Kevin Thompson [00:00:00]:
My friend Stan Jantz talks about how different generations view things in different ways. And so you think about the general generations of Boomers X, Millennial Z and Alpha, that we view life in different ways based on how we've been brought up. And so boomers ask the question, is it true? Gen X, My generation asked the question, is it real? Millennials are wondering, is it good? Gen Z is asking, is it beautiful? And get this, Gen Alpha is asking, is it human? It's a scary place to be now, isn't it? But all these generations now seeking the same thing, life, meaning, value, are now approaching it in radically different ways. And sometimes it's these different perspectives that can lead to friction in the midst of the relationships. Well, today on Change the Odds, the podcast, we want to look at what are the trends on among these generations whenever it comes to marriage and relationships as we enter into 2026. How do these different questions lead to different responses in which each generation is looking forward to. That's what we're going to talk about today. Well, welcome to Change the Odds of podcast where marriage and family were never meant to be a game, a chance.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:12]:
Happy New Year to you, obviously, today. No Blaine or Adrienne, we're going to get back at it next week and look forward to being joined by them. They play such a vital role in what we do here. And don't forget that the Change The Odds podcast is part of the Thrive Podcast Network, a great way to kind of kick off your years to focus in on ways to improve yourself. And so think about The Bible Study Podcast with Curt and Dena, Mark Clark's podcast, where he's going to preach to you and give you God's truth in so many ways. And then Morgan and Leslie just have a good time with them. Am I Doing This Right? But hopefully subscribe to Change the Odds. If you're watching on YouTube, you can ring a bell.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:49]:
Make sure that you follow this. I think we can add some benefit to your relationship in the coming year. So today we're just going to look at the five main generations that are present. You can figure out where you are. So my parents are boomers. I'm Gen X, right? Many of my friends who are just below me, I'm right on the verge of millennial, by the way. So 1980 after would be considered millennials. And then you have Gen Z and then ultimately Gen Alpha, where maybe my youngest would possibly be.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:18]:
But how is it that they're being impacted in different ways? Not only are they asking different questions, but then also they're in different life stages. So I'm going to pick one trend for each of these generations and just kind of highlight. Here's what I see as a married life pastor, as somebody who travels the nation, who writes books, who hears from you on changetheodds.com I'm just going to say here's what I'm kind of seeing across the board, and we can see maybe what might apply to you in some way. So let's begin with boomers, with kind of my parents generation. One thing that we are seeing, and I think we're just going to continue to see in 2026, is that boomers are the generation that is still divorcing the absolute most. And so they call it the gray divorce. I know many people would probably think that where the divorce is highest is, is specifically in millennials now who are facing all the parenting challenges. And so maybe they've been married for longer than five years and the honeymoon is worn off and the pressure of kids and man, that's where you get divorced.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:19]:
And it happens to many people, no doubt, but it sneaks up, I think, on a lot of people. And I see it on a regular basis with people who have been married seriously 20, 30, 40 years or second marriages now that have reached 10, 15, 20 years. And another divorce is happening. And so I only think that's going to continue to increase this coming year. Now there's going to come a point where that's going to slow down, I think, just because of age alone. I think you're going to be far less likely to divorce in your mid-80s than maybe you might be in your 70s. But what is it that's causing this grade divorce? Primarily, what is going on is you're seeing now boomers begin to experience, obviously the end of life is near. And in many occasions what's happening is the marital roles are still stuck in an ancient time while they are living in a very real and relevant world today where things have changed.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:16]:
What does that mean? Basically, it means there's too much pressure of the work being put on the women and the men aren't doing enough. And so they maybe were born into a time where the man went to work and earned a living and the women took care of the house and all those things. And this was the generation where really that began to flip to some extent. And so women begin to get jobs outside the home. But for whatever reason, while it was, the men were doing all the work outside the home and the women were working inside the home for whatever Reason, as the women begin to pick up additional workload outside the home, men did not begin. These men did not begin to pick up additional work life inside of the home. The housework that was going on. Contrast this with millennial parents.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:00]:
