The Benefits of Collaborative Divorce for Seniors

Collaborative Divorce for Seniors

People who seek a divorce in their senior years tend to face a significantly different set of issues than younger couples who divorce.

Most couples who divorce over age 55 have a long history that’s likely to involve substantial co-mingled assets, financial obligations to adult children, and retirement plans based on a shared future.

They’re also much closer to being on a fixed income than younger adults, and less likely to have new avenues of earning income at their disposal. A traditional, combative-style divorce can wreak havoc on a senior couple’s finances, leaving them on financially shaky ground with little time to rebuild their losses.

A smarter option for older adults is collaborative divorce. In this non-adversarial approach to marital dissolution, an experienced collaborative divorce lawyer helps the couple to work together amicably to arrive at mutually beneficial solutions outside the courtroom.

Below we discuss the two essential benefits of collaborative divorce for older couples.

Increases chance of maintaining a similar standard of living

Most people who divorce later in life have a higher net worth than younger couples and a more comfortable lifestyle. Both parties want to retain this lifestyle post-divorce while ensuring that their assets last.

In an adversarial divorce, each party would battle for their own interest, even if it meant leaving the other party in financial straits.

A collaborative divorce, on the other hand, encourages the parties to keep the goal of achieving a mutually beneficial outcome at the forefront of their discussions.

As a collaborative divorce lawyer, Ms. Gloria James can help you determine the fairest way to divide real estate, savings, investments, and other assets. She can also help structure a property settlement that gives both parties the healthiest financial position possible in their post-divorce life and accounts for differences in needs, health, and circumstances.

Supports an emotionally healthy mentality

Divorce is always emotionally challenging, but it’s even harder when you’ve been a couple for a long time. Many aspects of your life are bound to change, from your social status to your relationship with children, friends, and family members.

Even if you know that ending the marriage is the right thing to do, you may feel a great deal of pain and sadness when thinking of the past and fear when looking at the future.

An adversarial divorce can intensify feelings of loss, sorrow, anger, and fear, thereby increasing the risk of making poor decisions based on those emotions. However, because collaborative divorce is built around the parties working together amicably toward a favorable solution, these negative feelings are minimized and managed.

As your collaborative divorce lawyer, Ms. Gloria James will help guide both of you towards making smart decisions based on a sound, forward-looking rationale. Moreover, as a divorce coach, she can provide you with the tools you need to proceed with the collaborative divorce in the best possible frame of mind.

Resisting confrontation and contention in your divorce not only drives smart decision-making but can make for a more psychologically healthy future.

Ending a marriage with bitterness and anger can leave emotional scars that can tear a family apart or cause one or both parties to become physically ill with stress.

Collaborative divorce offers the opportunity to end a long marriage with grace, respect, and integrity. As famed divorce therapist Esther Perel says: “Divorce is not the end of a family; it’s a reorganization.”