence than previous generations.
There is also less social stigma attached to separation later in life.
A divorced woman in her 60s may travel, work, build a business, begin another relationship or simply decide that living alone is preferable to remaining in an unhappy marriage.
That does not mean the decision is easy.
“Some of the most conflicted clients I see are people leaving very long marriages,” says Heath. “There is enormous history. There may be affection and loyalty even where the marriage is no longer working. Leaving a marriage after several decades can feel like dismantling an entire identity.”
The decision may also affect friendships, relationships with extended family and the way adult children view their childhood.
Grey divorce is not necessarily an angry divorce.
But it can be an emotionally complicated one.
The financial consequences of grey divorce can be enormous
This is where later-life separation becomes particularly complex.
A couple separating in their 30s may have relatively few assets and decades of working life ahead of them.
A couple separating after 30 years of marriage may have a valuable family home, investment properties, substantial superannuation, companies, business interests or interests connected with family trusts.
But they have something else as well: limited time.
There may be only five or 10 years of full-time employment remaining.
For Catherine Heath, whose work as a Sydney family lawyer includes complex property settlements, this is one of the most important differences between grey divorce and separation earlier in life.
“The question is not simply what each person receives on the day a property settlement is finalised,” Heath says. “You also have to think about what their respective financial positions may look like in 10 or 20 years.”
One spouse may have a high income and a strong capacity to rebuild wealth.
The other may have spent significant periods outside the workforce, worked part-time or structured a career around raising children and supporting the family.
Superannuation may become particularly important.
So does the family home.
The emotional attachment to a home after 20 or 30 years can be profound. It may be where children grew up, where Christmas was celebrated and where an entire adult identity was built.
But keeping the house is not always the same as achieving financial security.
A person can be asset-rich and cash-poor, living alone in a valuable Sydney property while struggling to meet rates, insurance, maintenance and everyday expenses.
For people facing a substantial or complicated asset pool, obtaining early advice from an experienced North Sydney family lawyer may help identify the legal, financial and practical issues before major decisions are made.
Selling assets, transferring money or informally agreeing to “split everything 50/50” before fully understanding the asset pool can create difficulties that are costly or impossible to reverse.
Adult children do not make divorce child-free
There is a common misconception about grey divorce: if the children are adults, they will not be affected.
Adult children may not need parenting orders, but they can experience their parents’ separation intensely.
Some feel that their childhood has been retrospectively rewritten.
Others become angry with the parent who initiated the separation. They may demand explanations, take sides or become informal messengers between their parents.
Weddings, birthdays and Christmas suddenly require diplomatic planning.
Grandchildren can add another layer of complexity.
Heath says parents separating later in life should be cautious about involving adult children too deeply in the intimate history of the marriage.
“Your 30-year-old child may be an adult, but they are still the child of that relationship,” she says. “There is a difference between explaining that the marriage has ended and asking your child to become your confidant, strategist or judge.”
Grey divorce can be quiet — but not necessarily simple
Many later-life separations are remarkably quiet.
A couple may continue living under the same roof for months.
They may still attend family events together.
Friends may have no idea the marriage has ended.
But a quiet separation is not automatically a simple one.
Long marriages accumulate history.
They also accumulate financial habits and patterns of decision-making.
One spouse may have managed every investment, bank account and tax return for decades. The other may know surprisingly little about the family’s financial position.
When separation occurs, that imbalance can suddenly become significant.
The person who never spoke with the accountant may need to understand company structures.
The spouse who signed documents without examining them may suddenly want to know exactly what sits inside a family trust.
After decades of marriage, even identifying and understanding the financial structure of the family can take time.
For people contemplating grey divorce, understanding the financial position before making irreversible decisions may be just as important as deciding to separate in the first place.
A different idea of what later life can be
Perhaps the rise of grey divorce is not simply a story about more marriages ending.
It may also be a story about people imagining later life differently.
Previous generations often viewed retirement as the final chapter.
Today’s 60-year-old may see it as the beginning of an entirely new stage.
There is more time.
More independence.
And perhaps less willingness to spend the remaining decades of life in a relationship that no longer feels meaningful.
Of course, divorce is not liberation for everyone.
It can be financially frightening, emotionally exhausting and deeply lonely. There are no guarantees that life after separation will be happier.
But Catherine Heath believes the question people ask themselves after a long marriage is changing.
“It used to be, ‘We have been married for 30 years. How can I possibly leave now?’” she says.
“More people are asking a different question: ‘If I may have another 20 good years ahead of me, how do I want to live them?’”
For a growing number of Australians contemplating grey divorce, the answer may no longer be the one previous generations expected.