Divorce: Jan 8 is D-Day

According to one poll, January 8 is the busiest day of the year for divorce lawyers in Britain.

And top reasons for splitting are affairs, followed by boredom, abuse and lack of sex.

More than 100 leading marriage lawyers and 2,000 wed, divorced or separated people were quizzed for a poll.

It revealed thousands of couples will today start moves to split — often with Christmas the final nail in the coffin.

The biggest tipping point for most was an affair (27 per cent).

Falling out of love was second (22 per cent) followed by men abusing women (16 per cent).

After lack of sex, it was money rows, alcohol or drug abuse, debt and careers or hobbies taking priority.

Leading divorce lawyer James Stewart said: “Extra time together such as over Christmas can force problems already in the relationship to come to a head.

“We’re expecting this to be our busiest day and our busiest week.”

Given how unreliable most polls are and the source, a divorce website, I'm not sure how much stock to put into this. It makes intuitive sense. But the article makes the rookie mistake of confusing some of the symptoms of marital instability (affairs, boredom, lack of sex) with the causes of marital instability (immaturity, abuse, lack of communication, money, empty nest syndrome).

It's also worth mentioning that the U.K. has a lower marriage rate and a higher divorce rate then the U.S., though I don’t think that it would play into the timing of divorces in this case.