D-DAY – BIGGEST DAY FOR DIVORCE PETITIONS TODAY & SIR PAUL’S COMMENTS ABOUT MARRIAGE

Today is the busiest day of the year in the divorce calendar. Post Christmas stress and guilt about announcing intentions before the holiday means that there are double the amount of petitions for divorce in January and particularly today – the first working day of the month. How depressing. Not helped, in my opinion by the comments in The Times today by a senior high court judge.

“Don’t give up on your marriage” says Sir Paul Coleridge, who is launching a campaign to promote marriage and reverse the “appalling and costly impact of family breakdown” on children and society at large but in doing so appears to suggest that those of us who are divorced have not taken the children into consideration. What about when the marriage has lost everything you got married for – all trust and commitment? Is it good for the children to be brought up thinking that adults argue all the time or have no respect for each other? Is it really right to stay in an unhappy marriage simply because of the children?

“My message is mend it, don’t end it” he says “it is a complete scandal that so many children are currently caught up in the family justice system (3.8m). I agree with that, but perhaps, as a serving judge he should take some responsibility himself for the legal system that is partly to blame for the number of cases that come to court. There is not enough mediation and free advise available prior to having to go to court. Families are not clear about what it all involves and the costs escalate massively before they know it.

“Divorce is on the increase fuelled by a growing trend to divorce among “empty nesters” or “grey divorce” with couples no longer needing to stay together for the sake of the children who had left home. “It’s partly because we are living longer” he said and because “they think there is still time for a fling, but little do they realise that very often they are just inheriting a different set of problems.”

Surely in the silver brigade it is not all about “changing horses midstream” it is about realising once the children have left that you no longer have anything in common with your partner and have nothing to distract you from that. You find you both have more time to pursue personal interests and challenges and sometimes your partner isn’t interested in joining you on that journey. If that is the case, should you stay simply for the children? Would the children actually want that? Children are of course affected, but by then they have their own lives to lead.

Family breakdown is the “scourge of society” he said. “It affects everyone, from the Royal Family downwards. In about 1950 you weren’t allowed in the royal enclosure at Ascot (if divorced). That would now exclude half the Royal Family”.

“At Ascot??” Well here we have a man with his finger on the pulse of normal life. How many people go to Ascot these days? Who else wouldn’t have been allowed in to Ascot in 1950? A coloured person? A gay couple? A woman wearing trousers? THANK GOD things have changed and pretty much anyone can go anywhere these days (if they have the money of course).

“It’s a myth that children, even older ones, don’t care. They care greatly and a break-up shocks the whole foundation of the family, it never recovers”.

Where has he got that myth from? Who has said that? I have never spoken to anyone who hasn’t acknowledged that children care about family break-up. Of course they do. It is enormously tragic in many ways. But sometimes they are better off spending time with their parents separately because as a team they don’t work. Sometimes there is more peace in two households than one. Of course we don’t necessarily all look at the bigger “helicopter” picture for long enough but that is why there should be more help at hand to talk to couples both together and separately and to talk to the children to help reach a conclusion BEFORE getting to court. Way too many cases end up in court because of the lack of support received before that final step.

“We have to rid ourselves of this dream that we are going to find the partner who is perfect in every way: emotionally, physically, intellectually – it’s just a nonsense.”

WHAT DREAM?? Really? Is that what we all think? That there are a million other people out there for us? I don’t think so. Most people I know anyway don’t think that. They hope that. But they also realistically reach the conclusion that they can’t be with their partner any longer. That leaving their partner and being on their own is the best solution. Anything else is a bonus.

“Soon you find the new partner is as flawed as the last. It is like a hydra: you cut off one head and get rid of a boring partner but inherit 26 new problems, your new partner’s children, family and so on”.

Well yes, I can see that happening if you remarry again too quickly after divorce. It affects the children greatly if that happens, but not everybody does that.

“Of course, where a relationship has genuinely broken down….but there are a great many that are not at that stage”

Frankly, how can you comment on what “genuinely broken down” means. What is acceptable in a marriage to one person is not to another so how can you judge whether it is “at that stage” or not? It might seem that way at the time but not 3, 6, 12 months later or you might battle for years to save your marriage and never get it back. It’s a personal thing. It needs personal attention.

He has sat in court for 40 years dealing with the fallout “I get intensely frustrated: I see hundreds and thousands of people traipsing through the courts and nothing is being done about the problems that sent them here”

“Traipsing” through court makes it sounds like a stroll. It is not. By the time they are there they are most probably traumatised beyond belief and have felt there is no other solution. They will be paying an absolute fortune to all the lawyers involved. That is the scandal of divorce in this country. How much the lawyers charge. I suggest Sir Paul finds a way to make himself redundant. Help set up a system that can train more counsellors and mediators to offer free help to everyone that needs it.

He says do not have children unless your marriage is stable

How do you define “stable”? What happens when it is stable, you have children and then your boat is rocked by infidelity, dishonesty, betrayal, change of heart, you name it, it can happen……

“The system can’t cope – it is now 12 months before a hearing”

That is because the system doesn’t work. CHANGE THE SYSTEM.