A question of Infidelity or Just Indifference?
According to an annual survey of family lawyers, infidelity last year came behind falling out of love as the top reason for couples to divorce. This is the first time that extra marital affairs have not topped the list of break up reasons. The study also found a strong desire for new laws to protect cohabiting couples as well as legislation to make prenuptial agreements legally binding.
At Vardags, this does reflect in the reasons that people give for splitting. Most of our petitions are behaviour petitions. It is often called unreasonable behaviour. It is just behaviour that you cannot reasonably be expected to live with and that can be put in a very weak non-confrontational way. As we do not have no fault divorce in England, we have to go through this construct of trying to put a relatively inoffensive petition through, citing reasons such as, ‘he became sort of distant’ and ‘she was offensive about my mother’. This is seen as the most consensual, least confrontational way you can have a divorce now.
Today, adultery is a less common reason for a marriage breakdown. People are actually feeling freer to move away from each other, even if there is not something dramatic causing them to not get along as they once did. So if a relationship is not working, many people feel that it is better to move on and it may not take infidelity to trigger that.
There have been some changes in divorce law, which has made divorce easier. Many debate whether this has made people less willing to make a go of marriage when it hits the rocks. It is undeterminable whether making the procedure of divorce any more difficult would make a difference. From the perspective of family lawyers – with a real eye to try to avoid conflict and unpleasantness in families and especially for children, an easier divorce process is likely to be less traumatic for all concerned. Once people have reached the point where they cannot live with each other and a decision has been made, surely it is better to move forward without having to go through a costly and potentially acrimonious split in relation to the divorce proceedings? Admitting irreconcilable differences is better than becoming offensive about one another.
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Vardags Solicitors are a divorce law firm, based in London. Their team of matrimonial and family law specialists deal with substantial and complex cases.