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Uncoupling in the third age – the importance of the existential context for late-life divorce
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Peter Öberg
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- Ageing & Society , First View
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- 16 June 2023, pp. 1-23
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Late-life divorce is increasingly common in many Western countries, however, studies on this transition remain scarce. The purpose of this article is to study attributed reasons for late-life divorce, and if any life phase-typical aspects can be identified in these attributions. Qualitative interviews were carried out with Swedish men and women aged 62–82, who after the age of 60 had divorced from a cross-gender marital or non-marital co-habiting union (N = 37). The results, analysed using principles from Grounded Theory, revealed four different types of narratives: (a) incompatible goals for the third age, (b) personality change caused by age-related disease, (c) a last chance for romance, and (d) enough of inequality and abuse. A central insight and an original contribution generated by the study was the importance grey divorcees attributed to the existential conditions of later life in their divorce decisions. The results are discussed in relation to theories of late modern intimacy and the third age.
Nine - Consequences for social network and support structures
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
The previous chapter considered repartnering from the perspective of what a new partner could contribute in terms of social support. The purpose of this chapter is instead to investigate how the introduction of a new partner affects the wider social network. We ask how a new partner is accepted into the older individual's family and social network and we ask how these existing relationships are renegotiated as a consequence. In the chapter we show that in most cases a new partner is integrated into the older individual's social network. Second, we show that the partner is viewed as a resource for autonomy both for the older individual and for their children. Third, we show that a new partner tends to replace children and friends as the preferred provider of different forms of social support. Finally, we discuss different theoretical ways of understanding older people's social support networks and relate these models to our survey data.
The impact of life transitions on linked lives
Our starting assumption is that interdependent lives (cmpr. Elder, 1994) are affected by major life transitions, such as when the individual repartners, separates, retires and more. Hagestad (1988) has shown how transitions in one individual's life create ‘follow-transitions’ in other interdependent lives: marriage creates daughter-in-law and son-in-law relationships, divorce creates ex-relationships and parenthood creates grandparental relationships. Previous research has studied the effects that major life transitions have for interdependent lives (Fennell, 2004; Hyde & Higgs, 2004; Kaufman & Uhlenberg, 1998; Lee, 2004; H. Marshall, 2004; Moen, Kim & Hofmeister, 2001; Owen & Flynn, 2004; van Solinge & Henkens, 2005). However this research has mostly focused on major turning points in the institutionalised life course, such as entry into first marriage in young adulthood, birth of children, retirement and widowhood. Studies of transitions in later life and their effects on interdependent lives has mostly focused on widowhood. Less is known about the effects of divorce, and even less about the effects of meeting a new partner late in life.
How does loss of a partner through widowhood or divorce affect interdependent lives? Studies have found that contacts with adult children increase after widowhood, when children step in as the primary sources of instrumental support to their parent (Dykstra, 1993).
Frontmatter
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Intimacy and Ageing
- New Relationships in Later Life
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Peter Öberg
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This timely book, part of the Ageing in a Global Context series, addresses the gap in knowledge about late life repartnering and provides a comprehensive map of the changing landscape of late life intimacy.
Two - Intimacy and ageing in late modernity
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
In this chapter we will present different theoretical perspectives that we will use to discuss the structural preconditions for late-life intimacy in contemporary Western societies. In the chapter we discuss the rise of consumer society as a context for extending the lifestyles of mid-life into later life and the concurrent emergence of the third age as a historically new life phase of self-realisation. We also discuss the transformation of intimacy in the second half of the 20th century and how this transformation is shaped by different social and cultural contexts. Finally, we use developmental theory to consider the existential structure of the later phase of life and its implications for intimacy.
The changing landscape of later life
The life course is a social institution which varies by historical time and cultural context (Kohli, 2007). It determines the expected contents of the normal life and the timing of these events, for example education, work, marriage, parenthood and so on. As society changes, the institution of the life course will change as well and members of different cohorts will grow old in different ways (Riley, 1998). In the following we argue that the institution of the life course is a central structural condition that affects intimate relationships in later life. Opportunities for repartnering in later life will be different depending on the historical period in which individuals grow old and in which cultural context this takes place.
A central change in the institution of the life course in the last century, with important effects on the opportunity structure for new intimate relationships in later life, is the addition of years to the healthy lifespan. Together with improved material conditions and social reforms in many parts of the Western world it has given rise to a new phase of life, the third age (Laslett, 1989), a life phase between the second age of working life and the fourth age of frailty and dependence. The third age, which Laslett calls the ‘crown of life’, is characterised by active self-development and realisation of life plans. As part of the third age, the prolongation of life provides a central structural change of the life course that allows people to envision new intimate futures later in life.