For instance, millennial dads spend more time with their kids than any previous generation. So it doesn't mean all millennial dads are perfect. Doesn't mean boomer dads are bad. I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's been a big generational shift that has happened where just two generations later from the boomers, millennial dads, I think, have an expectation I'm going to have to do more. And millennial women expect their men to do more, to be helpful around the house. And so it's not uncommon at all for millennial men to be doing things that their boomer grandfathers would never have thought to do or expected to do. And yet that is where society is.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:40]:
Well, these women who are of this age who came out and really kind of set the pace of working inside the home and outside the home, they now look at their daughters and their granddaughters and go, why can't my husband be acting like their husbands are acting? And then the question just becomes, am I really going to live this last part of my life continuing simply to serve this man with no reciprocation back to me whatsoever? Now, there's nothing wrong with serving. Serving is a beautiful thing in a reciprocal relationship. But the problem with many Boomer marriages is that it just long ago got out of balance and, and now it's almost like the men can't see it, or if they do, they don't know what to do about it. And the women are making these decisions that, man, I can't put up with this too much longer. And so now they're beginning to go their own way. And this great divorce is happening. Now the question becomes, what is something that we can do about that? Well, in part, what it means is never stop working on your marriage. If there's anything you take from this podcast, I think it's the importance of intentionality and learning skills and always growing.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:47]:
You've heard me say before, Jen and I've been married for 25 years. We're learning what it takes to be married 26 years. Even as our house kind of begins to empty just a little bit. We're experiencing some one on one time that we haven't had before because the kids are busy and Ella's at college and Silas is about to graduate. All those things that means our relationship changes. It means no longer do I come home from work and then I play with the kids as Jenny's cooking dinner because the kids aren't there to play with. Well, while. Well, I don't get to just go sit on the couch now and wait until she's done cooking.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:14]:
And then after I eat, she does everything in the kitchen instead. No, now it's whenever I walk in, I join her in what's taking place. And after she's done cooking, now I do the dishes. I've been given more time. Now I have to contribute that time to the actual relationship. So to recognize that your relationship has these changes all throughout life, and if you expect your marriage to be the same today as it was a decade ago and you're not paying attention, life is different. It requires and demands different things from us. Now, some things don't change.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:43]:
The trust, the respect, the vulnerability. But the practical aspect of how you go about organizing your life that better change. And the truth of the matter is, for many boomer men specifically, the blame isn't all on them, but by and large, a good amount of it is. Just because you earned a good living does not entitle you now to. To the unreturned service of your spouse for the rest of their lives. And you doing nothing, saying, well, I've already done my part. Well, they've done their part too. Now the two of you have to figure out how it is that you can move forward.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:18]:
This is why, in part, I think some of the retreats that we do are primarily occupied by boomers because their eyes are opening to, we better work on this in some way. And so it's a great idea, I think, to take a class, to do a retreat, to do a study of some sort and begin to ask the question, look, how have we done in the past what worked and what didn't work? Now? How do we move forward? And what would it look like if we made this next season of our lives the absolute best season that we could possibly have? If you do not take intention in thinking about what do we want the next decade to look like, you run a very high risk of one of you choosing to opt out. And so I think the gray divorce is going to continue. Now let's look at Gen X. This is my generation. We have to pay attention, by the way, to the gray divorce. And the reality is, as our hairs are getting grayer and we're starting to near the thought of retirement, of what does the next season look like? I'm on the younger end of Gen X, the older end of Gen X is right there on the verge of possibly looking at what is it that's going to come next. And so we have to look at a great trend that's happening now for Gen X is they're actually experiencing a separation from work a little faster than previous generations.
