Thinking about divorce? These real-life reads and expert advice stories could offer help and advice. Photo / 123rf
NZ real-life reads and expert advice on what it’s like to get divorced... at all stages of life
Although it can seem easier in the short term to keep quiet and carry on, you’re probably heading for trouble in the long run. A lack of interest in each other, poor conflict resolution and avoiding each other were the most commonly cited behaviours that meant a marriage was doomed, according to a United States survey for Forbes Advisor. The flip side – telling your partner why you’re stressed or upset – might not sound like a fun way to spend your Sunday but it could be the making of your marriage.
This story offers six ways to get things back on track - read it here
Data released by Statistics New Zealand in May showed the number of marriages, civil unions and divorces in New Zealand continues to decrease, while the age at which Kiwis are getting married and divorced is gradually rising.
According to Stats NZ, there were 18,744 marriages and civil unions registered by New Zealand residents in 2023 - a slight drop from 18,858 in 2022.
Of that number, 13,827 were first-time marriages or civil unions, and 4911 were remarriages or civil unions.
In 2023, 7995 couples were granted a divorce in Aotearoa.
That’s slightly higher than in 2022, when 7593 couples were divorced - but it’s important to know the number of divorces and the divorce rate have been slowly decreasing since early in the 2000s.
Divorce lawyer Jeremy Sutton has spent the last few years writing regularly for the Herald, answering people’s questions about a myriad of divorce-related issues, from financial disputes to child custody matters.
How does it feel to be divorced in your 20s? Three women share their stories with Sinead Corcoran Dye
“I met my first husband when I was 16, and we got married when I was 24,” says Jay*, a 35-year-old insurance broker. “Our relationship, for the most part had always been relatively easy - but we were very different people.
“No one was shocked when we got married so young - both my parents and his have been together since they were teens so we felt like we were just following along with what we were ‘meant’ to be doing.
“But after we got married, I became the saddest and loneliest I’ve ever been in my life - I felt trapped, like I had lost myself and any future I wanted. I tried leaving again and again but he convinced me to come home each time. I finally got out a couple of months before our second anniversary. That’s when he physically assaulted me.”
Kat Farmer is the creator of Does My Bum Look 40 (@doesmybumlook40) and Been There Done That Got the Podcast (@gotthepodcast) with Marianne Jones
OPINION
It was after a final disagreement about laundry that I had my lightbulb moment. And since then both of us are happier than ever.
I am loading the debris of a family dinner into the dishwasher. I haven’t rinsed and am cramming them in haphazardly – bowls, plates, glasses – all piled on top of one another.
Clink, clank, crash. My husband is silent, but I can almost feel his irritation across the kitchen. When the machine is rammed like a crockery game of Buckaroo, I triumphantly slam the door shut and spin round with my chin tilted. Daring him to comment.
Of course, 20-year marriages like ours don’t just end over household chore clashes, but it’s often these small, domestic acts that signify the conjugal rot has set in. I’d become the sort of petty person who would purposefully drain the car of petrol and never fill it up, while becoming irrationally irritated by the way he would leave the recycling drawer ajar.
It was the slow creep of my passive aggressive gestures into our daily life that made me realise we needed to call time on our two decades together.
Our 17-year marriage gathered many mutual mates, but friends and family are often overlooked when a couple divorces, writes Anna Whitehouse
Friends and family are often overlooked in the divorce process. A 17-year relationship gathers many mutual mates. Whether a separation is acrimonious or not, there’s a natural division of comrades along the way.
Telling people was the hardest part of the separation process. Responses ranged from “I’m not surprised” to genuine devastation. One friend started crying instantly. Even though I told her everything was OK and it was truly a positive decision for our family unit, the tears cascaded. I held her, wondering if our decision had triggered something about her own marriage; few would admit it but when a couple separates, it holds a brutal mirror up to their own relationship. I know when friends told me they were divorcing, part of me was jealous of the bravery it had taken to make such a seismic decision. To know when to get out remains a seemingly impossible juncture.
Three Kiwi women tell Sinead Corcoran Dye what it’s really like getting back out there after a marriage ends.