Contents
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Four - From marriage to alternative union forms
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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In this chapter we continue the empirical investigation into the changing landscape of late-life intimacy. A central aspect of the transformation of intimacy is the deinstitutionalisation of marriage and the concurrent emergence of alternative forms for intimacy. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate union form in older people's intimate relationships. Older people are often expected to be conservative in their choice of union form – because they grew up in a time when marriage was the norm for people in intimate relationships, they are assumed to still prefer marriage for their unions. In this chapter we question this assumption and show that at least with regard to union form, older people tend to follow the times they live in, being part of the transformation of intimacy described in Chapter two. But we also argue that the later phase of life seems to have its own conditions that shape the choice of union form, such as having a wealth of earlier relationship experiences, being in a phase beyond work and reproduction, and having a restricted remaining lifetime. By showing the importance of the historical transformation of intimacy and the particular conditions of later life for the choice of union form, this chapter provides a foundation for the arguments in the following chapters.
A smorgasbord of union forms
Contemporary older people can choose from a number of different union forms, ranging from different types of LAT relationships, to living together in non-marital and marital cohabitation. If marriage for a long time was the normative and established union form for an intimate relationship, this hegemony has for half a century been challenged, first by non-marital cohabitation and later by LAT relationships, both of which can be a prelude, or an alternative, to a formalised marriage.
Cohabitation can be defined as two people living in an intimate relationship and sharing the same household (cmpr. Chevan, 1996). In some countries non-marital cohabitation has become an accepted alternative to marriage, while in others it is still a marginal phenomenon. Kiernan (2002) identifies four stages in the historical development of unmarried cohabitation: (1) a deviant avant-garde phenomenon, (2) a prelude to marriage, (3) a socially accepted alternative to marriage, (4) an alternative indistinguishable from marriage. According to Kiernan, Sweden and Denmark were among the first countries to make the transition into the fourth stage.
Seven - Initiation and development of new romantic relationships
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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In this chapter we aim to show how the patterns regarding attitudes and union choices uncovered in previous chapters are realised and negotiated in concrete individual lives and late-in-life relationships. The purpose of the chapter is to study the initiation and development of new late-life romantic relationships. We ask what the central issues are that need to be negotiated and resolved in order for a relationship to develop. Using four case studies, we follow the successive (but not necessary) development of late-life relationships through the negotiation of three central relationship questions: whether to initiate and continue a relationship or not; whether to move in together or not; and whether to get married or not. We show that the question of marriage is normally raised only in a later stage of a relationship's development – if ever. Thus marriage (‘marriage at first sight’) is seldom a relevant question for older singles.
Unveiling negotiation and change in new late-life Relationships
Negotiation has often been singled out as a characteristic trait of late modern intimate relationships, where both form and content of the relationship is thought to be determined less by external norms and conventions than used to be the case in modern society, and more through agreements between relatively equal partners. This is a key feature of Giddens’, Hackstaff's and Cherlin's arguments about contemporary intimacy (see Chapter two).
However, the insight that intimate relationships are characterised by negotiation and change often seems to be lost in research about older people. One reason, as we saw in Chapter six, is that until recently research has tended to focus on older singles and their attitudes to repartnering – rather than the experiences of repartnered older people. Another reason may be the assumption that older people belong to cohorts raised in marriage culture, presumably still living according to its ideals. As we showed in Chapter four, it is doubtful whether this assumption is true. Older people might in fact be freer than young adults to liberally choose the way they live together, since they rarely have nesting children. It has been argued that in later life both LAT (Ghazanfareeon Karlsson & Borell, 2002; Régnier-Loilier et al, 2009) and cohabitation (Brown et al, 2006; Brown & Wright, 2016; King & Scott, 2005) are often alternatives, rather than preludes, to marriage.
Index
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Ten - Sex in an ideology of love
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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While the former chapters have investigated different aspects of repartnering in later life, this chapter focuses on the importance of sex in those relationships. Even if sex is an integral part of most couple relationships and could have been studied under each of the previous chapters, we have chosen to dedicate a separate chapter to the issue in order to break the silence surrounding sex in later life. Until recently the sex life of older people was more or less invisible in family and gerontological research. When the world's first national study of sexual habits was carried out in Sweden in 1967 (Zetterberg, 1969), people 60 years or older were not included. Zetterberg concluded that to find the point at which sexual activity ceases one would have to include older age groups. Still, even at the beginning of the 21st century, the British national survey on sexual attitudes did not include people 45 years or older (Gott & Hinchliff, 2003a).
For a long time the dominant cultural storyline of older people in popular culture has been that of asexuality (Gott, 2005; Jones, 2002). The advent of Viagra and other pharmaceutical aids and the creation of the third age with new expectations for later life have spawned new cultural representations of a sexually active later life (see for example Bildtgård, 2000; Gott, 2005; Vares, 2009). It has been argued that sexual activity has become an integrated part of successful ageing (Katz & Marshall, 2003; B. L. Marshall & Katz, 2002). However, much of this ‘post-Viagra’ interest in older people's sexuality is inspired by and centred on the continuation of mid-life sexual practices, while other aspects tend to remain invisible (see for example Potts, Grace, Vares & Gavey, 2006). In her 2005 review, Gott stated that most studies on older people's sexuality ask ‘Which people “do it” and how often?’, but that the voices of older people themselves tend to be forgotten. The aim of this chapter is to contribute to breaking this silence.
This chapter is dedicated to the topic of late-life sexual intimacy. The specific focus of the chapter is the role and meaning of sex in intimate relationships in later life.
One - Introduction
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
This book is about late-life intimate relationships in cross-gender couples. Intimate relationships are among the most important relationships in our lives. They correspond to our longing to feel loved and appreciated, support our sense of self, give us a sense of belonging, and satisfy our physical desires. In other words they correspond to our deepest emotional, psychological and physical needs as human beings. Although these needs are arguably ageless, a widely held idea is that intimacy is associated with the earlier part of the life course, while later life is associated with the loss of intimate relationships and the decline of interest, expectations and physical abilities. This book will challenge this and other normative conceptions and stereotypes of late-life intimacy.
Stereotypes regarding older people's intimate relationships contribute to maintaining knowledge gaps with regard to late-life intimacy with consequences for ageing policy and practice, but also knowledge gaps in the wider fields of gerontology, family studies and sexology. Using international research, comparative international data and our own Swedish studies, this book will address these knowledge gaps by presenting a comprehensive overview of older people's attitudes, expectations and experiences of late-life repartnering.
Setting the scene
Consider the following two cohabiting persons who met late in life: Cohabiting Carl is a 70-year-old man with a complex relationship career and several biological and step-children from different marriages. Raised by liberal parents, he had his sexual debut at the age of 15 and had a number of intimate relationships before he met his first wife-tobe at the age of 23. Soon after meeting they moved in together and only after she got pregnant did they marry. The marriage, established in the 1960s (‘for love and friendship’), was not sexually exclusive, and other partners were accepted. After ten years Carl divorced. He then moved to Great Britain where he met his second wife, two years later. He describes the marriage as an emotional roller-coaster that ended in divorce 15 years later. Immediately thereafter he moved to an Asian country, where he met his third wife, whom he again divorced ten years later. After returning to Sweden he actively searched for a new intimate partner in online dating forums and dated a few women.
Three - The changing landscape of intimacy in later life
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
The title of this chapter alludes to Laslett's (1989) metaphor of the changing landscape of later life and refers to the changing conditions of late-life intimacy. While the previous chapter aimed to investigate the changing structural conditions for late-life intimacy from a theoretical perspective, the purpose of this chapter is to uncover the changing realities for repartnering using empirical data. In the chapter we show the prolongation of the lifespan in different countries and discuss its importance for older people's relationships and for envisioning new intimate futures. We illustrate the rise of divorce culture among older people using comparative data on divorce rates in different countries and show how this affects the partner market for older singles, by creating a ‘society of divorcees’ and potential for a ‘grey repartnering revolution’ – but also how the gendered structure of the partner market is affected by this change. Finally, we use survey data to show how new digital technologies have affected the dating arena by introducing new venues for meeting a new partner.
In this chapter and in the rest of the book we will be using three main sets of empirical data (described in detail in the methodological appendix at the end of the book): first, demographical data collected from Eurostat and a number of national census bureaus, including Statistics Sweden; second, a national representative survey with 1,225 responses from 60–90-year-old Swedes; and third, a qualitative interview study with 28 Swedes, 60–90 years old, who are currently dating singles or who have repartnered after their 60th birthday and are currently in a marital, cohabiting or LAT union.
The impact of the prolonged lifespan for envisioning new intimate futures
How people imagine their intimate futures is arguably affected by how much time they expect to have left in life in relatively good health (see also Chapter eleven). This perceived remaining healthy lifespan is likely influenced by the average length of life, which has increased in all countries of the Western world over the last half century (cmpr. Vaupel, 2010). If we take the age of 65, which is the chronological age most often used as a reference point for the transition into later life, statistics from the EU countries show that in the last half century (1960–2013), life expectancy at 65 has increased by on average five years.
