WACO, Texas — The divorce rate between Americans 55 and older has doubled since 1990 and for couples 65 and older the rate has tripled.
The rise comes even as the divorce rate for younger married couples has declined. Waco-based master's level therapist Nolan Garrett said the primary causes of divorces vary based on age.
"In younger couple's it's usually money, infidelity or something on the internet," Garrett said of younger couples he's treated personally. "For older couple's it's more so that they've lost the relationship."
Garrett said older couples with children who have moved out of the house typically deal with "empty nest syndrome", which comes with a shuffling of priorities and has an impact on communication when their kids have moved out.
One of the things we do in therapy is to help them reestablish the relationship that they had before they had children," Garrett said. "They can rediscover what they liked about each other 20 years ago."
Garrett also noted that for older couples he typically will assign them "homework" to describe their five love languages and qualities of their partner that brought them together.
"It's amazing and sometimes someone can be married for 30 years and still not know what their partners are like," Garrett said. "It can open up a whole new aspect of communication that they didn't know they had before."
The therapist says that while financial issues can be a key burden on younger couples, it's typically not as present in older couples.
For older couples, he suggests "being more intentional" about making time for each other and "planning something rather than having things fall into place."
For those that do end up divorcing, Garrett said the path back into a relationship can be much more difficult.
"A lot of the challenges that they face is finding a partner your own age," Garrett said. "That's why dating sites have helped out so many people in that position because there's no way that they would meet some of these people in their day-to-day life."
Garrett said attending therapy sessions as couples can also help a couple discuss issues in their relationship with someone that has a neutral perspective.
"So if a couple realizes there isn't a spark anymore or they don't enjoy being with each other anymore, then it's certainly a good time to talk to someone and discuss further," Garrett said.
Garrett said older couples often don't know how to bring up issues with their partners and the issues can be "easy fixes" when they're finally addressed.
"If they're together to begin with then there's things we can do and sometimes rekindling what brought them together to begin with an working on that can help," he said.
Also on KCENTV: