Jean True had been married for 38 years in 2008 when her husband announced he was leaving her. “He said he wanted to be on his own,” she recalls. She was 61, with three grown sons and four granddaughters.

True knew she’d have to be “a lot more savvy about spending and saving” after the divorce. Her ex-husband, a retired schoolteacher, had always taken care of their finances. So True had to learn quickly how to manage accounts and handle bills and taxes along with selling the Wisconsin house where the couple had planned to retire. “It was wearing and stressful,” says True, who now lives near her sons in a condo in Winfield, Ill.

True and her ex are part of a striking trend in America: the stunning rise in divorces among people 50 and older. Between 1990 and 2009, the divorce rate nearly doubled for this group, even as the overall divorce rate dropped, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. In 1990, just 1 in 10 people who got divorced was over 50; today, it’s 1 in 4. With people living longer, healthier lives and the stigma of divorce easing, a growing number of men and women are bailing out of marriages their parents’ generation might have reluctantly clung to.

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