Opposite-Sex Marriages More Likely to End After Two Decades, Study Finds
As more couples stay together for their children, financial independence, longer life expectancy and fading intimacy are pushing many to reconsider their marriages after 20 years
New Delhi: People often use the term “seven-year itch” to describe the period when the excitement of a new marriage fades, arguments increase, and partners begin questioning their relationship. However, new data suggests that opposite-sex couples face another major turning point much later. After twenty years of sharing a home, raising children, managing finances, and handling daily responsibilities, many couples find that the spark that once brought them together has disappeared.
In England and Wales, more than a quarter of all opposite-sex divorces in 2025 involved couples who had been married for at least 20 years. These divorces accounted for 26 per cent of the 102,879 divorces recorded that year. Meanwhile, marriages lasting five to nine years accounted for 23 per cent of divorces. The median length of a marriage ending in divorce reached a record 13 years, the highest figure since records began in 1963. Same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales only in 2014, so comparable long-term data for same-sex couples remains limited. The current figures therefore mainly reflect opposite-sex marriages.
The United States shows a similar pattern. The number of grey divorces, which involve couples aged 50 and older, roughly doubled between the 1990s and the 2010s and has remained high. Nearly one-quarter of US divorces now involve couples who have been married for more than 25 years. People are living longer, some are marrying later, and many no longer believe they must remain in an unhappy marriage for the rest of their lives. Once their children grow up, some couples decide they want more than years of living together without a meaningful emotional or romantic connection.
This trend reflects a change in how people view long-term relationships. As children leave home, hormones change, careers slow down, and personal priorities shift, some partners begin questioning whether they want to spend the rest of their lives together. Women also often take the lead in deciding to end an unhappy marriage.
Why Has This Shift Happened?
For decades, society encouraged couples to endure difficult years for the sake of their children. Many stayed together, hid their resentment, and focused on maintaining a stable family. However, when their youngest child left for university or moved into their own home, couples often had to confront problems they had ignored for years.
Lisa Pepper, a divorce lawyer at Osbornes Law who regularly handles such cases, explains the pattern directly. “The largest percentage of cases I see are after a long marriage. Staying together for the sake of the children is true.”
She also highlights the financial factors that can make separation easier later in life. By the time children leave home, many couples have built property equity, reduced their mortgage payments, and accumulated pension savings. These assets can make it easier to divide their finances and establish separate households. As a result, couples who once felt financially trapped may finally see a practical way to leave.
Jeremy Todd, managing director of the family helpline Coram Family Lives, has heard similar accounts for nearly two decades. “Parents stay together for the sake of the children. Often empty-nest syndrome is the big reveal that there’s nothing really that’s keeping the couple together once their shared parenting has gone.” Once parenting no longer gives them a common purpose, couples must face “the tumbleweed of all the issues that remain unresolved.”
Professor Emma Hitchings of the University of Bristol, who has studied the financial effects of divorce, describes this pattern as a longer-term marriage crisis. People are marrying later and sometimes working harder to save their relationships. However, they may eventually decide that staying together costs them more emotionally than separating.
Longer life expectancy also affects these decisions. At 55 or 60, many people can reasonably expect to live another 20 or 25 years. They may question whether they want to spend those years in a relationship that lacks affection, desire, and meaningful conversation. Sociologist Susan Brown has highlighted how longer lives change people’s decisions about marriage. The prospect of spending another two decades in an unfulfilling relationship can push people to reconsider their choices.
The Real Reasons Couples Lose Their Spark After Two Decades
Most long marriages do not end because of one dramatic incident, although affairs still contribute to some breakups. More often, years of unresolved problems and emotional distance gradually weaken the relationship.
1. The slow decline of sexual desire
After years of raising children, managing careers, and caring for ageing parents, many couples stop prioritising their sex lives. Sex becomes less frequent, feels routine, or disappears completely.
Relationship therapists often hear couples describe how they became excellent co-parents but poor lovers. Sexual desire needs attention, communication, and effort. When partners neglect intimacy for years, rebuilding their physical connection can become difficult.
2. Growing into different people
People change as they grow older. Someone who marries at 28 may have very different priorities by the age of 48. Careers can reshape ambitions, parenthood can change personal goals, and partners can develop different ideas about the future.
One person may want to travel and explore new experiences, while the other prefers a quiet, predictable life. Differences that once attracted them to each other can eventually become sources of conflict, especially when neither partner feels willing to compromise.
3. Communication problems that never go away
Arguments that couples fail to resolve early in their marriages can continue for decades. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and refusing to communicate can damage a relationship over time.
