Adult children experience more engagement with their aging parents as life expectancy increases (Connidis, 2020). This reality may lead to role reversal as parents grow older and their physical and mental abilities change (e.g., Rossi & Rossi, 2018). Late-life divorce is also expanding in Western countries due to increased life expectancy and changes in social perceptions. Along with these trends, divorce is being viewed as an opportunity for self-determination rather than as a failure. While the divorce rate among young adults remains stable, the increase in late-life divorce, especially among adults aged 65 years and older, raises questions about how they will handle old age and the consequences for individuals and families (Brown & Lin, 2022).

There has been limited empirical attention to the consequences of late-life divorce (Tosi & van den Broek, 2020). It is especially important to examine the experiences of adult children, because of the possible consequences for individuals' well-being and for the family system. Our aim is to examine the experience of adult children with their parents' late-life divorce from a familial and dyadic perspective, using the family systems framework commonly used in family gerontology research (Humble et al., 2020).

Ties between adult children and aging parents

Family ties between adult children and their parents are especially meaningful in the second half of life, becoming a significant source of support for both sides (Fingerman et al., 2020). Ties between adult children and their parents typically involve frequent support exchanges (Connidis, 2020). Parents usually help their adult children, especially when children experience life problems (Gilligan et al., 2017). However, as parents age, they expect to receive support from their children (Kim et al., 2017). This could create role reversal as manifested in personal care for parents (Rossi & Rossi, 2018). Demographic trends such as longevity and higher divorce rates indicate that ties between adult children and parents are now more common than any other relationship in adulthood. Accordingly, individual life transition such as divorce is reflected in complex changes in intergenerational support (Fingerman et al., 2020), with consequences for all areas of life.

Late-life divorce and adult children

Divorce is a life-changing event and a stressful process for the entire family (Spremo, 2020). Divorce has been widely studied among families with young and adolescent children under age 18 years (Lange et al., 2022) but less is known about adult children's experiences of their parents' late-life divorce (Lin et al., 2022). Additionally, late-life divorce is usually defined as divorce occurring at age 50 years or older (Brown & Lin, 2022). Knowledge on divorce in the older age groups (60 years or older) and its consequences for adult children is less available. Divorce has been reconceptualized as a process that typically begins years before the legal dissolution and extends for years after (Tullius et al., 2022). In recent decades, considerable information has been gathered on negative implications of divorce for the well-being of young children and on the main factors driving it (Amato, 2014), and also on the consequences of divorce experienced at a young age on well-being in adulthood (Demir-Dagdas, 2021).

Late-life divorce affects the divorcing individuals as well as their adult children and subsequent generations (Shanholz et al., 2021). The outcomes of late-life divorce for adult children are significant and have an impact on family relationships and roles (Abetz & Wang, 2017). Adult children might face the unique challenge of assisting parents in two households and the need to provide emotional, social, or financial support (Abetz & Wang, 2017). Studies have found negative effects of strained parent–adult child (18 years of age or older) relationships during the time of the parental divorce, even though the children are adults and not living with their parents. However, not all adult children described the same experience, and the negative effect did not necessarily last for many years (Greenwood, 2014).

Pervious research examining adult children of divorced parents has focused on the impact of divorce on adult children's disorders such as depression and anxiety (Sands et al., 2017). Other studies examined changes in adult children's filial responsibilities, including the need to provide emotional, social, or financial support to aging parents (Abetz & Wang, 2017) and negative influence on adult children relationship with their aging parents (Tosi & Gähler, 2016). Later studies found that late-life divorce has different effects on adult–child relationships with fathers and mothers. Frequency of fathers' contact with their adult children decreased but financial support increased. However, late-life divorce did not change mothers' closeness to or financial support for their adult children. It increased interaction between them with the probability of frequent contact doubling after divorce (Lin et al., 2022). Studies have identified challenges for adult children following their parents' late-life divorce. These challenges include strained parent–child relationships, unmet needs of adult children, and impacts their psychological well-being (Mikucki-Enyart et al., 2018). However, late-life divorce also has some positive outcomes, such as developing healthy patterns of resilience and growth (Abetz & Wang, 2017; Mikucki-Enyart et al., 2018). Nevertheless, information is lacking about the effects of late-life divorce on adult children when parents divorce at age 60 years or older after a long-term marriage raising children. To investigate further, we applied a familial and dyadic analysis to empirical research in Israel.

