The divorce The BACKLASH
They knew the misery of growing up in broken homes. Meet the couples who swear they’ll never split — and are behind the dramatic fall in divorce rates
AS the mother of two small children with few opportunities to spend time alone with her hardworking husband, Sophia Ludbrook-Miles knows all too well how easy it would be for their marriage to hit the buffers.
there are countless nights when Sophia feels bubbling resentment because Alex still isn’t home, her body aches with exhaustion, and there are children to bathe and put to bed on her own.
But she knows she will never let that resentment fester or poison her relationship. While most young couples like to think their marriage is for ever, Sophia is determined hers will never end in divorce.
It is utterly non-negotiable. As someone who still bears the scars of her own parents’ acrimonious split, she says she will do everything in her power to avoid inflicting the same misery on her children.
Sophia’s mother left her father when she was nine, initially taking her daughter to live with her abroad — before returning her to england to her father who, unable to cope with working and raising children alone, sent Sophia and her elder brother to boarding schools.
‘I had a lot of issues and would misbehave in lessons or just walk out of school,’ recalls Sophia, 30. ‘By my teenage years I was drinking alcohol and self-harming and, with hindsight, realise things got so bad for me because my family support system had been torn apart, and I didn’t feel I had anyone to talk to.
‘I would never want my children to feel as insecure as I did.’
When Sophia made the commitment to
marry Alex, 28, a company secretary, in 2011, it was in the wholehearted belief that they would be together for life.
In her mind, there was no getout clause — contrary to the attitude of some from her parents’ generation who may have been guilty of viewing divorce as a fallback for when the going, almost inevitably, got tough.
Now she’s a parent herself, Sophia feels even more strongly that marriage is a lifelong commitment, and wishes her parents had tried harder to make theirs succeed.
‘Marriage is hard work but, if you commit to it, I believe we all — especially the parents among us — should do everything in our power to stay together,’ she says.
And Sophia’s is far from a lone voice in what is being hailed as a significant backlash against the soaring divorce statistics recorded during the final two decades of the last century, of which many of today’s young adults consider themselves casualties.
Over the past 20 years, UK divorce rates have fallen by a third, while the number marrying has decreased by just a fifth in the same period.
In fact, the proportion of marriages being dissolved is at its lowest since the mid-Seventies, after a change in the law in 1969 meant couples were, for the first time, allowed to end a marriage after two years’ separation, without the need to prove fault.
The latest Office for National Statistics figures show there were just 114,720 divorces in 2013. At its peak in 1993, the figure was 165,018 and a report by family law firm, Hall Brown, say the children of this epidemic — now married and raising children of their own — are fuelling the backlash, with a definite shift in attitude to marriage among today’s young couples.
‘Many of the people who come to see us because their marriage is in trouble make clear they don’t really want to divorce,’ says lawyer James Brown, of Hall Brown.
‘Some underline a desire to explore every possible option to save their relationships because they remember only too well how much distress was caused by their parents’ marriages ending.’
CERTAINly, when Sophia — a full-time mother who used to work as a publishing assistant — feels at the end of her tether, she need only look at her children, Oliver, three, and Jasmine, one, to be reminded of her determination not to put them through the heartbreak she experienced as a child.
In her early 20s, Sophia needed therapy to help her work through some of the issues she believes were the direct result of her parents’ acrimonious split.
‘I talked a lot about the trauma of my parents’ divorce and its aftermath in therapy, which I think has given me the strength to build a good, strong marriage of my own,’ she says.
‘I can’t bear for history to repeat itself. I think too many among my parents’ generation gave up too easily, because divorce had become more acceptable — but the damage it causes is long-lasting.
‘I’m acutely aware of the risks because I’ve seen relationships in my peer group break down due to the strain of commuting and spending too little time together.’
Alex’s very long hours — he leaves the house before the children have woken up, and in the past hasn’t got home until after their bedtime — have left Sophia feeling like a single parent on weekdays and put their relationship under strain.
‘I know other young mums who whinge about the same thing but, instead of letting their husbands know, they just feel resentful.
‘Perhaps they have no experience of what impact this can have on children, but I do.
‘It’s not easy nurturing a marriage, but we’re determined ours won’t go the same way.’
Alex, for his part, is equally committed to the long-term success of their marriage. His own parents divorced last year, after years of acrimony, and he would also be prepared to have relationship counselling with Sophia, rather than call it quits.
This willingness among the younger generation to do something their parents and grandparents are likely to have viewed as ‘airing their dirty laundry in public’ could also be a significant factor in their longterm marital success.
Tavistock Relationships, a charity offering counselling services, has seen a 40 per cent rise in demand for its services over the past four years and, intriguingly, 70 per cent of its clients are under the age of 45.
‘Half the couples who come to us wanting to separate no longer want to do so by the end of their therapy,’ says Andrew Balfour, consultant clinical psychologist and the charity’s chief executive.
The difficulties some young couples overcome through counselling include everything from affairs and sexual problems to depression, mental health issues and conflicts over approaches to parenting and finances.
‘The more we understand about the impact on children’s development of parental conflict — it affects their mental health and can lead to anxiety, depression, aggression and reduced academic attainment — the more we realise how important it is to attempt to resolve it.’
What is clear is that the hurt and pain of growing up in a broken home runs deep.
Barbara Bloomfield, an author and counsellor with relationship charity Relate, has worked with many young adults still scarred by their parents’ divorce.