Kevin Thompson [00:09:38]:
The economy, for many of them has done very well. We inherited many great things in the seasons in which we were saving money. We were taught to save money earlier doesn't mean everybody did, but we were taught to save money earlier. And that's led to, for many, not everybody, a whole lot more freedom of what they can do. And not only that, it is a trend now in culture. Just look at the age of our past few presidents. Boomers are hanging on to their leadership roles longer than any generation before. That could be a whole nother episode.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:11]:
We could explain their fear of death, their fear of letting go, their lack of identity, and greater things. We could talk about all of that, of why that's happening. But because they're hanging on longer, Gen X is not receiving the mantle of leadership. As a matter of fact, some believe that Gen X is going to be the first generation in American history to be skipped from leadership. So it's going to go from a boomer to a millennial skipping Gen X. And as Gen X looks at that and looks at what's happening, and they've worked hard and they've waited their turn in line to take on these leadership roles that every generation before has worked their way into, now they're not being able to take reign of those. So the response that is not to fight and to wrestle out of the hands of somebody else. Their response to that is say, all right, I'm out.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:54]:
And so Gen X is primarily retiring a little bit earlier than some previous generations. And I think what you will see as this is gonna be the first generation that really gets the next generation that gets to retirement age. I think you're gonna see more and more people of this generation opting out of work far faster. Now, an interesting concept within this, the worry. I can hear a boomer listening to this. And I mean that in a positive way, not in a negative way. I can hear a boomer listening to this going, oh, well, they're going to die early. That if Gen X opts out early.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:27]:
And so the idea is if you retire early, you're going to end up in a recliner, you're going to become apathetic, you're going to get sick, and you're going to die. But notice what the stats say. I read a chart the other day, and it showed different outcomes based on retirement. And so somebody who retires at the age of 65, generally speaking, they will die about half the time within the next year. And so about 50% of all men actually die within a year of retirement. So if they wait till 65 or older, they tend to only have about a year of retirement. Now, notice there's a big difference. So if you retire at 65 and you die at 66, that's a radically different life than you retire at 75 and die at 76, you're missing out on a whole decade.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:10]:
So those that wait until their mid-70s to retire, they have another decade versus those who retire at around 65. This is very general concept, but notice this. Those who retire at 55 tend to, on average, live until they're 85. So they get an additional decade on top of the boomers who are retiring at even an older age. And so it's beginning to show the weight that work has upon us and within our own lifespan. Now, part of that just could be financial means, the fact that you have to be, well to do to some extent to retire at 55, no question. But if you can decouple yourself from having your meaning and your purpose and your identity solely from work, and if you can create a meaningful life outside of work, you will actually end up living much longer. Which means what's happening here for Gen X, what I see is a trend that's going to take place is they're going to experience the empty nest, retired life far faster and for far longer than any previous generation.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:18]:
And so what's the application to that? The application is, in part, they better make sure their marriage is good or they run all the risk and temptations of what we're seeing in the Great Divorce. And it's going to happen if they're not very careful. But the opportunity within that is this, that by retiring early, they still have physical ability and strength. In many ways, they can have possibly three decades of another career, not a work career. But where are they volunteering? Where are they mentoring? Where are they investing their lives? No longer having the pressure of having to earn a big paycheck to be secure, but instead now placing their time and their energy and their efforts and their resources and into things that really do matter. That's the opportunity that lies ahead. So I think the trend is an extended empty nest and retirement season. Now, there's a challenge to that.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:14]:
You better work in your marriage, there's temptations that are out there. I think we're gonna see an increase in affairs among this age. I think it's very possible that Gen X will take on their parents trend of an increase in divorce in these years if they're not very careful. An interesting concept here. Now, I was just telling the guys before we started recording, I just asked them, of the five major generations, which one do you think is most active on dating apps? And so immediately, obviously, the guys did the math and they said, oh, Gen Z, because they're of the dating age. Actually, the most active generation on dating apps is actually Gen X. Now, in part, that could be because of some trends we're going to see. Some younger generations aren't worried about relationships as much.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:57]:
It could be a rejection of dating apps among Gen Alpha and Gen Z and maybe some millennials. But in part, I think what is going on is you have a good number of people in the Gen X span who have gotten divorced now. They've kind of raised their kids and they understood the difficulty of dating. Why you have teenagers at home. Maybe they didn't want to do that or struggled to do that. Now that the teenagers are leaving their house, they want a meaningful relationship. And so now they're looking for that in some way. And there's a trend that's taking place in which what is it going to take to have a meaningful second half and a second marriage of what's going on? That's why here at Change the Odds, we do so much work within blended families because it's so vital to moving forward.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:40]:
So Boomers gray divorce, Gen X and extended empty nest in the midst of retirement. What's the great kind of trend that I see now happening within the millennial generation? So think about where millennials are. Many of them now, they generally got married later than my generation, but now they're married, they're having kids, they're in the prime kind of busyness of the season of elementary school kids, maybe some junior high kids, little kids. They're just kind of moving past many of them. Maybe they're having their last child or they're moving past the childbearing years. And now they're just in the grind of what is actually going on. And here's what's intriguing to me. While the divorce rate is significant among that age group, and I really do encourage them to do as much work as possible, because any work that you learn for a millennial, any work that you learn, any skill that you learn in your 30s you're gonna be able to carry that for the rest of your life.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:31]:
So the compounding interest on that is amazing. But here's what I'm worried about. And this is a trend that's true across generations, but it's specifically significant for the millennial generation. And it's this. It is the sex recession. People are not having intimacy nearly as often as they once did. As a matter of fact, the average American now has sex weekly. 37% of the average married Americans have sex weekly.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:00]:
Compared to in the 90s, that was 20% higher. So now that act, that meaningful, beautiful act, friend, partner, and lover, this thing that God created now to bind us, to give this unique sense of connection now that so often now forces a man to be more humble and thoughtful and pursue after his wife and to woo her into what's going, the connection that she can have with him, that allows a woman to have the freedom of expression, to explore her body. All these possibilities that lie in God's tremendous design. Couples are not taking advantage of that. Why not? Well, primarily it's because of the digital influence within our relationships. Whenever I first got married, when it was time for Jenny and I to actually go to bed, when we went to bed, there was no technology that was present. We never had a TV in our room because I was always warned, don't do that. And so there was just no technology.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:03]:
So if you went to bed, you were together, you were more likely to touch, to communicate. Touching communication means you're more likely to have sex. There's nothing else to do if you're awake. Let's at least do that. Well, now, here we are a couple decades later, and now, even if you go to bed at the same time, many couples, they're putting in their AirPods, clicking on their phone. They're each emotionally escaping individually. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's okay.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:29]:
We need an escape. Especially these people who are living such busy lives are they're trying to make it in their careers, they're raising their kids. Like I said before, men are spending so much more time with their children. So both genders now are exhausted in a way that maybe they haven't been before. There is kind of the American rat race that is taking place. The salaries have not continued to increase with cost of living, and so now they're having to work harder to make more money, to just live at the very place that their parents might have lived in previous generations. And they're just tired, and so they're not having sex. But there is an erosive effect on that, that whenever your marriage begins to lack the physical intimacy, we might think it's not that big of a deal.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:10]:
Especially if one or both of them, if they don't really want it, they think, oh, well, there's no cost to this. But here's the issue. Even if you don't desire intimacy, when sex dries up in your relationship, there's a consequence that comes to that. It's a great question for anybody who's listening, who's married today, no matter what your generation is, have you had sex within the last week? Well, if the answer is no, there's nothing wrong with that. But ask the question, all right, why not? If it hadn't happened in the last week, why hasn't it happened? And if you can pinpoint a very legitimate reason of, you know what? We've been sick. There's been a real busyness. That's an unusual kind of concept. Why we just haven't connected, but we're going to reconnect, and that won't be a problem.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:55]:
If that's an unusual kind of standout week, don't give it a second thought and just move forward. But if it's not unusual for you to go a week at a time and nothing really happened, really, no matter what your age, it does raise the question, are you prioritizing intimacy the way that it needs to be prioritized? Now, we can't get too much into frequency and how much is enough? This isn't a scoreboard by any means, but we do know that having sex at least once a week gives a tremendous benefit to a couple's relationship. And where that isn't happening, that is a marker to where I begin to ask some questions. And I think one thing that often surprises me is whenever I'm talking with couples and this question just simply comes up or somebody brings it up, and to recognize how many couples, young couples, can go not just a week, but two weeks, three weeks, a month. And sometimes I'm kind of blown away whenever I hear a couple say, oh, we only have sex a couple times a year. Well, okay, look, if there's severe medical issues, you know, if you, if you're in your 80s or 90s, okay, we can talk about that. But for the average couple at 48, for the average couple at 38, at 28, at 58, only a few times a year, there's serious questions of what's going on. It doesn't mean that you're doomed.