Late-life divorce in Israel

Divorce rates in Israel are low compared with other Western countries: The crude divorce rate (CDR), defined as the number of divorces during the year per 1,000 people, was 1.7 in 2016 as opposed to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2019) average of 2.0. Divorce rate at age 55 years or older had more than doubled between 1996 and 2019, from 1.6% to 4.1% (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics [ICBS], 2021). Among those 60 years of age or older, 67% are married; 90.8% of these individuals are in their first marriage, and 96.1% have children (ICBS, 2021). Along with an increase in life expectancy among older adults aged 65 years or older (Shnoor & Cohen, 2022), Israel is becoming a more individualistic society (Berkovitch & Manor, 2022). These trends can affect adult children's sense of responsibility to support their aging parents in a life transition like divorce. On the other hand, Israel is a more family-oriented society with strong family loyalties (Fogiel-Bijaoui & Rutlinger-Renewer, 2013). This complex reality can create conflicts between adult children and their parents and increase adult children's burden.

The limited research on late-life divorce in Israel has focused on its causes (Rokach et al., 2004) and consequences for grandparent–grandchildren relationships (Even-Zohar, 2022), whereas knowledge on adult children's experience is not as available. Accordingly, research on their experiences may help identify mechanisms that could contribute to family gerontology practice in helping adult children adjust to the new family reality after their parents' late-life divorce.

A family systems framework

Family systems is a theoretical framework frequently used in family gerontology research (Bowen, 1978; Humble et al., 2020). In this theory, family relationships can best be understood by viewing the family as a set of subsystems. Late-life divorce is a life event that changes the family system (Van Gasse & Mortelmans, 2020). Accordingly, the main system of the parents and the subsystems of the adult children are expected to undergo a change following the divorce. These changes may include the creation of new systems and subsystems.

In this study, we apply this perspective to the consequences of late-life divorce for adult children, considering the co-effects of the divorced parents' subsystem and the adult children's subsystem. The main elements of the family system, including structure, relationships, roles, and boundaries, are examined in the context of late-life divorce. This is consistent with our aim and the research question: How do adult children experience their parents' late-life divorce? We use a familial/dyadic perspective, introduced in the next section, to construct the study's theoretical premises and analyze the empirical findings.

METHOD

Data for this article is part of a large qualitative interview study funded by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF no. 811/19), titled: “The Meaning and Experience of Late-Life Divorce: A Dyadic, a Gender and an Intergenerational (Ex)family Perspective.” The larger study's aim was to examine experiences of late-life divorce by studying family units and deriving individual, gender, dyadic, and family perspectives. The research questions were related to the timing of the divorce occurring in old age, the sociocultural context of the divorce, gender and intergenerational differences in the experience, and consequences of late-life divorce.

We used principles of thematic analysis interested in meaning building from the information provided by participants (Braun & Clark, 2013). Having sufficient information is important and does equate to numbers. We also used dyadic interview analysis, which includes identifying contrasts and overlaps, and congruences and incongruences within dyads (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010).

Participants

The study population was families and dyads of adult children and their parents who divorced for the first time at age 60 years or older after a long-term marriage raising children. This is the most common family type for this cohort in Israel. The age criterion was 60 years or older to capture life transitions typical of this cohort such as the empty nest.

Data from two subsamples were used. One subsample included seven family units. Each family unit comprised two parents (n = 14) and one to four adult children (n = 19), for a total of 33 participants. The other subsample included nine adult-child–parent dyads; each dyad comprised one parent and one adult child (n = 18 participants). Thus, a total of 51 participants (n = 14 + 9 = 23 parents; n = 19 + 9 = 28 adult children), were interviewed. The adult children were between ages 19 and 40 years at the time of their parents' divorce. Most of the parents (n = 19) divorced at age 60 years or older. Four parents divorced between the ages of 56 and 59 years. They were included due to difficulty in recruiting both ex-spouses and because their spouse was aged 60 years or older at the time of divorce. All the participants divorced after a long-term marriage, lasting between 29 and 45 years. See Table 1 for demographic information. The number of participants was determined according to data saturation when information was repeated (Braun & Clarke, 2013).

Participants and study procedure

Recruitment included a sponsored Facebook campaign that was used to offer potential participants the opportunity to initiate contact with a research team member. Participation was voluntary without compensation. Participation was confirmed based on age of divorce from a first long-term marriage and having adult children at time of divorce. The parents recruited their adult children. A separate interview with each participant was scheduled after the study aims were explained and the participant gave verbal consent during the first phone call. In addition, as the ethics committee recommended, audio-recorded consent in the participant's voice without stating their name was received by all interviewees at the beginning of the interview, to ensure confidentiality. Ethics approval (No. 011/20) was received from the Faculty Ethics Committee of the University of Haifa. Confidentiality was assured after the study's objectives were explained to participants. Demographic information that might identify participants was changed or removed from the study findings presented here. Study materials are qualitative interviews in Hebrew and are unavailable for ethical reasons to protect participants privacy.