By the time children leave home, some couples struggle to discuss anything beyond household responsibilities and finances. Old disagreements continue to shape their conversations, leaving little room for affection, understanding, or meaningful connection.
4. Financial independence, especially for women
More women in their fifties and sixties have careers, pension savings, and property of their own. This financial independence has reduced some of the economic fears that once prevented people from leaving unhappy marriages.
Women who previously worried about supporting themselves may now have more options. Although divorce still carries financial risks, greater independence allows people to make decisions based on their personal needs rather than financial survival.
5. Facing difficult questions during midlife
Midlife often encourages people to examine their lives and question their choices. They may ask themselves a simple but difficult question: Do I want to live this way for another twenty years?
Some decide they want personal growth, renewed intimacy, new experiences, or the freedom to pursue a different future. They may no longer feel willing to continue a marriage that does not meet their emotional needs.
Research on grey divorce consistently identifies several factors that can increase the risk of separation, including poor marital quality, remarriage, shorter periods of marriage in some later unions, and financial vulnerability. Researchers have found less support for the idea that an empty nest or retirement automatically causes divorce after they account for other factors.
However, many couples report that their children’s departure removes the last major responsibility they share. Without parenting to bring them together, they may finally confront the problems they have avoided for years.
What the Data Does Not Capture: The Emotional Reality
Statistics explain patterns, but they cannot fully capture the emotions behind a divorce. Women, in particular, often describe a period of private grief that begins years before they file the paperwork.
They notice that their partners no longer show affection, initiate intimate conversations, or express romantic interest. Everyday discussions revolve around schedules, bills, and household tasks. Gradually, they begin to feel like managers of a shared home rather than romantic partners.
Some remain in these marriages because they fear loneliness. Others still love their partners but no longer feel the emotional or sexual connection they once shared. Eventually, many realise that loving someone does not always mean feeling in love with them. They may still want romance and intimacy during the second half of their lives.
Men sometimes say they feel shocked when their wives ask for a divorce, while others feel relieved because they also recognise the relationship’s problems. Research suggests that many men experience a sharper reduction in their social networks after divorce.
The financial effects also differ. Women, on average, experience a greater decline in their standard of living after divorce, making financial planning especially important for those considering separation. Both partners can face loneliness, financial pressure, and the challenge of rebuilding their lives.
Can Couples Protect Their Marriage Against a 20-Year Crisis?
No relationship can guarantee lifelong happiness, but certain habits can help couples maintain their connection.
Continue dating each other. Couples should make time for shared experiences that do not revolve around children or household responsibilities. Regular dates help partners maintain their friendship and romantic connection.
Keep intimacy a priority. Partners should talk openly about their sexual needs, changing desires, and what they miss in their relationship. Honest conversations can help them understand each other and address problems before they grow.
Resolve resentment early. Couples should discuss disagreements, listen to each other’s concerns, and find solutions before frustration turns into lasting contempt.
Build a life beyond parenting. Raising children should not become a couple’s only shared purpose. Partners need common interests, goals, and experiences that give them reasons to look forward to life together after their children leave home.
Couples who maintain friendship, curiosity, affection, and emotional closeness alongside their practical responsibilities may handle the empty-nest transition more successfully. Those who focus entirely on raising their children may discover that parenting was the main thing keeping them connected.
The Quiet Revolution in How We Understand Forever
The rise in long-term divorces does not prove that marriage has failed. Instead, it suggests that people have become less willing to spend the second half of their lives in relationships that no longer meet their emotional needs.
Longer life expectancy, greater financial independence, especially among women, and changing attitudes towards personal fulfilment have made people less likely to remain married solely for their children.
However, ending a marriage after two decades brings genuine pain. Couples must deal with the loss of shared history, family traditions, private jokes, and familiar routines. Grey divorce can also create financial difficulties, loneliness, and complicated relationships with adult children.
At the same time, separation can bring relief, renewed sexual interest, greater independence, and an opportunity to build a more fulfilling life. Each couple faces a different experience, and divorce does not guarantee happiness any more than staying married guarantees security.
The data shows that the traditional seven-year marriage crisis is not the only period when couples question their relationships. For many opposite-sex couples, the twenty-year mark has become another important turning point. They must decide whether they want to rebuild their connection or move on.
The outcome depends on the relationship they have built over the years. Some couples continue to nurture their connection, while others assume that love will survive without attention.
Lasting love requires effort, curiosity, communication, and desire, even after twenty years together. Couples who continue to treat their relationship as a changing, intimate partnership may find ways to keep it strong. Others may decide that their marriage has reached its end and choose to discover what life can offer beyond it.
