Children are made for a daily relationship with their mothers and fathers, which is best achieved within the life-long union of marriage. As the phenomenon known as “gray divorce,” or divorce over the age of 50, increases (34.9 percent of all divorces in the U.S. in 2020 were among those aged 55 or older), we are learning that the effects of divorce are not unique to young children.
The instability, confusion, and questions of parental loyalty don’t simply disappear when one is an adult child of divorce. This is why when we allow victims of gray divorce to speak out, we learn that even adults don’t simply “get over” their parents’ separations. In a recent Twitter post, several adult children of divorce commented and privately messaged us at Them Before Us, sharing their experiences such as, “My parents’ divorce was literally one [of] the most traumatic and destabilizing things I’ve ever been through,” and, “My parents’ divorce when I was in my mid 20s was one of the worst things that ever happened to me; it broke me nearly beyond repair.”
Loss of Parental Connection
Studies on the effects of gray divorce on adult children tell us that mothers and fathers differ in their reactions to divorce. Mothers are twice as likely to have more frequent contact with their adult children after a late divorce than they did before, whereas fathers are only half as likely to maintain frequent contact with their children.
As Kyle, who was 27 when his