Kevin Thompson [00:21:27]:
It doesn't even mean that that's wrong. It just means that most of the time, something is wrong. And so we need to investigate what's going on. And so if you're a millennial couple, one of the things I would really encourage you to do for every couple but millennials, specifically, because the trend is now this sex recession. How can we prioritize intimacy within your life? Don't forget what John Gottman says. John Gottman says that good sex is simply the byproduct of friends who prioritize it. Now, obviously, I would say it's friends and partners who prioritize it, that we have to see the value that is in this, that this is. This might be controversial idea, but here would be.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:04]:
My general idea is, is if you have sex less than once a week because your kids are playing so many sports, your kids need to stop playing so many sports, because what's better for your kid is not for them to play baseball, it's for you to be having sex with your wife. You can tweet that, you can thank me later, but millennials are seeing this tremendous sex recession of what is taking place. Now, let's talk about what's going on with Gen Z, right? So Gen Z, primarily in their 20s, maybe a little bit into their early 30s, but primarily 20s, late, maybe some late teens of what's going on. What we're seeing here is now this kind of individualism to where there is a delay in meaningful relationships. And while there might be a desire there, the general thought is I want to go out and kind of create my own way. And once I create my life, then I'm going to get married. You heard me talk about before the difference between a cornerstone marriage and a capstone marriage. So for me, I wanted a cornerstone marriage.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:05]:
One of the first things earlier, early on in life, not too early, not in my teens by any means, but 22, 23, as I'm launching out of college, I would like to then find a meaningful relationship, which I did with Jenny, and that becomes the cornerstone to the life that we are building. Not the life I'm building, the life that we are building. And everything is built now around this relationship. And together we create what our life is going to look like. Gen Z has rejected the cornerstone marriage, and instead they're trying to establish themselves. And once everything is exactly right, then they're looking for that very last piece to fit so perfectly in to complete their lives. And it's a capstone marriage. Now, what's the difficulty with a capstone marriage? Well, you're asking Somebody to fit perfectly into a life that they did not create.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:54]:
And you're supposed to do that for them and they're supposed to do that for you. And the problem is you have these two basic lives and. And they're actually not merged together and then becomes very difficult to merge them together. So while I'm good with the delay of marriage in that we're not replicating what generations have passed in which their teenage marriage and those kind of things, those can create great harm generationally for many people now, I am hesitant now of getting into the mindset of, oh, I'll date later, I'll find my person later, I'll have kids later. If you think all those things are just going to naturally happen, what. Once you've built your perfect life, it might be very difficult for you to find that person to fit into that and for you to fit into what's going on. I think a good amount of some of the struggle that we see currently within relationships and why the age of marriage keeps on increasing and why there's some strengths of that many weaknesses. One of the reasons we're seeing that happen now is because people are looking at this capstone relationship and nobody fits perfectly.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:55]:
Whereas when Jenny and I began to date and we got married, we didn't know what life looked like. So let's go build it together and let's see what's actually going to happen. And so one of the reasons I think that this is taking place, and I could be wrong, but one of the reasons I think this delay of marriage is taking place is because Gen Z really does have a desire for certainty. They kind of want a promise. And I think maybe what's happened is they've looked at some generations before them and they've seen the danger and the pain and the sorrow. They've now kind of lived through the MeToo movement, and rightly so. All those things, all those past sins were aired and hopefully we're making things right. And so they've seen so much of the pain that can go wrong with high divorce rates.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:40]:
All those things that they're now saying, well, I just want this to be perfect. But here's the problem with relationships. There's never a guarantee. There just never is a guarantee. Love requires vulnerability. It requires risk. For you to put your heart out on the table means that somebody could reject it. And for many people, they're just not willing to go through the pain.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:03]:
