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Gray divorce is the name researchers coined for adults aged 50 and older ending their marriage. They found that gray divorce doubled between 1990 and 2010. Currently, 36% of U.S. adults getting divorced are aged 50 or older.
Gray divorce couples may have minor children, adult children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. The shock waves can reverberate through four generations, destabilizing the permanence and family relationships everyone assumed would last a lifetime.
Family members touched by gray divorce often report feelings of loss, shock, disbelief, destabilization, overwhelm, aloneness, sadness, loneliness, and grief.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison’s depiction of grief encompasses all these feelings. “It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom, and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.”
Loneliness Arises From Loss
Neuroscience researcher Dr. Amy Banks states that a new field of scientific study that she terms “relational neuroscience” indicates that our brains and bodies are hardwired to help us engage in satisfying emotional connection with others, and that the human brain is built to operate within a network of caring human relationships. Other research found that feelings of loneliness and social rejection activate the same neural networks in our brains as physical pain.
Loneliness is the painful feeling that haunts us when we are void of satisfying relationships, feel disconnected, and have a sense of not belonging. Divorce can stress and break family relationship bonds that can cause children, adolescents, and adults to experience loneliness and its negative effects on physical and emotional well-being, like depression, grief, anxiety, isolation, low immune system function, and sleep and appetite disturbance.
The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart.” and all they can do is stare blankly. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Myriad Losses Accompany Divorce
- Nuclear and extended family members lose their shared daily activities, holidays, and other celebrations when they are interrupted or suddenly cease.
- Minor children lose the opportunity to spend memorable times with their mother, father, siblings, grandparents, and extended family.
- The family home that witnessed years of memories that shaped the identities of the family members may be gone.
- Adult children’s dreams of visiting their parents with their children in the family home vanish.
- The attachment bonds with parents, siblings, grandparents, and extended family members that begin forming at birth become stressed and sometimes broken.
- The identity of each family member that is associated with their intact family can be shattered, as they wonder, “Who am I? Was my family life all smoke and mirrors? If my parents are unable to maintain a long-term marriage, why do I think I will be different? Am I destined to follow in their footsteps?”
What Can Help Family Members of Gray Divorce Struggling With Loneliness?
The following are some of the recommendations I provide my patients to help them process their grief, depression, anxiety, and other feelings arising from loss and loneliness.
- Individual and group therapy
- Play therapy for children
- Support groups
- Self-care, like healthy eating, exercise, rest, relaxation, and adequate sleep
- Mindfulness practice
- Self-compassion and self-forgiveness
- Getting a pet.
I also recommend volunteering. I provide them with a handout containing the information below, ask that we both read it silently together during a session, and discuss it afterwards.
Volunteerism
Research shows that giving to and helping others has benefits, and it doesn’t take as much time as people think.
Adam Grant writes, “Research indicates that if people start volunteering two hours a week, their happiness, satisfaction, and self-esteem go up a year later. Two hours per week in a fresh domain appears to be the sweet spot where people make a meaningful difference without being overwhelmed or sacrificing other priorities. It’s also the range in which volunteering is most likely to strike a healthy balance, offering benefits to the volunteer as well as the recipients.”
Psychologist Shelley Taylor discovered a stress response that she calls “tend and befriend.” She says that the human stress response includes a tendency to come together in groups to provide and receive joint protection in threatening times. Her neuroscience research indicates that when we feel stressed, our brains release chemicals that prompt us to bond with others.
Volunteering Is Tending and Befriending
For adults, the benefits of volunteering are:
- Lower physical functioning limitations, depressive symptoms, loneliness, and hopelessness
- Higher positive affect, optimism, and purpose in life
- Decreased risk of mortality
- Increased mental, physical, and social health and well-being
- Increased functioning, quality of life, pride, empowerment, motivation, social support, and sense of community
For children and adolescents, volunteering is associated with higher odds of excellent or very good health and flourishing, and with lower odds of anxiety in adolescents and behavioral problems in children and adolescents.
In addition to our individual therapy, my patients of all ages tell me how volunteering helps them. There are numerous opportunities to volunteer with non-profit agencies and community and religious organizations. Maybe you want to give volunteering a try.
Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. ~ Alvin Toffler
Patient names and details changed to preserve confidentiality.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
Copyright 2025 Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D.
