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Sex, love, and dating apps

On Behalf of | Mar 27, 2020 | Family Law

Meeting intimate partners (whether temporary or long term) on dating apps seems to have become the new normal. When Match.com and eharmony.com first became popular, there was a still a taboo about meeting your lifelong partner online. Now, it is not uncommon to have a friend or family member who is engaged or married to the partner they met through a dating app.

The frequency at which people meet significant others virtually is inevitably going to increase, as the world becomes accustomed to the use of virtual platforms to stay connected. With the ability to meet your forever partner at the swipe of your finger, younger generations are changing the landscape of marriage and the fallout thereof.

While older generations may have felt pressure to obey the societal norm of getting married and having children, in that order, younger generations are have taken a different approach to romantic relationships. Adults seem to feel less pressure to marry a person simply because they have a child together. As a result, many parents opt to use family law attorneys to help them craft a parenting plan and productive methods of co-parenting, rather than trying to make a long-term romantic relationship work with their co-parent.

Data shows that many millennials and some members of Generation Z – people in their 20s and 30s – evaluate their marital prospects even more seriously than their parents and grandparents did. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, younger couples are marrying later in life, with the median age at marriage rising over the past two decades, from 26.8 for men and 25.1 for women in 2000, to 29.8 for men and 28 for women in 2019. While there are numerous economic and societal factors contributing to the increase in the median age at marriage, many couples now view marriage as a culmination of their accomplishments, including having often already “tested the waters” of their romantic relationship by cohabitating with one another or beginning to build a family. Meanwhile, over the past 30 years, the divorce rate for Americans age 50 and older has more than doubled, increasing the frequency of “gray” or “silver” divorces. Perhaps only time will tell whether the millennial generation’s approach to relationships will result in more successful long-term relationships, but the data suggests that how you meet your partner (whether online or in person) is not indicative of the success of your relationship.

Whether you are a parent in need of a parenting plan, a spouse considering divorce, or a person needing the security of a prenuptial agreement, the Denver Family Law attorneys at GEM Family Law are capable and committed to helping the families of Colorado who find themselves in transition.

Authored by: Tyler Lambert, Associate Attorney

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