Data collection by the research assistants and the principal investigator took place between February and October 2020. Before the COVID-19 outbreak in Israel, we conducted in-person interviews according to participants' choice at their home or a café. However, after seven interviews, we had to switch to online interviews during lockdowns. When in-person interviews became possible again, participants were given a choice between in-person and online. Interestingly, although in-person interviews are usually considered preferable (Davies et al., 2020), we did not detect meaningful differences in data richness, depth, and openness between our online and in-person interviews. This suggests that the quality of participant–interviewer interaction (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009) may be more important than the location or medium of an interview.

The research tool, a semistructured interview guide adapted to both generations, included the following opening question: “Tell me what your/your parents' late-life divorce is for you.” Further open-ended questions were asked about married life, late-life divorce, old age, gender, and intergenerational relationships from the perspective of each generation. Clarification questions were asked when necessary (Kvale & Brikmann, 2009). Interviews were conducted separately with each participant in Hebrew, lasted between 1 and 3.5 hours, and were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim for data analysis. Online Zoom interviews were video- and audio-recorded. For ethical reasons, video recordings were deleted immediately after the interview. The quotes used in this article were translated into English by the corresponding author (C. K.), who is bilingual, and were verified by the other authors.

Analysis

Analysis was based on principles of inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013) and dyadic interview analysis (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010). Data were organized using Microsoft Office Excel worksheets and Word documents for the interviews, using the features “line numbers” and “new comment.” The following six steps were employed:

1. Familiarity with the data was achieved by reading and rereading each interview and writing notes related to the topics repeatedly emerging from the interviews.
2. Initial codes were generated in a systematic fashion across all the interviews, collating data relevant to each code for identification of the central themes. Deriving the themes involved inclusive and comprehensive coding (Braun & Clarke, 2013). Coding was conducted manually, and equal importance was assigned to each data item. The adult children's experiences of their parents' divorce were identified as meaningful. Within these experiences, a central theme that emerged was the adult children's involvement in the divorce, manifested in the roles they took during and following it.
3. The central theme was reexamined and refined by employing selective coding (Braun & Clarke, 2013). This was achieved by locating all the quotes concerning the roles that the adult children played during and after the divorce, which were described by each member of the family units/parent–child dyads. Some of the adult children directly used the term role, and some indirectly described roles they took on or were assigned by their parents, by richly describing experiences related to their involvement in the divorce. The parents described the roles they imposed on their adult children, intentionally or unintentionally, and their retrospective view of these roles.
4. All quotes concerning the roles played by the adult children were organized in a table, according to family units and parent–child dyads. This analysis included highlighting all direct and indirect references to roles within these quotes and deriving a concise summary of all the family members/parent–child dyad perspectives.
5. Types of roles played by the adult children were identified and named (e.g., avoiding, supporting; see Results). The timing at which these roles were performed was identified (i.e., during the divorce and/or after the divorce).
6. An integrative analysis of the roles was written based on dyadic interview analysis, with special attention given to overlaps, contrasts, congruences, and incongruences between experiences of dyad/family members (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010).

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness was achieved (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) by holding ongoing periodic research team meetings to present rich and thick descriptions, address complexities in the analysis, resolve disagreements, and provide reflexivity. Trustworthiness was also achieved through data triangulation within dyadic and family units and between units. Audit trial was produced by providing a detailed account of methods, procedures, and decisions, and maximum variation was sought in the dyadic and familial data.

RESULTS

This section illustrates the roles adult children experience during and after parents' late-life divorce, noting contrasts, overlaps, congruences, and incongruences between children's and parents' experience, along with consequences for family relations and adult children's emotions.

Adult children's roles experienced during late-life divorce: Supporting, mediating, pushing, avoiding

Late-life divorce processes can last many years due to indecisiveness, financial and/or emotional disputes between spouses, or one side's refusal to divorce. All the adult children experienced playing a meaningful role during the divorce process by supporting their parents or mediating between them, expressing a position, or avoiding any involvement. The parents also described the roles they chose to assign (or not) to their children during the divorce process and the consequences of this action.

Four roles were identified: (a) Supporting—adult children emotionally and instrumentally supporting their parents; (b) mediating—adult children mediating between their parents during the divorce process; (c) pushing—adult children encouraging their parents to finalize the divorce; and (d) avoiding—adult children choosing not to get involved. Some roles were chosen by the children, and some were assigned to them by their parents.

Support

Some adult children described being assigned roles they were not interested in, particularly supporting their parents emotionally.

Emotional support

About a third of the participants described this role. The adult children were unexpectedly required to support their parents emotionally during the divorce process and its aftermath, including hearing intimate details about the marriage that they would have preferred not to know. This role placed an emotional burden on the adult children and, in some cases, created distance between family members. This role was mainly assigned to daughters by mothers.

The difficulty some children experience in accommodating their parents during the divorce process and some parents' reflectivity regarding the emotional harm caused by involving their children is illustrated by one of the families. The eldest daughter described her emotional difficulty dealing with her mother's feelings about her father:

With my mother and her endless anger at my father and her endless profanity about my father, which was fine, we could contain it and understand it at first, but at some point, it's enough, we're his children too. I mean you can't [listen to it]. I think if we had been younger then, it would have really led to parental alienation. But we were already older then.

