No matter how old a married couple is, divorce can have a tremendous impact on their finances. However, for older couples in North Carolina and around the country, what’s often referred to as a gray divorce can have very specific financial implications.
Gray divorces often involve more assets to divide, considering there have been more years together to grow wealth. In addition, many older divorcing couples are close to retirement or might already be retired. Gray divorce couples have less time to recover from a financial hardship. Therefore, special attention must be paid to make sure assets are divided as fairly as possible.
When trying to financially settle the divorce, it is necessary for both spouses to understand what is important to each other after the divorce is final. For example, one spouse might want to have monetary resources to travel after the divorce while the other spouse might want to have the financial ability to support local charities or community initiatives. What each spouse wants to do with their money should have a bearing on how assets are divided.
Family support is also a consideration for many older divorcing couples. If grandchildren or grown children still depend on help from parents, how that assistance will be handled after the divorce needs to be decided. It is important to determine which parent will be responsible for providing support and for how long.
Older couples who are considering divorce deal with a wide range of emotions and events that can be traumatic for the entire family. Consulting an experienced family law attorney may help to mitigate the damage of difficult decisions that must be made during a divorce and help to lessen the financial impact of ending a marriage at an older age.