Hopelessly unhappy? Drifting apart? Before you give up hope for your marriage, read this …
(I wrote this five years ago but it’s every bit as relevant today, Harry) I know. Maybe your marriage is a mess. It’s drifting, it’s become functional, it’s lost the love and it’s not what you dreamed. In short it needs a kick up the backside. Maybe you’ve even finally decided it’s over. At last […]
Online dating and divorce – READ our newsletter for November
MEETING ONLINE is now the most popular route to marriage but also raises the risk of divorce in the early years, according to our new analysis, covered in today’s Sunday Times (£) and Mail on Sunday. We have some thoughts. THE COUPLE PENALTY remains completely ignored in the budget and by policy-makers in general. Yet it may be the single […]
So much for the ‘divorce boom’
Today’s release by the Ministry of Justice shows new divorce petitions were UP by just 5 per cent during the final quarter of 2020, compared to a year earlier. However, overall divorce starts for 2020 were DOWN 6 per cent compared to 2019. The more excitable divorce lawyers will claim this as vindication for a […]
Rise in divorce is an anomaly. Divorce rate is still at 50 year low
New divorce figures for 2019 have been released by ONS. They show a rise of 18% from the previous year, which doesn’t sound good … at first. Our response “The 18% rise in divorces reported in 2019 by ONS is a statistical anomaly, reflecting the unwinding of delays in the legal system from the previous […]
Divorce boom? No chance
According to media reports, marriages are cracking under the strain of lockdown and divorce rates are soaring. In August, Mailonline reported a divorce boom in the US. In September BBC news reported a divorce boom in the UK. Read between the lines though and you should start to smell a rat. Mailonline’s US claim was […]
Why Christians have nothing to fear from ‘no-fault’ divorce
It’s nearly twenty five years since my wife Kate confronted me about the state of our marriage. “Harry, you’re not the friend I need you to be. If nothing changes in the next year, our marriage is over”. It was a bolt from the blue. Kate and I had what seemed to me a great […]
Men behaving well
In an era of #MeToo, bad behaviour by men is quite rightly under the microscope like never before. But it would be wrong to assume that it’s only now that something is being done and at last things will improve. Our new analysis of divorces shows that – at least within marriage – men have been behaving […]
A really good news story to begin 2019
One of the issues we’ve tried to address at Marriage Foundation is to find out the scale of family breakdown. A few years back, we addressed this by analysing data from 2010 in a big national survey called Understanding Society. From this, we worked out that 45 per cent of all teens were not living […]
Why advocates of marriage have nothing to fear from no-fault divorce
The Times and Marriage Foundation will be hosting a top-level debate “Is it time to reform our divorce laws?” at 1830 next Monday 24 September at the News Building. Details of how to get tickets here. Last week the government launched a consultation paper about reforming the legal requirements for divorce. The proposal to remove […]
STOP signs: Clues to what really went wrong in the Owens marriage
(photo credit PA) Embarrassing details of the marriage between Hugh and Tini Owens have now been splashed all over our papers and news. After many years of marriage, Mrs Owens wants a divorce, citing the unreasonable behaviour of Mr Owens as the required ‘fact’. However three levels of courts, including most recently the Supreme Court, […]