Divorce lawyers will have their busiest day of the year today after the long Christmas holiday took its toll on thousands of relationships.
For many unhappy partners, revelations of a fling at the office party could be the last straw. Other grounds for a split include abuse, lack of sex, financial worries, and disappointing presents.
Online advice centre InsideDivorce.com surveyed 100 UK law firms, as well as 2,000 people who were either married, divorced or separated. It found that nearly one in five of all marriages (19%) was on shaky ground, with partners believing it could end in divorce.
Almost half (44%) of those surveyed said their sex lives had fallen flat, while one in 10 marriages was entirely sexless.
Family lawyer Suzanne Kingston, of Dawsons Solicitors, said men or women often came to see a solicitor without their partner’s knowledge, to try to find out about their options.
The ‘vast majority’ of people who see a solicitor end up proceeding with a divorce at some stage, she said. ‘If you’re not spending time together then the issues between you are not so apparent because they are disguised by what you are doing on a day-to-day basis.
‘But over Christmas people are spending longer periods of time together. There’s more opportunity to argue. There is also the financial worry and the impact of relatives. And at New Year people often make resolutions and think about what they want for the future.’
About two in every five people (42%) blamed a partner’s affair for them contacting a lawyer, with almost half of all women citing infidelity as the main reason for marriage breakdown.
More than half (54%) of those said they discovered the affair themselves, one fifth of unfaithful spouses confessed, and 4% were told by their partner’s new lover. Some 36% of men – the biggest single male response – cited lack of sex as a reason for divorce.
More than 1.8m couples will have contemplated divorcing their partner during the Christmas period, according to the Family Mediation Helpline. And Relate, the UK’s largest provider of relationship support, said the trend to kick-start divorce proceedings in January follows a 50% surge in the number of calls over the festive period.
Three quarters of New Year divorces are instigated by women. But according to Paula Hall, a relationship psychotherapist at Relate, this might just be because they are the ones who get around to it first. She said the New Year was an important time for people to assess thier lives, and couples who had already separated might decide to take the final step and divorce. ‘Doing the divorce is a significant step to closing the door,’ she said.
Derek Bedlow, managing editor of InsideDivorce.com, said: ‘Basically, Christmas is a nightmare for anyone with even a remotely shaky relationship. There are just so many opportunities for things to go badly – from rowing about which in-laws are coming to dinner, to disappointing presents, to discovering a loved one has misbehaved at an office party. It’s a relationship minefield.
‘People are quicker to throw in the towel on a bad marriage than ever before. The trend is definitely to move on as soon as you know it’s truly over – rather than clinging to the wreck of a bad relationship for year after year.’
Source: http://metro.co.uk/2009/10/26/christmas-ends-in-divorce-for-thousands-369834/
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