More Baby Boomers are living alone. One reason why: ‘gray divorce’ | CNN
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Rising divorce rates for people over 50 are one reason why an increasing number of older Americans are living alone.

The number of older Americans living alone is on the rise. Nearly 16 million people aged 65 and older in the US lived solo in 2022, three times as many who lived alone in that age group in the 1960s. And as Baby Boomers age, that number is expected to grow even more, raising big questions about the country’s future.

  • Metaright@kbin.social
    113·
    1 year ago

    Heyck says she got divorced in her 50s after her son turned 18.

    “It was really more of a working relationship than a full marriage,” she says, and Heyck was emotionally ready to be on her own.

    But the financial transition, she says, wasn’t easy. For years, she struggled to make ends meet, living with roommates and couch-surfing as she waited for a spot to open in income-adjusted senior housing.

    “I was an artist. I lived on the edge financially. I didn’t have a 401(k) … I always thought that I would be married. That was the big surprise,” she says.

    How was it a “big surprise” when it’s implied that she wanted the divorce to happen? You have an unstable job, divorce your spouse, and then go all surprised Pikachu when it occurs to you that your finances are unstable?

    • average650@lemmy.world
      72·
      1 year ago

      There are a lot of divorced people who like it play the victim when it was painfully obvious what they were giving up to everyone but them. Divorce is horrible.

      There are of course many who have escaped abused through divorce, so I don’t want to act like they are all the same, but man can people be selfish.