Why More Couples Are Divorcing at Older Ages (and After More Years of Marriage) Than Before — and What You Can Do to Avoid It. Dennis and Claudia Hajjar celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary, so who better to talk to and get some advice from. Past research published in The Journals of Gerontology found that more than 1 in 4 people getting divorced in the United States are over age 50, and over half of those divorces happen after 20 years of marriage. Pew Research data from 2017 found that the rate of divorce after age 50 nearly doubled from 1990 to 2015.