Divorced after 50, you can build a good life again. In research on later-life splits, loneliness peaked around the year of the split, then eased on average. Start with money advice before any big move, a home that works for you, a set day to call your grown children and weekly plans. Date when you want to.
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Starting over at 50 or 60 means more than finding someone new. Money, where you live, your grown children and your weekends can all need attention at once, and researchers have followed large groups of people through a divorce after 50 to measure some of what changes. If the breakup itself is still the whole story of your days, getting over someone after a breakup starts earlier in the road.
After 50, a divorce reaches four parts of life at once, and dating is a fifth that goes better after them. A quick check of where you stand:
| Part of life | What tends to change | This week’s check |
|---|---|---|
| Money | Less money for years, in the long-term studies | Have you booked an hour with a fee-only planner before selling, moving or touching a pension? |
| Home and your week | Evenings and weekends lose their shape | Does your week have plans in it, people in it and a home you like coming back to? |
| People | Loneliness peaks around the year of the split, then eases on average | Is there one slot each week with the same faces? |
| Grown children | Fathers tend to see less of grown children after a later-life divorce | Have you set a day to call each of them, without asking anyone to take a side? |
| Dating, fifth | Goes better once the four above are steadier | Do you want to meet someone, or to fill an empty evening? |
Divorced after 50: what happens to men
Research on divorce after 50 measures three things that change for men: money, contact with grown children, and how people feel day to day. In the studies, men’s money stayed down and contact with grown children fell, while wellbeing, on average, came back to where it had been after a few years, though not for parents who had lost touch with a child. Those are averages, not a forecast for you.
You’re in larger company than it feels like. In the US, the divorce rate for married people aged 50 and over doubled between 1990 and 2015, from 5 to 10 in every 1,000 a year, and about half of the people divorcing at that age were ending a second or later marriage 1. Researchers call this “gray divorce”.
If you’ve heard that men are hit hardest, the figures are more mixed than that. In a US study that followed people through a divorce after 50, women’s standard of living (what their income covered against their needs) fell by 45% and men’s by 21%, but men’s drop didn’t recover over time 2. In an Australian study of people separating at 50 or later, men and women looked alike on loneliness 3. What does fall harder on fathers is contact with grown children, covered in its own section below.
Quick poll
Who has it harder after a divorce at 50?
Anonymous count, nothing else stored.
Of the 66 ways people ask about divorce at 50 in our records, 32 are some version of how to get over it, including 7 asking how long that takes and 3 asking how to do it faster, and 12 ask how to start over or start a new life.
How to get over a divorce as a man, after a long marriage
You get over a long marriage by letting yourself grieve it, rebuilding your week around other people, and asking for help instead of going quiet. There’s no shortcut, but there is a direction, and you can check you’re heading in it.
Patrick Maliha, a Vancouver comedian, was 47 when his wife asked for a divorce on their 15th anniversary. She moved out with their children, and he came home to an empty house. He told CBC: “You just feel so completely, utterly alone.” He didn’t call his friends about it. “As a guy, you don’t do that,” he said. Over time he learned to open up, and months later he said he no longer felt lonely every day 4.
One account, from a man a few years short of 50, doesn’t tell you how your friends will react. It does ask a fair question: is there someone you’ve decided not to call before giving him the chance to pick up? Call him, and say it plainly: “The evenings are hard right now. Want to grab a beer Thursday?” A direct ask is easier for a friend to answer than silence.
Is there someone you’ve decided not to call befo