‘They carry a heartfelt sadness,’ says Barbara. ‘They often have a yearning for a “normality” they feel they missed out on: to have their parents in one home and not to have to explain to their friends why they go to their dad’s at weekends.’
As well as the emotional wellbeing of children, divorce can have a detrimental effect on their academic and, ultimately, career success.
Jane Mullarkey, 37, and her husband Paul, 36, have survived a cancer scare, multiple miscarriages and redundancy. But Jane is determined her children won’t go through the same experience as she did. She blames her parents’ divorce in the early Nineties, when she was only 13, for her poor GCSE results three years later.
‘My younger brother and I would move between our parents’ two houses, and it was terribly awkward since they didn’t speak to one another,’ recalls Jane, from St Helens, Merseyside. ‘I’d been in all the top sets at school and wa on course for As and Bs in my GCSEs, but I fell in with a bad crowd, who smoked and drank and stopped working, so I ended up with Ds and Cs. ‘I remember feeling: “If no one else in my family can be bothered to make an effort, why should I? I felt abandoned, as if my child hood had ended because my parents’ needs came first.’ Knowing how damaging her par ents’ separation had been to her Jane has always been determined that her marriage to building firm site superviser Paul will last. They tied the knot eight year ago, and have a daughter, Milla five. They have also had to over come challenges that would have broken other couples. ‘We’ve been through some tough times: had cervical cance cells removed and three miscar riages before Milla was con ceived, and Pau has been made redundant a couple of times, Jane explains. ‘Of course there are the day to-day niggles common to mos couples — I don’ always feel that Pau helps enough with our daugh ter, or around the house. ‘And I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been moments when I’ve fantasised about escaping, on my own, to Barbados. ‘But, instead, I tell my husband how I’m feeling, and he will bring home a bottle of wine and a box o
chocolates for me on a Friday night, leave me to have a lie-in on a Sunday morning and ask his mum to babysit so we can have a night out occasionally.
‘Neither of us believes in throwing a marriage away the moment it seems broken. When we exchanged wedding vows I really meant I would love and obey my husband, until death us do part.’
Incapable of rewriting their own history, many adults are focusing their energies on ensuring stability for their children.
Drew Fautley, 32, a chef from Portsmouth, was four when his mum and dad separated, and wants, at all costs, for his daughter, Reyah, one, to grow up in a home with two parents.
HE AND wife Abi have been married for three years and Drew admits new parenthood — the sleepless nights, the financial strain combined with him often having to work away — has, on occasion, brought their marriage to the brink.
‘All the financial burden was on me when Abi, 29, went on maternity leave from her job as a care co-ordinator,’ says Drew.
‘At times, I haven’t been able to help myself imagining how much less stressful things would be as a single man.’
However, Drew needs only cast his mind back to his own childhood to be reminded of the importance of working at his marriage.
His world imploded in the late Eighties when his mother announced she was leaving his father and taking Drew and his elder brother with her. ‘I was too young to make sense of what was happening,’ recalls Drew. ‘And there were points when I thought: “Is it something I’ve done?”
‘When you’re small, it’s hard to tell the difference between your parents shouting at you because you’ve done something naughty, and them having an argument with one another.
‘Abi and I are careful never to argue in front of Reyah — I would never want her feeling that our disagreements are her fault.
‘And we work very hard to avoid conflict. A marriage needs to be a working partnership, not two people at loggerheads.’
Both of Drew’s parents have remarried and, although his stepfather treated him like his own son, Drew was always aware that there was no biological connection between them.
While his mum settled in Portsmouth, his dad moved to Croydon, South London, and the 80-mile distance made it difficult for Drew to see him as often as he would have liked.
‘If there was something important happening at school, Dad would try to make an effort to come and support us,’ says Drew.
‘But I remember feeling sad when I was in school plays or during sports days, when there was a father-son race, and my dad wasn’t there.’
For young men like Drew, the thought of ending up in the role of absent parent is their greatest fear of all.
And, even when their relationships hit rock bottom, their main concern is for their children’s happiness, not their own.
‘I see people who are undecided, questioning: “Should I stay or go? Is it going to ruin my kids’ lives?” ’ says divorce coach Sara Davison. ‘They can feel very nervous if their parents’ break up has left them feeling scarred.
‘Rather than simply filing for divorce, they want to try everything to save their marriage, sometimes starting with remaining under the same roof but sleeping in separate bedrooms.
‘If their differences remain unresolved, they begin spending alternate weekends caring for their children, while the other parent visits friends or family.
The third stage entails the parents doing their own thing, including eating separately, on weekdays, too.
‘I think this three-stage process is a good thing if they’re able to get on with one another.’
All the couples agree that vigilance within their relationship is key if they are to stay out of the divorce courts.
In fact, Sophia and Alex Ludbrook-Miles appear to have taken a leaf out of the marital handbook from their grandparents’, or even great-grandparents’, generation — many of whom have claimed, at golden and diamond wedding celebrations, that the secret to their long marriages is not letting the sun go down on an argument.
‘We try never to go to sleep angry,’ says Sophia. ‘We’re both of the opinion that, whatever we’re angry about, it has to be resolved before bed.
‘Even if we can’t resolve it, we always say “I love you” before dropping off. ‘That way we can both go to sleep confident that our marriage isn’t under threat.’