The daughter described the consequences of this role on her relationship with her mother, which was characterized by disconnections, fights and conflicts that led to emotional distancing:

After my parents broke up … she [my mother] called me one day … she started yelling on the phone that she's lonely and she's like a dog and she's alone and she's this and blah blah blah. And I got angry, I told her: “Listen, I'm not your punching bag. Like stop yelling at me like that, stop talking to me like that. I didn't do it, I didn't do it to you.” And I don't know, from there, she got angry and she threatened to cut off the relationship with me, I told her: “You know what? Cut it off.” … But since then I keep a distance from her, like, emotionally.

The younger daughter's experience coincided with her sister's, who also talked about fights and disconnection from the mother, along with dealing with her parents' high expectations for her support, putting her in an inconvenient position:

I was fed a lot of poison by my mother about my father … she would take out her anger mainly on me and my sister. … I had a lot of fights with her until I realized that I just had to put her in her place. … I just told her unequivocally that if she wants contact with me, she [needs to] stop, she needs to go to therapy, she's not taking it out on me anymore, I won't accept that. … Because of all the pain my mother experienced … I constantly felt that I should be there for her. I felt that if I didn't do what they asked, if I didn't come to dinner, I would offend them.

The mother, divorced 9 years after 32 years of marriage, with three adult children, described regretting her behavior:

I got her [the daughter] terribly involved in what was happening, in the betrayals and all that. It made her feel bad, she told me, “I'm not your friend, stop telling me, it doesn't interest me. Not that I'm not interested, I don't want to know, I can't help you.” Yes, I made some mistakes over time, because no, I didn't realize that I needed to go to, maybe a psychologist, maybe let things out. And she was always like a lifeline for me … . It turns out that it is not like that, because mothers are not allowed to involve their children so much, it turns out, it does them no good, it created a distance between us.

Practical support

This role included parents requesting their children's practical help during the divorce process, as described in one family, comprising two parents divorced 10 years, after 40 years of marriage, with three children.

The father described how his son's practical involvement caused family tensions: “There was a bit of tension, because I asked my son to divide the property between us because of his profession … and after she [my ex-wife] said yes then she suddenly questioned his integrity.” The youngest daughter added her experience of being involved in practical issues like finance and the need to share an apartment with her father during the divorce process:

The fact that we were, like, older, meant that we were spared nothing. Like, we were involved in reasons, we were involved in fights, we were involved in finances … and my father actually moved in with me in an apartment. Because it was our apartment, like the family's. From here to there, my father and I lived together for about half a year, during the time when my parents were getting divorced.

The daughter went on to describe the children's involvement in practical aspects and how her brother's financial proposal to settle the divorce created anger within the family:

Nobody came and put the things on the table, and then there was this attempt on our part, mainly my brother led this axis of solving it without courts, without lawyers. Like, my brother came up with some kind of real financial proposal for this thing, and my mom refused. And then it stirred us up a lot of … and made us angry, that like you can't close it, like, as a family, we felt we could bring it to a good close.

These quotes illustrate the possibility of parents turning to their adult children for help with practical matters during the divorce process based on the adult children's capabilities. Furthermore, it illustrates ex-spouses' possible differences of opinion about involving their children.

Mediating

About a quarter of the participants described this role. Adult children in this role tried to mediate between their parents and help them finalize the divorce process in a dignified manner, with as little emotional or financial damage as possible. Some children used their professional training or personal qualities to help their parents during the process. Adult children taking an active part as mediators, despite their parents stating they did not want to involve their children, is illustrated by one family, comprising two parents and four sons. The parents had been divorced 11 years, initiated by the mother after 40 years of marriage due to a mutual crisis of trust on economic grounds. Because the divorce process included settling financial matters, the sons took the role of mediator.

Both parents explained that they made a conscious decision not to involve the children, to ensure that they were not forced to take a position. The father:

The children really didn't try to influence [us] because we wanted to [divorce], the decision was not to share this issue with them. I mean, with us, a divorce is a divorce, but the children are children, were children, and remain children. … I don't want to put them in a situation where they take a position here or there, it's unfair.

The mother reinforces the father's position emphasizing the children did not interfere: “Our children throughout the whole story, they were umnikim [literally “from the United Nations,” or neutral] and did not intervene, either on my side nor his side, to their credit and to our credit, it can be said that we also tried. They did not take sides.” The children, in contrast, experienced serving as mediators between their parents despite their parents not wanting to involve them. The second son stated that although the parents did not want them to interfere, the sons made it clear to them that they were no longer young children, and this calmed them down:

We had to be mediators in the middle because they couldn't talk to each other … . I was a kind of, I won't call it a mediator because I'm not, it wasn't my role to mediate, but I was a kind of conduit for transmitting information and a conduit for conveying messages … . So, my part was to try to clarify the other side in front of each of the parties. … For their part, they also didn't want too much to involve any of the children in most situations. They tried very, very hard during the whole process for us not to be involved. And I also remember one conversation where we told them that we are involved because we are their children and we are not small children, we understand the issue, so they relaxed a bit.

