It’s customary to wish people a Happy New Year on January 1. But after the confetti clears and the noisemakers are thrown away, it is becoming increasingly common for people to celebrate “Divorce Day.”
The first Monday of January has traditionally seen a spike in people either consulting lawyers or looking up web information for a way to end their marriages. In fact, some lawyers label all of January as Divorce Month.
“Many New Year’s resolutions entail self-improvement, including fitness, weight loss and sometimes getting out of a marriage,” Lawyer Rebecca Palmer wrote in a commentary on Law.com.
A Question of Timing
The timing for these decisions of dissolution is no accident, according to Palmer. That post-holiday period represents both a chance for change and the end of the rope for some partners’ patience.
“The stress of holidays and associated — perhaps long-simmering — family squabbles have been shown to boil over in the new year,” Palmer continued. “Financial pressures associated with holiday celebrations and various family obligations can also take their toll — particularly when one of the married partners doesn’t really understand the realities of how much it costs to provide the family with a spirited and memorable holiday season.”
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Divorce Data
The January spike in the divorce curious is backed up by more than just lawyers’ anecdotes, though. In the state of Washington, divorce filings from 2001 to 2015 increased in January as opposed to December, according to a 2016 University of Washington study.
Julie Brines, a sociologist at the University of Washington agrees with Palmer that the confluence of holiday stress and New Year’s resolutions create a perfect storm for initiating divorce.
“People tend to face the holidays with rising expectations, despite what disappointments they might have had in years past,” Brines said in a press release. “They represent periods in the year when there’s the anticipation or the opportunity for a new beginning, a new start, something different, a transition into a new period of life. It’s like an optimism cycle, in a sense.”
Web data also bears out this trend. In January 2019, Relate, a U.K. relationship support organization, reported a significant increase in the number of people visiting its website over the holiday season. During the first three working days of the year, the site tallied 84 percent more visits to its website in comparison to the year before.
If you start thinking about ending your marriage in January, you’re not alone: divorce is in the air.
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Law.com. Divorce Month: January Is a Busy Time for Divorce Filings
University of Washington. Sociologist Julie Brines
Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
Elroy Mongold
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