It's never too late to find a good relationship. Here's proof.

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Have you ever stayed in a relationship, because you felt like it would be too hard to find another partner? This episode is for you.

Let this be a lesson for us all. Divorce is on the decline except for one key demographic: people over 50. So, in a world where many of us say it's harder to find friends or new relationships later in life, why are people 50 and up more likely to break up?

Brittany is joined by Texas Tech University professor Dana Weiser and University of British Columbia professor Rosie Strout. Together they come out the other side with a message for all of us: it's never too late to write a new love story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from how to be a better human, a podcast from TED.
0:04.4	Even if you're a self-help skeptic, you'll find inspiration to improve your life from fascinating
0:10.1	in-depth conversations with TED speakers. Find how to be a better human wherever you listen.
0:19.0	Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
0:35.6	I said this to myself when I was like very, very single and I say it now generally to everybody,
0:41.7	which is that like being single is neutral. Being very happy single or being in a happy
0:46.9	relationship, I think those are both positives. But being in a bad relationship, I think is like just such a negative. And it's like, oh, it's nice
0:57.2	to hear from you that there's like some data that actually supports this. Yes, absolutely. Wow.
1:08.0	Have you ever been in a relationship and stuck with it because you were scared you wouldn't find another partner?
1:14.2	Well, I think this next conversation is going to relieve some of that anxiety.
1:20.1	Y'all know I love a good statistic and this one gagged me.
1:24.8	Did you know that overall divorce rates are down? Except for one key demographic,
1:32.3	people over 50. It's a phenomenon called the gray divorce. So normally we define gray
1:39.1	divorce as any divorce for individuals age 50 or older.
1:50.2	So it's getting at that this is something that's happening towards the end of middle adulthood into later adulthood.
1:52.5	That's Texas Tech University professor Dana Weiser.
1:55.9	Both she and University of British Columbia professor, Rosie Strout, study relationships.
2:01.4	If women were in unhappy marriages, historically, they didn't have the economic independence
2:07.3	and freedom and education to be able to divorce and to have a life after that marriage.
2:13.9	They've also been paying attention to the changes in society over the last few decades that have shaped our understanding of divorce.
2:20.5	But now we have this generation of women who have the independence, who have the autonomy.
2:26.3	They might still have, you know, less economic independence and autonomy than men, of course.
	...

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