But notice this. When you and I refuse to make ourselves vulnerable in order to bypass the potential of pain, all we're actually doing is guaranteeing the very pain we're trying to avoid. And so it's just not a way that works. And so I don't think you should be foolish by any means. I don't think you should be walking through Costco, giving people your credit card and saying, go, spend that however you want. I just trust you automatically. It's not that it's a wise vulnerability, no doubt, but I think we need to push a little bit more of a faster vulnerability with others and to risk the potential of pain in order to experience the good. So Boomers, the gray divorce, Gen X, the extended empty nest and Retirement season, Millennials, the sex recession, Gen Z, the single life, the delayed marriage, the desire for certainty.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:54]:
Really putting a self first in many ways. What is it that Gen Alpha is experiencing? And so these are the youngest among us. And what they're experiencing is this idea of now a digital assist in everything that's going on in Life. You know, 52% of Americans now use ChatGPT or some version of AI as an assistant within their own relationship. And so there's a beautiful power within that. We all need help and assistance. And that's in part what we're trying to do here, all the resources that we begin to provide. But here's the downside.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:33]:
If we're not very careful, here's what can begin to happen for Generation Alpha. Remember, they're asking, is it human? Right? That's their question. They don't know. You and I used to see a picture. We knew immediately it was human. Gen Alpha sees a picture and they're going to assume it's not. And the danger is this, that they can actually begin to hold back their own humanity and not present it to others. And so it could be that every text message was actually written by an AI bot and not themselves.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:02]:
To where they're so trying to perfectly navigate every single relationship to protect themselves from pain, to get everything exactly right. That in so doing what's happening is instead of having a true human relationship with somebody else, there is this third party that is always engaged in the situation. Let me ask you this. Would you rather your spouse get the words a little bit wrong, but for them truly to come from his or her heart spoken to you in a situation, or would you rather them write the perfect poem that comes to find out it was actually AI that wrote it and not them? I think in the end, we can recognize why we desire this human aspect of, of life and the great danger for Gen Alpha and then let's face it, babies born today are gen Beta. And that generation is going to see this at an extreme that we can't even begin to imagine. Such an intermingling now of what is artificial intelligence and what is human reality. Such an intermingling, it may be indistinguishable. And so as I look at my kids, the thing that I'm trying to encourage them to do is to ask the girl out, to experience the heartbreak, to have the fight to navigate things with their friends.
Kevin Thompson [00:29:27]:
Yeah, absolutely. You can use the resources around you to look at your own heart, to say, hey, what am I doing wrong here? How can I do this better? What is the right thing to say here? But in the end, to own it and to take responsibility for yourself. Because if you outsource everything to get everything just exactly right and perfect, it, it might feel perfect, the words might sound right, but they're going to lack the human heart. And in the end, God created us for a meaningful connection with each other. Those are five generations. Those are five trends that I see and notice this. While some are more prone to others, they're all interrelated in a way that we all need to learn from that. There is a danger in our culture in which we live that a relationship gets out of, out of sync and more work falls on the other one than the other.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:17]:
Divorce is very present, whether you're a boomer or not. We all need to figure out how to have an identity apart from work to where our meaning and our value and our relationship thrives. No matter what our title is, Intimacy is a temptation for all of us not to prioritize, especially with technology and the business of our lives. Let's make sure we prioritize that in some way. While we live in a culture that puts primacy on the self, let's recognize that our identity is best found in humility and submission to others, not in just getting what I want. That's not just Gen Z, that's all of us. And there is a digital invasion that's taking place on all of our relationships. Let's leverage those, but let's never be defined by them.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:01]:
Instead, let's look to have true, human, beautiful, good, real, true relationships with one another. And then we can change the odds. We'll see you next week.