I'm going to be talking about that in this video.
So, stay tuned.
Hey, I’m Rebecca Zung.
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Okay. So let's talk about gray divorce,
the whole Bill and Melinda Gates divorce has actually
sparked this subject and brought it to the fore.
Some of the people have been kind of
talking about it for years and
I actually divorced, I did a divorce for two 91 year olds,
I represented a guy who is 91 and
he actually had a 91 year-old girlfriend,
by the way, was a pretty interesting situation and,
his wife had had a stroke and caused her to not be very nice.
That was really basically the thing that
had happened to her and
she just started to be super mean and he just decided,
I just don't want to live my life like this anymore,
so, he had a 91 year-old girlfriend,
they were all living in this sort of
really nice posh high-end, assisted living place and
the only reason he was actually trying to get a divorce
was because his 91 year-old girlfriend didn't want
her children to know that she was dating a married man.
It was pretty funny.
The whole situation is interesting to me because,
it made me realize that, like,
it doesn't matter how old you are,
we're all just people,
we're trying to have happiness and
we're trying to live our lives, right?
So, here's the thing.
I guess Bill is 65 and Melinda is 56, and
so gray divorce is sort of defined
as people who are over 50 and
it's like the fastest growing set
of people who are divorcing and
actually the fastest growing set
of people who are having STDs,
another little fun fact for you.
So, what's happening I think is that
people are living longer, back in the day
when they came up with this
whole till death do us part thing,
whenever it was, thousands of years ago,
I think people were dying when they were 30.
Maybe they got married when they were 15 and
they were dead by the time they were 30.
I don't know.
I think until the turn of the century,
people didn't live as long as they do now,
I mean, even up until 40 years ago or something,
I mean, the average age of death was what? 65, 70, 75.
Now, it's very common place for people to live
till their 85, 90, 95 even a hundred and
so when people get married at 25, 30 or 35,
they're looking at a much longer period
of time than they once were. Right?
I think people are living a lot longer than
they once were so, you're seeing a lot more
of what they call these gray divorces.
Lifespans have gotten much longer than they used to be.
I think that the other reason why
we're seeing a lot more of these gray divorces
is because there has been the rise of these no-fault divorces.
It used to be that you had to prove fault,
you had to prove adultery, you had to have grounds,
you had to maybe have a waiting period,
you had to be separated for at least a year,
or it was a lot more difficult to get a divorce;
with the now advent of no-fault divorces
it's much more accessible to be able to get a divorce.
There are a lot of services now where people
can get a divorce, pretty quickly, pretty easily.
So it's not as expensive,
you don't always necessarily have
to have lawyers in order to get a divorce,
so it's much more cost-effective than it used to be and
there's less of a taboo around it.
It used to be that if you got a divorce,
it was a much more of a taboo, a lot of issue around that,
we've had this sort of puritanical culture,
that we've had for a long time and
we don't necessarily have that as much anymore and
we can sit around and debate whether or not
that's a good thing or a bad thing.
It doesn't really necessarily matter,
but we don't have as much of an issue
around divorce as we once did.
People aren't staying in relationships that are toxic
as much as they once did and
for me personally, I think it's probably a good thing.
Why stay in a relationship that isn't serving your soul?
That's the way I look at it.
I think also people aren't staying in relationships
when, once the children are gone.
I think a lot of times that people stay in relationships
because the children are there,
they're raising their families,
they've got this life that revolves around all of that and
then the kids are gone, they've grown up,
or maybe you're tired and now you're like,
looking at each other and you're like,
“Yeah, the heck are you again? I don't even know you.
I don't think I actually even like you.
We don't have anything in common.
So, maybe we need to go a different direction”.
I don't know.
So, I think maybe that's part of it too.
So, I think those are all a lot of the reasons why
you see this gray divorce on the rise now and
so that's what gray divorce is.
Gray divorce is people who are older,
who are getting divorced and
that's why I think it's on the rise now.
I think Bill and Melinda are very much an indication of that.
There is a perfect example of a couple that
in the 50s, you never would have seen
a couple like that even think about getting a divorce.
I mean, especially, we've seen lots of reports of him cheating and
all that sort of thing.
That's the exact kind of couple that, in the old days,
she would have just been looking the other direction and
had to grin, and bear it, and smile through it.
So, nowadays, not so much.
Probably a good thing. What do you think?
I have some other videos on Bill and Melinda’s divorce,
what she's getting and all that sort of thing.
You can definitely check that out.
I'd love to know what your thoughts are on gray divorce;
whether or not you think it's a good thing, or a bad thing.
Go ahead and comment below.
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