Higgins, who has been married for 32 years, was also trying, at least initially, to hide the sale of the family home and his search for a new place to live from his 30-year-old son, who was home during the pandemic. “I was ducking onto the back deck in my shirt sleeves in 20-degree weather and having therapy sessions drowned out by traffic noise,” said Jeff Higgins, 58, of Guilford, Conn. It’s also heightened the tension in divorces, changing everything from how long a divorce can drag on to how parties appear before the court (virtual backgrounds are frowned upon, because a judge needs to be able to see who else might be in the room) and how they consult with therapists, lawyers and real estate agents, because there’s so little privacy with everyone at home. The pandemic hasn’t just heightened the tension in marriages.

(The study’s authors acknowledged this was “too few states to make conclusions about national trends,” and the study did not include New York or California.)Įvery divorce comes laden with its own issues, but here are some pandemic-era factors facing those wondering whether to stay or go. This may help explain why an early study, which analyzed data from five states for March through September, found that rates had dropped. People want flexibility and control in these times of uncertainty,” said Andrea Vacca, a lawyer who is the immediate past president of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals, a nonprofit that advocates collaborative divorce.Īt the same time, some clients are “frozen, not wanting to initiate the divorce process when their spouse is earning less,” said Laurie Itkin, a certified divorce financial analyst in San Diego. Consultations at the Upper West Side lawyer Ken Jewell’s firm are up 48 percent, he said. National statistics are not yet available, but there seems to be more work for lawyers and mediators across the board. (He or she has suffered a loss in income, and so the settlement will be less.) And there are the less obvious ones, like the bread-winning spouse who toyed with the idea of divorce now moving forward because it makes financial sense. There are the expected reasons, such as increased domestic pressures and upended routines that may have once masked marriage problems. The coronavirus crisis has inspired what seems to be a surge of divorces in the United States, a pattern also seen in China, Britain and Sweden. Chemtob, who represented the designer Mary-Kate Olsen in her pandemic divorce from the French banker Olivier Sarkozy. “There was nothing to wait for anymore,” said Ms.

And the calls and texts didn’t let up between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, traditionally a slow period in the divorce business, as people would hang on for year-end bonuses or the last family vacation before filing. to handle all of the clients who wanted out of their marriages. When the New York divorce courts reopened in June after a nearly three-month closure, the lawyer Nancy Chemtob said she began waking up at 3 a.m.

While the pandemic has curtailed many activities we frequently engage in, it turns out the desire to divorce has not slowed at all. The New York Times posted a great article titled “Manage Your Divorce Expectations” by Courtney Ruben on January 30, 2021

Glimpses firewalking northern greece