The Church’s Response Post Grey Divorce: A Phenomenological Study of Evangelical Men Experiencing Grey Divorce and the Implications for Faith and Post-Divorce Adjustment

In 1990 one out of every ten divorces involved an individual over the age of fifty. By 2010, that number had climbed to one out of every four divorces. As of 2019, one in three people getting divorced in the United States was aged fifty or older. Termed by researchers as “grey divorce,” this phenomenon is expected to grow as demographic shifts reveal an increasing older adult population with longer life expectancies. These later-life divorces have psychosocial and economic negative consequences on the individual. Divorcing later-life men and women share a number of these negative consequences, but there is gender-based differences with men having increased lack of social support, more likely to be estranged from their families, more first onset of depressive symptoms, and more likely to suffer physically because of the dissolution of their marriage. In addition to the experiences of the spouses who experience grey divorce, extended families are also impacted in diverse ways as adult children are placed in the middle of their later-life parents’ divorce and key economic resources are diverted from their family to often support their aging parents. The church can play a role in helping individuals cope, but little research and attention has been directed at grey divorcees by the church and emerging ministers struggle to understand and cope with middle age and senior adult issues. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe the lived experiences of male evangelical church members who experienced a Grey Divorce in South Carolina and how their church’s response impacted their faith and their post-divorce adjustment. The theory guiding this study is the church as a family system as described by Friedman (1985) and Steinke (2006). The emotional processes that apply to personal families are also applicable in churches. As such, divorce within the church is not unlike divorce within the family and brings with it shame, guilt, broken relationships, and isolation especially for those experiencing divorce in later-life. Churches can be a healing balm, and religious participation mitigates many of the emotional and psychological maladies that later-life divorcees experience.