The fourth son added that although the parents did not want to involve the children, he felt the need to try to bridge the gap between them because of his personality:

Especially in those two very charged years [the divorce process], I felt a very strong need to come and try to mediate. And many times, not because they put me in the middle, I mean … they had their burdens which came out all the time, but I also had a very big part in the position that I put myself in. I mean, I developed the conversations [with the parents] and tried to calm the spirits of each of the parties.

This son went on to describe a sense of feeling torn between his parents, even while trying to maintain a neutral position, experiencing it as difficult:

In the first 2 years …, it was very difficult because I felt like I was in the middle. … To really present them with the other side, of course, which probably provoked arguments and heated arguments many times. In most cases it was kept within the bounds of understanding; sometimes it got more heated. But I did it because it wasn't always easy, even for me, but on the other hand I felt it was important because no one else would do it. … The reason I kept putting myself in the middle was because I said they are doing harm not only to the other, they are harming themselves in terms of their perspective. And it was very, very hard for me.

These examples illustrate that although some children voluntarily took an active role as mediator during the divorce, despite their parents' opposition, this position was experienced as difficult. In some cases, there was a gap between parents' and children's perceptions regarding the children's involvement with the parents' divorce.

Pushing

Less than a fifth of the participants described this role. As opposed to hesitating to express their position regarding the need for divorce, these adult children took the role of encouraging one of the parents to divorce due to the suffering they witnessed over the years. This is illustrated by a family of two parents and three adult children. At the time of the interview, the parents had been divorced for 6 years after 42 years of marriage because of marital burnout and mutual infidelity.

The father stated that his children tried to convince him to divorce because of the troubled relationship between the couple:

Friends saw, saw, saw, and I did not see [the mother's behavior]. Until one day my son said: “Dad, mom is abusing you, why don't you go?” … The children were already adults. My daughter said: “It's about time you got divorced, it's good that you got divorced,” wrote us an amazing letter in-depth why you must divorce, and better sooner than later.

The son reinforced that he pressured his parents to divorce and even went so far as to present an ultimatum regarding their participation in his wedding: “I was glad they got divorced. I told them that if they don't sign the divorce [papers] they are not invited to my wedding …. They engaged in such stupid fights. For me [the divorce was] a relief.” The son pressuring his parents illustrates a high level of involvement in divorce, illustrating adult children's ability to influence their parents' decision-making, in contrast to children who experience divorce when they are younger.

Avoiding

About a fifth of the participants described this role. In contrast to the previous roles characterized by some level of involvement, some children decided to avoid taking part in the divorce process, as illustrated by one son, whose parents had been divorced for 4 years after 36 years of marriage:

I emotionally detached myself from the process because I saw it as something that belongs to them, we are no longer at an age where it affects me too much, maybe it will affect me at a later stage, but right now it doesn't. I didn't feel like it was changing our lifestyle too much.

This quote emphasizes the meaning of late-life divorce when children are leading their own lives, capable of avoiding involvement in their parents' divorce.

Another example of trying to avoid involvement and its consequences is one daughter, whose parents divorced 3 years before the interview after 28 years of marriage. She described the feeling of being “caught in the middle” and explained that it was important to her to avoid taking sides. However, this neutral position hurt her mother:

I didn't like the war between versions; I believed in both. Each with their own experience and each with how they interpret things, and it was clear to me that there was also a lack of communication, and it was also clear to me that I love them both, and I didn't try to catch one with a mistake or a lie. … And she [my mother] didn't understand how I don't take sides, she took it personally, she was hurt by me not taking sides.

These examples illustrate the difficulty of trying to avoid involvement along with the parents' expectations that their children take a stand. Some of the adult children felt torn between their two parents even though they tried to maintain a neutral position, while each of the parents pulled in their own direction, which was emotionally exhausting for the children.

Adult children's roles experienced following late-life divorce

Adult children discussed roles that continued after the divorce along with new roles. All roles are related to care expectations starting earlier than expected with a heavier burden of having to support each parent separately. Supporting was the role that continued, and the new roles included worrying and relieving loneliness.

Continued role

Supporting

About half of the adult children continued to support their parents emotionally and functionally after the divorce. One son, whose parents divorced after 41 years of marriage, explained:

It's very difficult to make this switch and you suddenly become the responsible adult in the system … it was tough, I expected to take care of them at an older age, and now I'm there providing emotional support to him and her … taking care of them started earlier, what had happened so far, they had each other … when one of them needs something, the other helps [now] it falls on you, you start taking care of your parents earlier. I expected them to give me at least 10 to 20 years more.