Acknowledgements
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Five - A life of relationships
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
The purpose of this chapter is to attempt to bridge the macro–micro gap by showing how the historical transformation of intimacy described in earlier chapters is reflected in older individuals’ relationship careers. We will challenge the idea that current generations of older people have normally lived their lives in single lifelong marriages ending in widowhood and show that their relationship careers are instead often quite complex. A second purpose of the chapter is to discuss the consequences of prior relationship experiences on interest in, and preferences for, late-life intimacy. We discuss the different implications of being widowed versus divorced for interest in repartnering and explain why divorcees are often more prepared to repartner. This is important in relation to the fact that the society of older divorcees will soon be bigger than the community of older widowed people in many Western countries (as described in Chapter three). Finally we focus on the different biographical relationship experiences of women and men and how they impact on the interest for repartnering in later life. We will conclude the chapter with a discussion of our findings in relation to the deinstitutionalisation of the life course thesis. In contrast to the previous chapters this chapter will make extensive use of biographical case descriptions and quotes to give the reader a richer understanding of what it means to have lived one's life during the historical transition to divorce culture.
Relationship careers among older Swedes
In our opening case we introduced Cohabiting Carl and Caroline, who had had rather complex relationship careers, involving marriages and remarriages, divorces and widowhood but also a number of nonmarital relationships and separations. Their relationship experiences correspond directly to the normative changes following the transition from marriage to divorce culture, but they also had a concrete impact on the organisation of their current relationship – for example due to three earlier divorces Carl did not want to remarry, and due to grief after being widowed in her second marriage Caroline was totally uninterested in new romantic episodes for almost 20 years.
It is often assumed that older people have lived their adult lives in lifelong marriages lasting until widowhood – and that after widowhood they will stay single unless they remarry (Lopata, 1996).
Eight - A new partner as a resource for social support
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
The previous chapters of the book have focused on structural factors impacting on repartnering in later life and how these factors shape older people's attitudes and experiences of repartnering. The following two chapters instead focus on the consequences of repartnering for older individuals and their social network. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the gains of repartnering in old age. We ask what a new intimate relationship can offer the individual who repartners in later life and if these rewards are different in later life than earlier in life. The chapter starts with a brief presentation of two theoretical perspectives that have been used to understand the reasons for late-life repartnering: rational choice theory and functionalism. The chapter continues by detailing different kinds of social support that a new relationship can offer the individual – companionate, emotional and practical support. The chapter will primarily be based on a review of previous research. Since our own interviews support earlier research, in this chapter they are primarily used to illustrate and provide a deeper understanding of those findings.
The gains of repartnering
Research about late-life relationship transitions has primarily focused on the loss of a partner through widowhood, and also, but to a much lesser extent, through divorce. Loneliness is an important consequence of widowhood for both men and women, who miss the life they had with their partner and the support he or she provided (Carr, 2004; Carr et al, 2002; Davidson, 2001, 2002; Dykstra & Gierveld, 2004; Stevens, 2004; Öberg, Andersson & Bildtgård, 2016). Some studies of divorce (Aquilino, 1994; Cooney & Dunne, 2001; Daatland, 2007; Shapiro, 2003) have furthermore suggested that parent–child relationships, especially between older fathers and their adult children, suffer negatively from a parental divorce and contribute to social isolation of the older parents (although some studies do not support these findings, for example Dykstra, 1993; K. Glaser, Stuchbury, Tomassini & Askham, 2008).
But all transitions in later life are not necessarily about loss, they can also include gains. Later life can offer the opportunity to gain new intimate partners. A substantial minority of older singles will find a new partner and even more are interested in repartnering.
Notes
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Eleven - Time as a structuring condition for new intimate relationships in later life
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
It is often claimed that ‘love is ageless’. But is this really true? In this chapter we pose the question: is there something that sets intimate relationships in later life apart from relationships in earlier parts of the life course? Earlier in this book we have considered how intimate relationships in later life are shaped by historical and cultural conditions. In this chapter we will instead be focusing on how they are shaped by the particular existential structure of later life. We will argue that old age is a life phase characterised by a paradox of time: that of having lots of available free time, but little time left in life – and that this existential structure shapes intimacy in later life. We will argue that the scope of this theoretical insight is much wider than the Swedish case – or even than the topic of intimate relationships.
