Why infidelity is no longer a deal-breaker
The plummeting divorce rates in Britain prove how much the relationship red lines have been redrawn, reports Linda Kelsey
When it comes to the breakdown of a marriage, it would appear that red lines are being redrawn. Statistics, highlighted in a report released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, point to the fact that there has been a whopping 47per cent drop in the number of divorce petitions submitted by wives over the last quarter of a century, and not countered, as I first suspected, by the percentage brought by men going up. In fact, there’s also been a 6per cent drop in the number of men filing for divorce. Why on earth should this have happened, you might wonder. Surely 21st-century woman hasn’t become willing to put up and shut up, like she might have done back in the Fifties?
Call me a cynic, but it doesn’t seem likely that husbands have suddenly become so much nicer that women simply want to hang on for dear life.
It’s fascinating stuff when you break it all down, because even though divorce has dropped dramatically over the period – down from 165,018 in England and Wales in 1993 to 101,669 in 2017, mainly due to the fact large numbers of people are choosing to cohabit rather than marry, or are marrying later – it doesn’t explain the dramatic shift in the changing proportion of petitions in relation to sex. In 1993, men made up just 28per cent of those making the first move in the legal process of divorce, while women’s petitions accounted for 72per cent. In 2017, just 62per cent of petitions were brought by women, with the percentage brought by men having jumped to 38per cent. And it’s a figure that keeps increasing.
Given that no research has been drawn up on this curious statistical volte face, evidence for change is necessarily more anecdotal than scientific, but it does point to interesting shifts in attitudes, influenced by both economic circumstances and the re-cast status of men and women in society.
Traditionally, men have been less pro-active in dealing with relationship problems, barely noticing a wife’s general dissatisfaction, and happy to keep the status quo. If he was having an affair he’d blithely carry on in the hope the wife wouldn’t find out, or forgive him if she did, preferring to keep the finances intact rather than having to divvy up following divorce. That relationship map has shifted.
According to Charlotte Friedman, a former barrister in family law turned psychotherapist, and author of Breaking Upwards – How to Manage the Emotional Impact of Separation, red lines have moved significantly in recent years, especially where women are concerned, propelling them away from, rather than towards, divorce. It’s not, sadly, happy marriages that are the cause. She points to the downturn in the economic climate and the collapse of the property market in some areas, making divorce seem unaffordable and women reluctant to initiate proceedings that will make them so much worse off financially. Paradoxically, she also highlights the knock-on effect of more women being breadwinners. “Historically, women were on the receiving end of maintenance and capital. Now many are earning more than their partners. I wouldn’t call it a double standard, but they haven’t always made the
Surely 21st-century woman hasn’t become willing to put up and shut up?
adjustment to this new situation. Women find it painful when they’ve worked so hard to get to a certain financial position, and it adds insult to injury to have to give money to a husband they’re angry with.” In many such cases, Charlotte Friedman believes, a woman may well hold back from calling a solicitor.
As far as infidelity being a trigger for marital breakdown, you only have to have watched an episode of the BBC’S latest marital drama
Wanderlust, which sees a married couple agree to both have affairs outside the marriage but stay together, to see that as a society, we are becoming much more forgiving about infidelity – or at least more tolerant about the idea of it.
Despite inevitably being devastated and angry, Friedman believes many women are often able to rationalise on the basis that they were having a perfectly nice relationship before the affair came to light and that they will try to carrying on doing so.
The new red line would not be a first affair, but a second one when your partner had promised – and you were willing to trust – that it wouldn’t happen again. I’ve been speaking to a number of men and women this week about their own red lines. For one friend, Carol, who’s in her late 40s, putting up with her husband’s infidelity has subjected her to what therapist Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, has described as “the new shame”: the stigma of staying as opposed to what used to be the stigma of separation.
Carol told me: “Almost everyone I know regards me as a lily-livered doormat for not leaving him. But what I need is their support to work this through. I’ve had 12 wonderful years and two wonderful children with my husband, who also happens to be a wonderful dad. My red line would be if he lied to me about money. That’s what my sister’s husband did. He lied and lied until the bailiffs turned up, and she hadn’t a clue. That – not infidelity – are grounds for divorce.”
The more people I speak to on the topic of infidelity, the more inclined I am to call it a grey area rather than a red line. “After 20 years of putting up with me, I don’t think I’d blame Mike for having an affair,” one acquaintance told me. “I’m no angel, and I’ve had a couple of flings myself over the years. But if he did it with a friend, or someone I knew, that’s when it would be over.”
I’m also reminded of the BBC’S terrific recent series, The Split, about female divorce lawyers and their personal as well as professional dramas, which cast a forensic eye on attitudes to infidelity. While railing against her husband’s deceit, and in agony over his disloyalty and lies (he was exposed as having visited an extra-marital dating site as well as having a brief affair), protagonist Hannah Defoe (played by Nicola Walker) seemed to have set aside the fact that she slept with another man on the night before her own wedding.
Marriages today are a messy business, with rules and boundaries constantly being rewritten. In fact, the most common ground cited in proceedings is now unreasonable behaviour, which can run the gamut from failure to contribute financially to substance abuse and violence.
A former colleague had put up with her husband’s drinking to excess for 30 years. He was never violent with it, but he was becoming an embarrassment at dinner parties and had lost one job because of it.
She put up with it over and over. But when he ran into a car in front of him at the lights while his granddaughter was strapped in the baby seat, and was found to be over the limit, my friend’s red line had been breached. Her red line was that he endangered his grandchild.
Friedman believes that generally the red lines of emotional abuse, and issues such as addiction and alcoholism, are being more strongly drawn than ever. “There is so much focus on these topics today,” she says, “so many more support groups out there, and as a result less need to tolerate it and suffer privately.”
Meanwhile, a male pal has pulled the plug on his marriage for what might be seen as a very contemporary red line indeed. “To be frank, I hate my job as an accountant, always have,” he told me. “And at 60, I feel I could ease up a bit if only my wife would get off her backside and get a job. She’s 12 years younger, she trained as a teacher before we had kids, and she could easily get work now they’re out of the nest. But she chooses not to, preferring to lunch with her girlfriends, go to Zumba and shopping. You know what? That’s my red line. I’m off while I’ve still got the chance!”
To paraphrase Tolstoy, could it be that all happy marriages are alike; every unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way, regardless of who files the divorce papers.
Marriages today are a messy business, with rules constantly being rewritten