“I met my husband at university when I was 19 and he was 18,” says Polly*, a 40-year-old brand manager. “We were together for 14 years and married for three before we separated. What began as a ‘young, wild and free’ loving relationship over the years turned toxic, unbalanced and sad...
“I tried to go on my first date after the split the following year, when my youngest was 4 months old. I had decided to take the plunge as my mum was in town – and ended up getting stood up, and never heard from him again. Nice.
“After that I downloaded a few dating apps and tried to get my head around what the new dating world looked like since I was last single. I’ve used Hinge, Tinder, Bumble and Feeld – and while I’ve always considered myself educated in the intimacy world, wow. It’s a mammoth learning curve getting my head around all the acronyms and how to write a profile – let alone wading through all the fish pics, and ‘don’t want drama’ bios. (spoiler alert, those people are always the drama.)”
Tales from the divorcee trenches: how to co-parent with an emotional abuser
Emily* had been married for 10 years when she discovered her husband was having an affair. It had been going on for a year, since their youngest child was a newborn. Sure, their marriage was beyond repair but she knew that once he apologised for the hurt he’d caused, she could eventually forgive him.
“But there was never an apology, not a sincere one anyway,” she says. “It was like he felt sorry but only for himself. He wasn’t actually apologising for hurting me and for hurting us and our children, or for destroying something that was so precious.”
Emily didn’t suspect her husband was a narcissist until much later – it’s a buzzword that gets tossed around all too easily, she says – but she would soon come to realise he fitted the bill, and that his extra-marital indiscretions were to be the least of her concerns.
Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan advise a reader who is struggling to feel comfortable with her new single life.
We have all been brought up with such a powerful narrative around the many ways that we, as women, should feel ashamed of ourselves that we are not at all surprised you are doubting your decisions. Saddened, but not surprised. Indeed, this corrosive, patriarchal narrative (Harrison Butker would, presumably, approve) is so noisy that, if there ever happens to be a void — a moment when no one else is shaming us, judging us, telling us we are used goods, over the hill, that we are cheapening ourselves and that no one will ever want us if we persist; telling us that we are a terrible example to the children we do not deserve to have — we fill the silence by telling ourselves all of these things.
It can be hard to buck against an indoctrination, played out over millennia, that we are blooms that must be plucked at an appropriate moment. That we must be stainless and morally irreproachable to be worthy of love.
Kiwi couples are marrying and divorcing later in life, according to data from Stats NZ. The number of marriages, divorces and civil unions is also steadily decreasing. Fewer people are marrying young, but those who did and are now approaching retirement age are separating or seeking divorce in greater numbers. An Auckland-based divorce coach told Bethany Reitsma why, and shared some tips for future-proofing your relationship, while a Kiwi woman shared the reasons she is seeking a divorce in her 60s.
In the United Kingdom, 42 per cent of marriages end in divorce, with more than 113,000 divorces taking place in a year – or 13 every hour.
But all that could be about to change, according to research by Legal & General, which has found that almost 20% of couples are delaying their divorce – simply because of the cost.
Financial pressures have postponed more than 270,000 divorces, leaving British couples in the curious limbo of being “mid-vorced”: not-quite-married, not-quite-divorced.
Solicitor and divorce coach Katie Beer says she’s seen a marked increase in couples separating and then putting off the official bit due to money issues.
Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan advise a reader who is fed-up with awkward family dynamics.
The mystery of other people’s relationships, eh? You are watching your parents cut strips off each other; listening to them complaining and moaning about each other’s deficiencies, and you wonder, “Why would you live like this?” Not least because it is exhausting to be in the vicinity of bickering couples. Emilie has some experience with feuding families as a child, and it is terrifying when you are young and people are shouting: to feel that cord of tension suddenly snap tight at the dinner table. As adults, we’ve all been out with a couple in full-throttle discord, whose confrontations or micro-aggressions suck the oxygen from the evening.
So, we understand your predicament. You can’t gently excise your parents from your list of people, and worse, you have to step into the warzone every time there’s cause for celebration: “Oh good, another cross Christmas.” Perhaps you fantasise about saying you want a divorce this year for your birthday, instead of having to blow out candles during another verbal brawl.
However, none of this means you are truly right about what is going on between them.
About to have a meltdown? Use the S.A.N.T.A method to help manage your holiday stress.