Other than an opportunity to play around with their song titles (“Love WON’T Keep Them Together”, “Do That to me One More Time – and I’m DONE”), what can we make of the Captain and Tennille split?

The soft-rock duo had their heyday in the 70s.  Now they’re both IN their 70s and separating after almost forty years of marriage.

Perhaps what’s most interesting about this is that they’re not alone.  Recent studies have focused on the increasing divorce rate among coupes over fifty.  Various reasons have been suggested fort he “grey divorce” – the increase in life expectancy, the priority baby boomers give to personal satisfaction, the increasing number of women who are financially and emotionally independent.

Generally, couples who separate later in life have no dependent children, thus avoiding the post-separation parenting struggles their younger counterparts must face.  But the fact that a later-in-life divorce is primarily a financial exercise from a legal standpoint makes it no less grueling from an emotional perspective.  For every marriage that ends because the relationship gradually withered, there’s one that ends abruptly and unexpectedly, at least from one side’s perspective.  And while there may not be dependent children, many older couples have adult children who are graduating from university, getting married and producing grandchildren.  Ideally, separation and divorce should be handled in the manner that best preserves financial stability for the former spouses – as well as their ability to share in the lives of their adult children.  For that reason, our family law group favours the Collaborative Law process wherever appropriate.  For more on Collaborative Family Law, click here and scroll down to the ‘Definition’ link.