Is this the divorce season to end all divorce seasons?

The January divorce spike is an annual occurrence, but what about after a year of lockdowns and chaos? Olivia Petter looks at how many marriages are surviving the storm

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Every January, divorce lawyers are met with a surge of enquiries from couples whose relationships have crumbled over the Christmas period. Those who had made it through another year, but being forced together over the holidays for extended periods of scrabble and turkey was the final straw.

The trend is so well established, that the first working Monday of the year has come to be known as “Divorce day”. In 2021, however, the day was long predicted to be more busy than ever before after three national lockdowns, all of which were expected to cause marital issues to rear their head (Citizens Advice reported a spike throughout 2020 for online advice on ending a relationship, following similar patterns in China which had an earlier lockdown than the UK).  

But has this season become the divorce season to end all divorce seasons?