Along with emotional difficulty, the son described the practical difficulty of helping both his parents in their separate homes:

You have to take care of two focal points. It's not like you fixed one air-conditioner and then you have peace, it could be, just an example, a summer situation where once if the parents are getting old in one house, [now] there is a malfunction in the air-conditioner and 2 weeks after that you [attend to] another air-conditioner.

New roles

Worrying

About a quarter of the adult children described this role. These adult children feel constant concern for their parents who are getting older while each lives alone. One son, whose parents had been divorced for 8 years after 45 years of marriage, emphasized the increased care burden and constant worry, especially for his mother:

At this moment, my mother is alone, and she'll also go to bed alone, and she'll wake up alone in the morning. And sometimes even when you live in tension with someone, you don't live well with someone, but there is someone, and now that someone is gone, the worry, the burden that has fallen on me since the divorce is much heavier. Not only for me, but me and my brothers. A heavy load. I talk to my mom more or less every day since then. My cell phone is never on silent mode at night.

Relieving loneliness

About a quarter of the adult children took this role. These adult children feel responsibility to relieve their parents' loneliness and keep them company, especially on holidays and weekends. One daughter describes the need to take care of her mother using the words “babysit,” indicating role reversal after divorce:

What did my dad's girlfriend say to me when I first met her? She told me: “at least you only have to babysit mom” because … she meant that dad is fine, he has a partner, he's not alone. And it's true, I understand today how true it is because really since then we've been kind of babysitting mom. As if you constantly have to make sure that she's not alone during the holidays and that she's okay, and where she is, and how she feels, and whether she's alone.

Another example of the children's sense of responsibility to relieve their parents' loneliness is presented by one son, whose parents had been divorced for 14 years after 34 years of marriage. The son says that late-life divorce could cause parents emotional distress, which requires recognition:

As soon as it's old age, the concern for the parents and who has been hurt more by the story, to help and support him. You transform from being their child and they my parents, I take care of them … we support the parents and not they as parents support us as children … my father took it very, very hard, he had a very, very hard time. I took him with me [on a trip] when it happened [the divorce] … there's concern who goes to father every evening? and how to help him deal with the difficulty of being alone within four walls … there were difficult moments, suddenly you see the parent who was always there, suddenly he's in a situation where you support him.

These examples illustrate the double concern for parents. Functionally, because they live on their own, and emotionally, because of possible loneliness. In conclusion, the increased burden due to the need to provide care turns late-life divorce into a complex emotional and functional experience. Part of the roles described created emotional and practical burden. This was especially expressed in the roles of supporting and meditating during the divorce, the continued role of supporting and the new roles of the worrying and relieving loneliness following the divorce, whereas the roles of the pushing or avoiding were less burdensome. These emotional struggles and the coping mechanisms for dealing with it shaped the relationship with the parents, for better or for worse.

Consequences of adult children's roles for parent–child relationships

As illustrated, the various roles that the adult children took on or were assigned had an impact on parent–child relationships. Most of these consequences were negative, especially during the divorce process, and included negative feelings and distance between parents and children, but some were positive, in the sense that they brought the parents and the children closer.

Most of the adult children filling the role of the supporter or the mediator described the distance between them and their parent and the negative emotions that arose such as frustration and anger, because of the parents' lack of limits and the children's emotional difficulty in accommodating them. However, over time the children learned to set limits, and the relationships stabilized. The adult children who took the role of the pusher and avoider described fewer consequences for their parent–child relationships because they were less emotionally involved in the divorce.

An example of how the supporting role (both emotional and practical) strained the parent–child relationship is illustrated in a family unit, consisting of two parents, divorced three years after 35 years of marriage, with three children. One son described his anger toward his father because of the new supporter role he had to fill, which created emotional difficulty to contain his mother's expectations:

My mother was very hurt and very much like in an emotional storm, and it was very hard for me to contain it, to understand what was going on at all. … And I am the only one living at home with my mother, so I absorbed a lot of her sadness, her anger, her venom about my father … me and my brother once, like, it came to a point when we really stopped her and said to her: “As much as you are our mother and everything, he is our father, and there are boundaries here that you can't talk about him however you want, and it hurts us.”

In addition to the emotional difficulty, the need to provide practical help to the mother created anger and frustration toward the father:

It is also something that made me very angry with my father, like that I turned into the man of the house. I had to take care of the house now. If it's repairs at home, and shopping to pick up and throw away the garbage and help mom … only I lived with her, and getting up to see mom crying in the morning or coming home and mom is doing the dishes and crying, it's not, it wasn't exactly fun, to put it mildly. And to do psychology for my mother of “everything will be fine, everything will be fine, and it will pass” and it's like watching her go from a state of: “I hope it will be fine,” to “it will be fine,” and “it's fine now,” which, like, took lots of time.

