Rise of the silver splitters
Bill and Melinda Gates’ shock separation has highlighted a growing a trend of older couples opting for divorce
THEY seemed to have it all: a solid marriage, three kids, enough money to get whatever they wanted and a philanthropic foundation that gave them purpose and brought them respect. So when Bill and Melinda Gates announced they couldn’t go the distance, the world was stunned. What, not even them?
Yet the Gateses aren’t alone. Their divorce may have taken everyone by surprise but the pair are conforming to a growing trend of later-life separation. In fact, the trend has taken off to such an extent a phrase has been coined to describe them: the silver splitters.
A “grey revolution” is underway with people in their fifties and sixties increasingly leaving marriages just when they’re expected to be at their most settled.
Bill is 65 and Melinda is 56 so they fall solidly within that demographic. So too do Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (57) and MacKenzie Scott (51), who sensationally announced they were splitting in 2019 after 26 years of marriage and four kids. Then there’s actor Colin Firth (60) and Livia Giuggioli (51), who split two years ago following a 22-year marriage and two children.
A number of factors can lead to silversplitter syndrome but two in particular stand out. The first is children going off to college or leaving home. The emptynest syndrome may prompt melancholy in parents, but it can also end the need to “stay together for the children”.
It’s no coincidence the Gateses’ youngest child, Phoebe, is 18.
The second divorce-driver is the prospect of a long retirement. People are living longer and longer – often deep into their eighties – and that’s an awful lot of potential time to spend with a partner you may have nagging reservations about.
The Gateses’ statement explaining their decision – they no longer “believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives” – suggests the reservations won out.
It’s a cultural shift Dawn Kaffel has witnessed up close in her position as a relationship counsellor. She estimates she’s seeing two or three times the number of over-sixties compared with 20 years ago.
“I think it’s something about getting towards another stage in life and people thinking it’s their last chance to find happiness,” she says.
The various lockdowns of the past 14 months have only added to the desire to seize hold of life, she adds. “People are going to want to get re- energised and move on and I believe there’ll be a major surge of divorce among older couples.”
DIVORCE among people approaching retirement tends to be more amicable because relationships have become more like friendships, says divorce lawyer Amanda McAlister. Colin and Livia’s split certainly looked like a model of friendliness, as the couple reportedly enjoyed nights out after the separation. But Dawn isn’t sure how genuine this could be.
“I have to say the happy divorce is a bit of misnomer,” she says. “The dynamics are always more complex than people think, not least those involving older children.
“Sometimes the children are in their thirties or even forties. You’d think they’re adults, they’ve got their own lives, and they’ll deal with it. But actually the majority of issues I see with silver splitters is they never realise the impact of their
decisions on grown-up children.”
Maya* is 56. She’s been with her husband for 30 years, but she says it hasn’t been a real marriage for a long time. Four years ago, she asked for a divorce and he refused. Her youngest daughter is now 18 and Maya is planning to leave when she goes to college. All her children, she says, support her decision.
“There are a lot of women my age who are dissatisfied in their marriages,” Maya says. “A lot of women come into their own in their fifties.”
Sam Harrington-Lowe, publisher of Silver magazine aimed at the 50-plus market, says her readers are a generation of women who’ve gone through feminism, the workplace, the struggle to gain control of their sexuality and having been sandwiched between looking after children and ageing or dying parents.
And many don’t want to spend their later years in a below-par relationship.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if women look at their husbands and think, ‘I’d be happier on my own’,” Harrington-Lowe says.
BUT it’s not only women who are thinking about leaving their marriages. Men, Kaffel says, are just as often the instigators – and statistics show men are more likely to remarry later on in life. Who are they marrying? Younger women: 56% of men aged 65 and over who wed in 2014 married a woman under 65. For women the figure was much lower.
In the case of Martin*, a retired academic, he’s undaunted by the thought of being single as he goes through his second divorce. When he split from his first wife, he had three children who were between seven and 11.
“That was much tougher,” he says. “And also my first wife was a very different sort of person who wasn’t prepared to make it amicable, even though I wanted it to be.”
This time his daughter with his second wife is nearly 18, and she’s been consulted in the way it’s not really possible to do with younger children.
“She wasn’t positive about it but she certainly thought it was the best thing,” he says.
He also has a generous pension and his wife has always earned more than him, so there isn’t any money pressure. However, financial security can often prove less secure than it appears when people first think about breaking up.
“They think they can afford it,” Kaffel says, “until the process really starts, then what they thought they were going to have to fork out is usually very different.”
Harrington-Lowe, who went through her divorce two years ago, says what looks like a comfortable retirement when a couple are together can suddenly seem more precarious when the assets are divided.
But more than anything it’s the emotional cost that’s most often underestimated. Even with the best will in the world, it’s not easy to leave a multidecade marriage and many people struggle to escape the gravitational pull exerted by a long-established relationship.
“There are lots of people who come to therapy who think they’re going to split up and they don’t,” Kaffel says. “They just need to spend some time working on their relationship.”
It doesn’t look like counselling is going to save the Gateses from the solicitous embrace of divorce lawyers, though.
In the end some people aren’t meant to stay the course, Kaffel says. And perhaps it’s better to come to terms with that sad reality later in life than never at all. * Not their real names