An existential theory of time
In recent years, there has been a rise of interest in the concept of time within the social sciences in general (for example Adam, 2004). However, in social gerontology this discussion still seems limited, especially considering that the whole topic of ageing is essentially about time. A review of the keywords in articles published in one important social gerontological journal, Ageing and Society, between 1994 and 2011, revealed only four articles that included time as a keyword. Also, very few titles (for example Baars, 2013; Baars & Visser, 2007; McFadden & Atchley, 2001) deal specifically with the subject of time and ageing.
In the social philosophy of time, a central distinction is between perspectives that view time as an objective category (natural or social) external to the individual, and perspectives which view time as a subjective experience, internal to the individual's mind. The former perspective is evident in the theoretical proposition regarding the institutionalised life course that members of a society share cultural schedules of how a normal life should be organised over time, based on the objective category of chronological time (Hagestad & Neugarten, 1985; Neugarten, 1969). A number of social philosophers, from Heidegger to Mead and Schutz (Adam, 2004) have instead viewed time as a subjective experience.
List of figures and tables
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Methodological appendix
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
The results in this book are based on two Swedish family gerontological studies. The first research project, ‘New Relationships in Later Life – Changing Forms of Intimacy in Late Modernity’, was a qualitative interview study, financed by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte 2009-0720) and carried out between 2010 and 2011. The second project ‘New Relationships in Later Life – A Quantitative Survey’, was a nationwide postal survey, financed by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and the Social Sciences (P11: 0909–1) and carried out in 2013.
The purpose of both projects was to study:
• attitudes to initiating new intimate relationships in later life (for example union form);
• expectations of what a new intimate relationship will offer the individual (for example emotionally, sexually, socially, financially and in terms of informal care);
• experiences of new intimate relationships in later life and the forms these relationships take (for example marriage, cohabitation, LAT, dating, casual meetings) and the impact of new relationships in later life on the experiences of ageing and life satisfaction.
Below we describe the methodology of the two studies in detail.
The qualitative interview study
The qualitative interview study had an explorative character, focusing specifically on experiences of repartnering in later life. For the study 28 participants, aged 60–90, were recruited who had initiated a new relationship after the age of 60, or who were actively searching for one. Interviewees were approached through advertisements, articles in the media and educational conferences arranged by retirees’ organisations. For the recruitment we used what Patton (2002, p 243) refers to as a purposeful sampling strategy, or more specifically ‘maximum variation sampling’; that is, purposefully considering a wide range of informants who could potentially provide rich information about the research question (see also Plummer, 2001). To guarantee maximum variation volunteers were selected using a predefined structured sampling framework that assured representation from men and women, youngold and old-old people, and different forms of intimacy – singles, LATs, cohabitants and marrieds – in order to capture the full diversity of the phenomenon of late life repartnering.
The qualitative interviews had an average length of two hours (ranging from 1h 05m to 3h 16m).
Six - Attitudes towards new romantic relationships
- Torbjörn Bildtgård, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete, Peter Öberg, Högskolan i Gävle, Sweden
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Summary
In research on ageing and intimacy one area that has received a fair amount of interest is the attitudes of older people towards repartnering. However, this research is quite disparate and the results are hard to sum up. Many studies of older singles have shown overwhelmingly negative attitudes towards forming new relationships, while other studies have shown older people to be very interested in new relationships, although avoiding marriage. The answers depend on who the respondents are and what they are asked about. The relatively recent transition to divorce culture means that for a long time there has been a lack of concepts for talking about non-marital relationships. Also, an investigation into the epistemological preliminaries (Bourdieu, Chamboredon, Passeron & Krais, 1991) of this research reveals that the area is full of assumptions stemming from the wider research agendas that these studies are part of. For example, much research is about widowhood and consequently investigates attitudes towards new relationships as a way of managing widowed life. By framing the question in terms of the problem of widowhood the attitudes of other groups, such as divorcees and never-marrieds, towards (re)marriage and other forms of relationships (dating, cohabitation, LAT) become less visible. This can be increasingly misleading if we consider the growing society of divorcees.
The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the attitudes of older people towards intimate relationships in later life and we ask two central questions: (1) Attitudes to what? For example marriage, dating, a romantic partner, living together or apart? Attitudes may well differ strongly depending on what one is asking about. (2) The attitudes of whom? Women or men? Divorcees, widowed or never married people? Singles, LATs, cohabitants or marrieds? Older people themselves or those in their surroundings, such as children, relatives or the generalised other? Attitudes are likely to depend on who the persons holding the attitudes are and what their experiences are. Finally we consider our Swedish data to update and fill in some of the gaps in previous research. By not focusing solely on marriage we show that older people's interest in repartnering is likely higher than what has been proposed before.