Divorce Among Older Adults

Every couple eventually comes to the painful realization that the passion they felt for each other before and at the beginning of their marriage has changed or faded. Losing this spark of attraction and sexual desire can lead to questioning the basis of the marriage. If you no longer feel excited to be with your spouse, do you ask yourself, “What else is there?” Even if you aren’t asking yourself that question, the daily grind of life that includes dealing with children, work, bills and running out of time for anything other than everyday tasks can make you wonder about the number of years that stretch ahead of you in which you’ll be doing the same things every day, over and over again.

The Smith family is African American that lives in Saint Louis, Missouri. The family consists of two middle-aged parents having two daughters. The daughters’ names are Aliyah and Sarah. Sarah, the oldest is in eighth grade, and attends a very good middle school. Aliyah the youngest, attends the fourth grade at a good elementary school. . In this household both parents work. The mother is a nurse at Barnes hospital, while the father is a computer technician at a company. After many issues the parents eventually divorced about three years back. The father re-married last year to a young woman that has a four-year-old son. Overall, the family social-economic developments are that they are very well off living in a safe suburban neighborhood.

Smells of fried chicken, collard greens, and peach cobbler wafted up from the Church kitchen and filled the sanctuary in preparation for the wedding celebration and mingle with the scent of purple, pink, and white flowers. White ribbons hung neatly at the end of each bench, pink to mark the bride's side of the church, and white to mark the groom's. Two teenage girls, meeting each other for the first time just a week previous, sat motionless on a front pew on the groom's side of the church, aware that they were strangely connected to each other and that this day marked the addition of new foreign relationships. As both stared blankly forward at the spectacle unfolding before them, the bride in her white gown, the groom in his tux, the pageantry, the play, one of them expelled a deep sigh that resonated for the both of them as she matter-of-factually stated, “Gee, I hope this one works.” The other girl nodded in agreement. The marriage resulting from that wedding only lasted for three years, and the groom would go on to marry again. The nodding head girl was me and the prophetic girl was my step-sister from one of my father's previous marriages. Divorce is considered one of the most stressful and traumatic events in a person's life. In the Extended Family Life Cycle, Constance Ahrons outlines the effects of Divorce on a family system and on the individuals within that system.

The chapter starts with a story about a man in a church who wanted to start a group for divorced people. The pastor said it is a great idea. He asked the other man whether he would like a special section in the auditorium just for divorced people. The man said that would be good. The pastor said that he would have a section for liars, wife-beaters, alcoholics, and others. The man got the message. A healing church must resist the urge to categorize people. A pastor could play the gender or race card, pit the old verses the young, or rich verses the poor. Each could have their own section. “Yet, one of the first, giant steps away from love is to view a person as a representative or a statistic-something other than the unique individual God created.”

The bar chart illustrate the information about the numbers of marriages and divorces from 1970 to 2000 in America, and show the percentage of marital status of adult Americans in 1970 and 2000.

I agree and disagree with the statement that divorce rates in the United States are increasing to an extent that the stability of the family is being threatened. I believe that a lot of divorces can happen for a number of reason and that their are many factors to consider when we think of divorce rates. We have to factor in if it was a marriage of obligation or actual love. There are marriages that are contracted, by this I mean that they got married for a green card and after a few years of the agreed upon time they get divorced and go their separate ways. There are marriages that have been arranged, there are marriages that happened at a young age, and there are common law marriages. With different types of marriages there are different reasons

Young spouses and young marriages are most at risk. A person’s age at marriage is strongly associated with the likelihood of divorce. Generally speaking, the older people are when they marry, the less chance they have of

The first criteria of the writing conventions that is not properly completed is the need for adequate evidence and support for the claim. The report is analyzing various sociological explanations for the rising increase in divorces in a marital situation. For the two examples the author gives, the changes in marital laws and a woman’s role in a marriage, they lack sufficient support and evidence to thoroughly analyze and evaluate the divorce phenomenon. The first example, changes in marital laws, is only examined with one source and even then only a few sentences are given to explain changes in the legal system rather than marital success. The second example, societal changes, again only refers to one source and hardly provides any additional analysis that informs the reader with any in depth information. The next criteria that the author completed but not as well

When thinking about this question many different answers came to mind. Automatically, I referred to the concept of divorce and how prevalent that has become since the creation and implementation of the Divorce Act. When there was a drastic increase in the amount of divorce, I believe people growing up and watching this unfold could have been hesitant that this would have happened to them if they were to proceed with marriage, therefore, decided to avoid the potential heart break, expense, and drama and look to different types of relationships. As we’ve learned, it is in fact true that marriage is on the decline and cohabitation is on the rise. I think that with the divorce rate being so high it makes people—regardless of their age—more hesitant and less secure when making the decision to commit to a relationship that they don’t expect to last forever. I think that it is also a possibility that

Two common pressures that can tear at marriages are the demands of careers and the demands of children's schedules. In today's society we see much less emphasis placed on "family first" and more focus and energy going into carrier demands and activities. We work hard and we play hard.

While early adulthood tend to be the happiest time for people, during middle adulthood changes occur that can add stress or strife to a person’s relationships.

Although divorce seems to be lower than ever our generation has a fear of committing. Due to this fear Cohabitation is the easiest way to be committed to someone without having to be “Stuck”. “younger adults, who usually cohabit as either a prelude or an alternative to first marriage (Smock, 2000). However, cohabitation is actually more common among the formerly married than the never married (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). When seeing this a part of the results I understood why this would be a statistic. Older adults (such as my mother) usually start to date after they get divorced. Yet, She and like many other adults tend to cohabitate then get married

The Act below is essential to the subject matter of the proposed dissertation as they show the current legislation and the reform of the legislation through the Centuries. The legislation gives the ground upon divorce is set out.

Going through a separation or divorce in mid and later life increases the likelihood of an elderly woman living in poverty. According to Davies & Denton (2002), a woman who is married may rely on her husband’s financial resources for security later in life. As such, she may not do any retirement planning of her own. A woman who divorces later in life is left with a very short and unrealistic amount of time to build up her own savings before turning 65. Davies & Denton (2002) found that retired divorcees are least likely of all women to rate their income as adequate to meet their needs.

I do not profess to be a sociologist; for I am not smart enough to understand the concepts or capable of dressing the part, but I am very interested in how the society I live in is constantly evolving. It may be possible that the decline in permanent marriages are the result of a cultural tendency in perception that promotes individual happiness and fulfillment as the most important goal to achieve. The main reason for marriage today under this concept, is for the individual to acquire love and experience happiness. Society has put greet emphasis on achieving this goal, and that if a person is unhappy, then their life is not fulfilling and they should endeavor to make changes so that their life is fulfilling. Marriage is seen today as something that should not last forever if true happiness is not met. It has become somewhat disposable in concept. If an unhappy marriage was permanent, the door would be closed and that individual would never find self-fulfillment (Shulman, 2004).