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The Gores and "Gray Divorce"

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After 40 years, Al and Tipper Gore split up. We look at what’s behind a rise in late-life divorce for baby boomers.

Al and Tipper Gore kiss on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 2000. (AP)
Al and Tipper Gore kiss on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 2000. (AP)

Al and Tipper Gore celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary last month, then sent an e-mail out to friends: “We’re announcing today,” they wrote, “that after a great deal of thought and discussion, we’ve decided to separate.”

It was a slow-rolling bombshell when it hit the media.

Al and Tipper? The Ozzie and Harriet unbreakable couple of the political world, the famous big kissers --divorcing? After forty years? Why?

And if their marriage wasn’t safe, who’s was?

This Hour, On Point: we talk about graying Boomers, long-term marrieds, getting divorced - and what that means.Guests:

Elana Katz, senior faculty member at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, where she supervises in the advanced family therapy training program and directs the Family and Divorce Mediation Program.

Sally Quinn, columnist for the Washington Post, where she co-moderates the "On Faith" site.

Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College and director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. Read her CNN.com piece "Why Gore breakup touched a nerve." Her most recent book is “Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage.” Her forthcoming book is “A Strange Stirring: Of ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s.”

This program aired on June 7, 2010.

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