‘Friends tried to warn me’

Carla Mckirdy, 35, is a communications officer. Walking hand in hand along a beach in the South of France in May 2013, I truly believed the man beside me was one I’d be with forever. We’d met weeks earlier, and within just six months, we were married.

‘It’s a bit quick,’ friends and family remarked. ‘What’s the rush?’ But we were in love and I saw marriage as a declaration of our lifetime commitment to each other.

But after around two years together, as we learnt about each other’s bad habits and unattractive traits, rows started.

In 2018, after a failed attempt to reconcile with the help of couples counselling, we decided to formally split and started looking at our options for a divorce. Our situation was fairly simple – we didn’t have children to consider, we lived in a rented property and had no shared assets or savings.

I wanted to protect myself financially but I also didn’t want to pay out the thousands we were quoted for a solicitor’s support in processing a divorce, as my ex had struggled with his finances in the past.

So we decided to go down the DIY divorce route. Friends warned it could be more complex and emotionally draining without professional help, but I decided it was the best thing for me and my ex. He had no savings and I wasn’t willing to single-handedly cover the extortionate costs of proceedings.

Exhausting process

Still, when we found ourselves printing off a form from a website called something like ‘diydivorces.com’, I felt apprehensive about how unprofessional it seemed.

By now, our relationship had become toxic – both unable to say anything nice to each other. It was mentally exhausting when we were forced to speak to each other and work out the best way to go through the divorce. I reasoned if we’d had a solicitor, they would have acted as a messenger and I wouldn’t have needed so much contact with my ex. But it was the only way to get the DIY divorce through.

After painstakingly filling out the forms

‘We were forced to speak to each other’

printed from online, we filed to a judge in April 2020 and received our decree nisi a couple of months later.

It’s a difficult decision to make, whether to get a DIY divorce. You want to spend the least amount of cash possible on splitting from your partner, especially if things have turned sour, but I imagine professional assistance from a solicitor would give you peace of mind that you are getting the best deal.

I think the situation becomes a lot more complicated when children and shares of assets are involved, so I’d definitely advise enrolling a solicitor’s help if you’re in that position.

Now I’m in a new relationship but I’m in no hurry to get married. I’ve learnt the hard way that rushing into a legal commitment before getting to know a person can lead to problems further down the line.