Divorce is a huge deal, even for adult kids

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- It was a bombshell of mind-boggling magnitude. In February, Kelly received a phone call from her mother, who tearfully delivered the grim news that Kelly’s father was leaving her for another woman.

A marriage that produced four kids and lasted 42 years was about to die.

Kelly, who asked that her real name be withheld to protect her family’s privacy, recalls being in a state of shock as she relayed the news to her sister and two brothers. Then she rushed to her childhood home in Oakland, where she found her mother sobbing and her father packing up to leave.

“I tried to comfort her, and I just yelled at him,” she recalls. “It was so surreal, so terrible, so ugly. I was just completely blindsided by it all.”

Through the years, a great deal of attention and research has been focused on the corrosive impact divorce has upon young children. Conversely, it’s often assumed that adult offspring, because they’re mature and independent, are better equipped to take their parents’ divorce in stride.

But often, that isn’t the case. According to experts and those with firsthand knowledge, a late-life breakup between Mom and Dad can take a devastating toll on their adult offspring.

“For all those years, they’ve had a family structure and a reality that they could count on,” says Audrey Silverman-Foote, a marriage and family therapist in Pleasant Hill, Calif. “Now, all of a sudden, that ground has been ripped out from under their feet. It can be incredibly distressing.”

When a long-running marriage abruptly ends, childhood memories may be questioned (Was it all a facade?) and family customs thrown into disarray. In some cases, education or career plans may be threatened by financial issues. Moreover, adult children are often dragged into the mediation process.

And, in the coming years, more may experience the shock of it all. A 2009 survey conducted by Bowling Green State University researchers found that the divorce rate among older adults had doubled since 1980. They also predicted that, as baby boomers age, there will be “further growth” in the divorce rate for older adults.

This story was originally published August 9, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Divorce is a huge deal, even for adult kids."