However, in some exceptional cases, the divorce had positive affect on the parent–child relationship, as illustrated by one son who took on the role of the mediator:

When they broke up, they just … my relationship with my father just got better. The level of communication increased … communication is much better. And I think they both calmed down. I am in better communication with each one of them. I mean, they realized after many years, if I try to deduce from it, that… it's not good for them to be together, and each one is building [their own] world now. … The amount of conversation I have with my dad is much higher. I see him more and I talk to him a lot more. In terms of emotion too, so, so we got closer. All of a sudden you hear about his difficulties. And what's happening with him. And you learn that reality is much more complex.

The continued roles after divorce created emotional and practical burden for the adult children, but it did not strain the relationships with the parents because the relationship has stabilized since the divorce.

DISCUSSION

Our findings addressed adult children's roles during and after their parents' late-life divorce in Israel from a familial/dyadic perspective. This analysis revealed the contrast, overlaps, congruences, and incongruences between adult children's and their parents' perspectives. This coincides with the family-systems perspective (Bowen, 1978; Minuchin, 2018). The opportunity to explore familial/dyadic perspectives on the divorce process might be a strong indicator of family adaptability and family functioning (Abetz & Wang, 2017). In this section, we discuss how these roles shape family relationships, structure, and boundaries. This may indicate directions for family gerontology practices, intervention, and services.

Breaking the family-system structure into parent–child subsystems and triangles

Divorce at any age brings changes to family structure and disturbs the family balance. Family relationships and children's involvement in marital conflicts may lead to subsystems and triangles being formed between different family members (Minuchin, 2018). Our findings show that marital relationships after late-life divorce can break the family system into parent–child subsystems and coalitions because the children are mature enough to take a stand. Furthermore, some parents expect their children to form a coalition with them against the other parent. These changes in family structure entail further changes in relationships and boundaries whether or not adult children take sides.

Family relationships and boundaries: Transition from authoritarian to egalitarian

Families often experience changes that can strain the parent–child relationship after late-life divorce (Mikucki-Enyart et al., 2018). For example, studies indicate that interactions between mothers and their adult children doubled with late-life divorce (Lin et al., 2022). Another study found that half of the adult children reported a strained relationship with one or both parents or siblings during the process of divorce (Greenwood, 2014). In this study, adult children described a shift from authority relations between parents and children to more egalitarian relations. The choice of some parents to involve their children in the divorce process undermined their parental authority. Some children felt their parents treated them like their friends rather than like their children. Thus, they had to set boundaries for their parents regarding sharing personal details concerning the divorce. This is consistent with other studies' findings that whereas young children of divorced parents are often shielded from many of the details, adult children do not receive the same protection (Leustek & Theiss, 2017). Similar to other studies (Greenwood, 2014), we found family intergenerational relationships to be harmed, especially in situations where children had to serve as their parents' mediator or when they had to fulfill their parents' emotional needs. This new reality creates changes in adult children's roles.

Double role reversal in late-life divorce

Adult children's roles during and after divorce are analyzed on three levels: functional-behavioral, emotional, and cognitional-perceptional.

Functional-behavioral

Adult children's functioning was reflected in the roles they took during and after divorce. These roles were possible due to adult children's maturity. However, even for those who preferred to avoid involvement, this was sometimes impossible because their parents involved them anyway by sharing emotions and expecting their children's emotional and instrumental support. The effect on the parent–child relationship of parental conflicts is called spillover (Erel & Burman, 1995). Parental conflict may lead children to take the roles of mediators or provide their parents with emotional comfort due to marital tensions (Abetz & Wang, 2017). This role reversal is called parentification—functional or emotional family role reversal. The child takes on parental roles toward their parents or family members while sacrificing their own personal needs (Böszörményi-Nagy & Spark, 1973). Instrumental parentification could include treating a parent's medical problems, whereas emotional parentification is when the child acts as a calmer, mediator, or advisor. The adult children in this study described their role more as emotional parentification. However, as parents age, role reversal occurs regardless of divorce because of health and/or functional changes requiring children's care and assistance. Role reversal with aging following divorce raises new questions regarding division of family responsibilities, profoundly affecting adult children's functioning.

Emotional

Several emotional difficulties arose: (a) Containing parents' negative emotions toward their ex-spouse during and after divorce—as with divorce at a young age, emotional support was more common among daughters to mothers. Furthermore, mothers compared with fathers tend more often to create parentification toward their children (Peris et al., 2008). (b) Frustration due to being torn between the two parents and experiencing a conflict of loyalty, even when trying to maintain a neutral position—adult children report having a negative experience when they are placed in the middle, putting a strain on the parent–child relationship and affecting their overall well-being (Peris et al., 2008). (c) Relieving parents' loneliness—our findings revealed that adult children may also feel lonely because of the new reality of having to navigate between their parents.

