So what’s a great tip when it comes to getting divorced? Well, given that almost half of all marriages go that way the best advice according to experts is the same as it is for good comedians: Timing.
Take billionaire hedge fund entrepreneur David Tepper, 56, who is apparently splitting from his wife of 28 years.
And baby boomers like David Tepper are getting divorced at an ever-faster rate. According to MarketWatch the rate doubled among adults of a certain age between 1990 and 2010.
Around 1-in-4 people aged 50 and older got divorced versus 1-in-8 two decades earlier, they found. One reason: Many middle-class people wait until they’re more financially secure before saying “I don’t.”
Many couples find that it’s less expensive, less inconvenient and less disruptive to part ways after the children graduate and leave home, says Abby Rodman, a psychotherapist in Boston. (Another theory: “The only way you can get out of a marriage is you can die or you can divorce,” Ruggles says. “People live long enough to divorce.”)
So the Divorce Advice?
Check the forecast for windfalls.
Experts say the Tepper divorce — if it goes ahead — would likely have been a lot less expensive had it happened before the financial crisis.
When many traders panicked in 2009, Tepper bought shares of troubled banks and earned around $7.5 billion in profit and nearly $4 billion for himself. It’s also important to be mindful of what you say in the media (for public figures) and social media (for the rest of us), says Randy Kessler, an Atlanta-based lawyer who wrote the book, “Divorce: Protect Yourself, Your Kids, and Your Future.”
If one party’s company is about to go public or he or she is about to come into a bonus or big inheritance, then wait to get divorced, says Shelly Church, a financial advisor at Raymond James in Naples, Fla. All such proceeds will be counted as marital property.
Couples with an underwater home — where the mortgage is worth more than the property — may also want to hold off. “During the housing market meltdown, there were often no liquid assets to distribute, Church says.
