Laura’s Law is a monthly legal column written by family lawyer Laura Mounsey. Laura is a partner at Harrogate Family Law. She specialises in dealing with divorced couples and people who have been in abusive relationships. Her role involves protecting her clients’ assets and income if they want to live with someone or get married, and resolving disagreements about children.
This week Laura advises on whether there is a “right” time to divorce.
New Year, new start?
2020 was challenging year for most people, with the unprecedented stress of dealing with a global pandemic. Many have not only been fearful of what the future holds outside of their home but also, the future inside their home.
A lot have shared with me that:
- marital problems that they had been able to bury or turn a blind eye to started to bubble up in a big way. Suddenly, they had little choice but to confront the reality of their marriage and the effect this was having on them.
- they found themselves unable to put a plaster on the cracks anymore and bad behaviour boiled over. Exhausted and stressed out, arguments become more common place and, with no distraction or outlet, more difficult to move on from.
- the added pressure of home-schooling, fearing whether they would have an income, missing loved relatives and the ever-fluctuating tier restrictions made them feel more trapped than ever, and more desperate than ever to get out.
Even though the pandemic pushed these individuals to realise that their marital difficulties needed to be dealt with, holding onto the certainty of an unhealthy marriage seemed more comfortable than the uncertainty of separating in an unfamiliar world.
Often, individuals would tell me that they were too anxious about what getting divorced would look like in 2020 even though they knew that, for the sake of their family, they did need to make that change. They were fearful that they would have nowhere to live because of the state of the housing market, they would not be able to pay their bills because of the financial downturn, the impact on the children would be too difficult to handle with home-schooling, and their ex would keep their children from them because of the pandemic.
In my experience, anyone who is thinking about getting divorced is scared about what the future will hold. That is no different in a pandemic. But whether we are in a pandemic or not, there is no lightbulb moment and there is no perfect time.
The hardest part tends to be making the decision about whether to make that call or not. It is easy to delay and delay, convincing yourself there will be a better time. But how much worse are things going to get in the meantime?
If you think splitting up is inevitable, waiting can cause more damage to your relationship. How much harder is it going to be to get through everything as painlessly as possible if there is more to fix when you eventually decide that you are “ready”?
Speak with someone impartial like a counsellor and lawyer who are not here to sell you on any outcome, just help you take a step back and decide whether this is what you want. And if it isn’t what you want, what are you going to do about it?
