Breaking up is harder to do
There were around 98,000 divorces in the year to September, according to the latest quarterly family court statistics. This is a little lower than the average for the preceding five years, and down from over 150,000 a decade ago.
Although there were spikes in divorce petitions after Covid lockdowns, and also after “no fault” divorces were introduced in April 2022, these effects are now ebbing away, says Lucian Cook, of Savills estate agency.
Based on a range of data sources and historic trends, Mr Cook believes the average age of divorcing men is around 47.5. “This is three years older than a decade ago, and 10 years older than the average 30 years ago,” he says.
Divorce statistics obviously don’t capture cohabiting couples, and there are many people thinking about splitting up, according to Louisa Whitney, of Surrey-based LKW Family Mediation. “Mediation sessions are trickier as people are overwhelmed, frustrated and emotional,” she says. “A global pandemic, a cost of living crisis and a separation within four years is a lot to deal with.”
The issue is that the numbers often don’t add up for people to divorce, says Adrian Anderson, of mortgage broker Anderson Harris. “Getting divorced is usually extremely expensive,” he says. “People have geared their lives around the ultra-low mortgage rates we had for many years. Higher rates have meant that it may no longer be affordable for couples to take a larger mortgage, or move on and take two mortgages.”
In some cases Mr Anderson has seen, this has actually made some unhappy couples who were thinking of getting a divorce change their minds.
Living apart together
For those couples who do split but can’t afford to move, increasing numbers are opting to share the family home – an arrangement often referred to as “magpie parenting” or “bird nesting”.
Among them are the parenting influencer Anna Whitehouse, known on Instagram as “Mother Pukka”, and her ex-husband, Matt Farquharson, an author. They split up last year and Mr Farquharson described their new living pattern as: “Divorcing parents keep the family home, where the kids live permanently, with one parent there each week. The rest of the time they are in a shared second flat or places of their own. It means less disruption for the kids, who aren’t forced to move around or to see one parent only at weekends.”
