January Is Divorce Month

January has become known as the time of new beginnings and the time of endings.  This is because so many people choose to end their relationship with their partner in January.  As a result, January is often referred to as “Divorce Month”. There is usually a particular day in January when there is a peak and that is on the Monday when most people and businesses resume work.  For year 2018 this was January 8.

There does not appear to be any one specific reason for the increase in enquiries which are made to family lawyers in January.  It may be that the holidays over Christmas was time for the parties to spend together for them to realise something was wrong with their relationship, or believing that the goodwill of Christmas could fix their relationship only to realise that their relationship could not be fixed, or the time spent together during the holidays started the relationship-ending fights, or the making of a New Year resolution to finally end the relationship.  

This trend has been reported in countries including the United Kingdom and the USA and also in Australia in terms of inquiries and lodgements of Applications in the Family Court.  Although the recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show divorce rates are much lower than 20 years ago, this may be because parties choose to live in a defacto relationship and not marry (and as a result they are not required to divorce in the Court after the relationship ends).