Cognitional-perceptional

Adult children perceived the roles they received as a burden arriving earlier than expected. They used phrases like “babysitter” or “raising parents,” indicating they experience their role as parental, perceiving their parents as needing to be cared for like children. These findings reveal the gap between parents' expectations and adult children's resources.

Gaps between parental expectations and their adult children's resources

A life-changing event such as divorce combined with aging can create multiple difficulties for family members and affect their well-being. The adult children described their parents' growing expectations for emotional and practical support along with children's difficulties fulfilling these expectations. The roles adult children received after the divorce came too soon, while they still expected to receive support. These roles were experienced as complex, considering they do not necessarily have the resources needed to fulfill their parents' expectations. The parents' expectations along with the adult children's roles reflect family values that are cultural aspects of Israeli society (Berkovitch & Manor, 2022).

Limitations

Limitations are related to recruitment, which was conducted using the Facebook platform. This means that only divorced ex-spouses with access to social media could participate in this study. Another limitation was the difficulty of recruiting entire families. Some of the ex-spouses were not interested in involving their adult children in the study by asking them to participate. Therefore, along with family units, the participants include parent–child dyads. Perhaps the perspectives of the other parents and siblings would have added insights on these. Furthermore, the recruitment advertisement was addressed to parents and not directly to their adult children. Thus, new insights might have emerged among adult children who would have initiated participation in the study and would have been the ones to recruit their parents. Another limitation is related to the different time range since divorce, ranging from a few years to more than a decade earlier, which may affect a participant's postdivorce perspectives. However, these diverse perspectives enriched the overall findings and conclusion of the study. Moreover, samples that are more diverse in terms of the number of years since divorce can significantly enhance our understanding of the long-term implications (Greenwood, 2014). Finally, the findings are appropriate for societies like Israel located between tradition and modernity, whereas a lack of similar studies in societies with different cultural characteristics limits the possibility for comparative insight.

Conclusion and future research

Late-life divorce and the aging process create unique and complex challenges for both generations. This study reveals possible challenges in adult children's and parent's relationships after late-life divorce by highlighting gaps between parental expectations during and after late-life divorce and adult children's resources for supporting parents. This reality points to the specific difficulty adult children might experience with their parents' late-life divorce. Furthermore, using a familial/dyadic perspective offers a holistic view of the family unit and could provide rich insights regarding how parents and adult children collaboratively perceive the circumstances surrounding the divorce (Abetz & Wang, 2017), with implications for family relations. Focusing on a family-oriented society like Israel, in which family members strongly rely on each other's support, reveals cultural aspects that influence family members' expectations and responsibilities. Our findings could be applicable to societies with similar cultural characteristics. Similar studies within societies that culturally differ from Israel could enable comparisons. Considering that with the expansion of late-life divorce there will be an increase in the number of adult children who experience parental divorce, future research should explore more family units that include all family members to gain more perspectives on the consequences for adult children, including those related to mental health. In addition, studies can focus on adult children's perspectives without recruiting their parents first to broaden the view to include adult children who are not in contact with their parents. Such research could address the long-term impact of divorce on adult children (Abetz & Wang, 2017), along with important questions such as how adult children's different roles continue or change in very old age, how these roles affect family relationships including grandchildren, and whether adult grandchildren also take on different types of roles after their grandparents' divorce. Furthermore, an important issue for research is how professionals can be trained to assist adult children to ease their burden, which is expected to increase after late-life divorce.

Theoretical and practical implication

Understanding adult children's complex experience with their parents' late-life divorce contributes to theoretical knowledge in family studies through the conceptualization of their roles during and after late-life divorce, including the consequences and implications for the family system. This can imply the roles that adult children are required to fulfill in other significant life transitions for their parents, such as widowhood, which might also lead to a feeling of loneliness and the need for support from the side of the parents and increase burden on adult children.

Practical implications for family therapy include an emphasis on the consequences of late-life divorce in training programs and interventions to ease the strain of late-life divorce (Amato, 2014), with special focus on parents and adult children's relationships. Family counselors should be trained to assist these families and raise the awareness of the divorced parents about the burden that may be placed on their children and provide them with tools to cope with the divorce process without harming their relationships with their adult children. Adult children should be provided with tools to deal with the emotional and practical burden that might develop along with the possible influence on relationships with extended family members, such as grandparent–grandchildren relationships. Furthermore, these consequences indicate the need to train family therapists to provide specific tools to families in addressing gaps between divorced parents' expectations and children's emotional/instrumental resources to support them. These training programs should take into account cultural aspects that might influence adult children's roles. This could be achieved through support groups and family therapy. Finally, policy makers and family services should pay special attention to the phenomenon of late-life divorce to ensure the well-being of these families.