(0:00 – 0:20)
Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell with another edition of Family Law Matters with certified family law specialist Bonnie Rabinovitch Mantel, owner and managing partner of Primus Family Law Group. Hi Bonnie. Dr. Mantel, as always it’s a Sunday pleasure to see your beautiful face.

(0:22 – 4:19)
Well thank you, I thought you were going to go on, I was just going to do that. Now that’s enough for the world to hear about you. Okay, you’re right.

Listen, recently we’ve been hearing more and more about people 50 years old and older filing for divorce. Since the 1990s, I understand, divorce rate for adults 50 plus has doubled. And for those 65 years and older, it has tripled.

One in 10 people who are considered to be older adults are now divorced. From the Primus Family Law Group perspective, what do you think is going on and what are you hearing from people who are calling you in that age group? A lot of people, you know, there’s an older philosophy that when you got married, you got married for life and it was over. And so when you hit, you know, being married with somebody 25 years, 30 years, 40 years, you’re going to go out and try to find something different.

Different is not necessarily better. That was, you know, always that thought. But today with people living longer, getting divorced in their 50s or 60s doesn’t mean they only have five, six years, thank God, because that’s our age group, left to go.

It means you could have 30 years, you could have 35 years. People are wanting that second chance at happiness if they’ve gotten married young in their 20s and now they’re in their 60s. You know, you’re not the same person at 20 than you are at 60.

You have certainly different priorities at 20 and then you do at 60. So that’s what we’re hearing. It’s at least the, I can’t do it anymore.

I shouldn’t have to do it anymore. I won’t do it anymore. And it’s not that it’s bad.

It’s sometimes it’s just that it’s complacent. It’s just that it’s not, it’s not. They got married for whatever and it’s done.

What they’re faced with though is when you’re younger and you’re getting divorced, you’ve been married less than 10 years, for example, you probably have built a less of a community estate. You may have a house, you may not. You may have a car or two, you may not.

You, the younger ones are usually the issues of custody and visitation. You know, those are the major issues because they’re younger. Older folks, their issues are the division of the community estate and then support because if a man or a woman is in their 60s getting divorced, it’s kind of hard for the court to force them to work past the age of retirement.

So support issues. You have social security issues and you have division of property issues that are different and sometimes maybe more complex because they built 25, 30 years of stuff. With the divorce rate being tripled in the 65 and older age group, doubled for the 50 plus age group.

And I just, last week we heard about Dr. Dre, who’s 55 after 24 years of getting married, being married. So it’s become more and more and more commonplace. A question, someone who’s in their 50s, 60s or older may well have been married more than once.

They may have been supporting children from a previous marriage who are now probably young adults. What are the implications of that type of a situation? Well, let’s break it up. Okay.

If you were married to somebody before and you are continuing to pay child support as a result of that marriage, that does factor in to what you are going to have to pay if you have children from this newer marriage. So they take what you’re already paying into account. Spouse support, same thing.

(4:19 – 5:41)
The formula does understand that there’s only one pot from which to pull. The other issue though is whether or not you did pay that child support during the marriage for that other relationship. Because then you’re taking a piece of this new community and giving it to another person and your current spouse, there is something that entitles the community to a reimbursement for those monies paid.

So that can sometimes be not worth the fight because it’s small, or it can be considerable as to what the community may be entitled to as a reimbursement. One gentleman told me very recently, and this is what brought it up, I’ve been married, he said this is his third marriage he’s getting divorced from, and he is essentially the grandfather of her children. Correct.

He acts as the grandfather of her children from her previous marriage. And he said, I don’t want to be responsible for paying for their life events coming up. It’s not my responsibility.

I’m divorcing. Are you saying that the court may have something to say about that? Well, if you said grandchildren, then there’s absolutely no link. The only people who are responsible for children are the parents.

(5:42 – 5:50)
Grandparents make gifts. Gifts are voluntary. No grandparent is court ordered to pay for college.

(5:50 – 6:05)
Well, to pay for school, college is never court ordered. To pay for school or to pay for extracurricular activities, unless they are raising those children as their own, meaning they live in their home and they hold them out as their own children. Grandparents, off the hook.

(6:06 – 8:15)
So the court is not going to force him, even though he’s been doing it, paying for school, paying for this, paying for him to continue doing that. No, it would be unfortunate if due to the, you would think grandfather in this situation has a relationship with those grandkids that are separate and apart from his relationship with his spouse. And for however long they’ve been together, one would hope that he wouldn’t cut them out because of that.

But again, that’s an emotional response, a personal editorial, not a legal one. Right. Okay.

And that’s where promised family law would say, go get a therapist or a coach or someone to help you deal with that because the law is very clear. What about Medicare, social security? How does that play into a divorce situation with people in an older age group? Well, in an older age group, social security, you’ve got, as a spouse, you have derivative benefits. So if for example, husband has been putting into the system for 25 years and he’s going to get $1,500 a month, he’s still going to get that 1,500.

But the government then has a separate piece for wife based on derivative benefits. The same thing if wife worked and put into the system, husband has a derivative benefit of that. But social security is all income.

So what ends up happening when people retire and go on social security is their incomes tend to equalize. If both parties were working during the marriage, they tend to come very close, which of course is very different than the marital just standard of living and affects greatly one party’s request to modify support. If somebody’s paying $1,000 a month, but they’re only getting 1,500 now from social security, they’re entitled to a modification of the support because their money’s changed.

Right. So it’s not necessarily more complicated. It’s just a different complication is what you’re saying.

Yeah. It’s just different primary issues. Younger divorces are usually custody, visitation, child support.

(8:16 – 9:26)
Older ones are, how do I get my hands on the retirement now? What are social security derivative benefits? It’s just different primary issues, but the process is the same. And as you said, there seems to be some good societal reasons why we’re seeing this increase double, triple, depending on the age bracket in our society. Very good insight.

And as always, very good ingenuity and very good clarity and focus on your part. So thank you very much for that. Bonnie, if people want to get in touch with you to talk about their grandparents’ divorce, how do they reach Primus Family Law Group? Well, hopefully the grandchildren are not calling.

It would be nicer if the parents are calling or the grandparents themselves, but they can certainly reach us at 619-574-8000 or www.primusfamilylaw.com. Thank you very much, Bonnie. Another very informative edition of Family Law Matters with certified family law specialist, Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel, owner and managing partner of Primus Family Law Group. Thanks, Bonnie.

(9:26 – 9:28)
Thanks, Michael. Have a great rest of your day.