I’ve fallen into the habit of calling myself divorced. I use it in writing, I say it in conversation, I respond “divorced” when someone asks me if I’m married or single (though now I’m in a relationship that’s an even more complicated question to answer).
But technically, that’s a lie. I am not – officially – divorced. I’m in the process. And it’s a process which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Long, complicated, drawn-out, humiliating and expensive would be the top five descriptions I would use for it, but I absolutely could go on. Which is why it came as no surprise to me when I read that a study from the University of Bristol and the Nuffield Trust found that women were coming away from marriages with a lesser or even unfair settlement, in order to get the thing over and done with.
The report found more than one in 10 couples in England and Wales took no advice at all on their divorce. Only two in five divorcees made were able to use lawyers as a source for information, advice or support.
Unsurprisingly, the reason cited was the cost. “In the wake of cuts to legal aid, and hampered by a lack of financial and legal knowledge, couples are trying to divorce on the cheap,” said the report’s author, Emma Hitchings, a professor of family law at the University of Bristol. “But this means they are bypassing a legal system designed to achieve fairness. That is leaving women worse off and putting their future financial security at risk.”
It’s women who are disproportionately impacted by this lack of legal support. “More than a third of divorcees did not know the value of their own pension pot, let alone their spouse’s,” says Hitchings. “Without all assets, particularly pensions, being considered on divorce, the future financial security of many women, who generally have smaller pension pots than men, is being put at risk.”
When I started the divorce process I was genuinely shocked by how difficult it is. How, I ask myself every week, can it be so much harder to get divorced than it is to get married? Much was made of the introduction of a no-fault divorce, apparently making it easier to end your marriage, but honestly I’ve seen no advantage to it. It’s still an archaic process, complicated enough if you’re child free with separate finances, hideously so if you owned property or had a family together.
A complete stranger, who might never meet you or your partner, presides over whether you’re allowed to sever the contract between you. You have to prove that you’ve made financial arrangements, rather than being trusted to behave like adults, even if there’s no known argument over money. And the actual process, whereby you are eventually granted a Decree Nisi, then have to wait six weeks, then are granted an Decree Absolute, belongs to a different century.
I’m a fairly intelligent person and I still find the process impossible to fathom. Every time I have to use a lawyer for an email I can feel the bill racking up, and it makes me feel sick with panic. I’d do anything to get this process over and done with quickly, and so I completely understand why women are taking a bad deal.
It’s hard not to think that a divorce is designed to be difficult, that it’s perhaps a punishment for not wanting to stay married, or an attempt to discourage you from chasing your freedom. But there is no benefit from making it so complicated and expensive, and for some people, it might be the difference between starting a new life and being trapped in an old, unsafe one.
Making divorce this hard to navigate doesn’t make people stay married, it means that they live apart with a marriage left between them, which in turn creates emotional and logistical grey areas. If I were hit by a bus tomorrow, a person I used to be in a relationship with, a person who actively dislikes me, could inherit everything I own and have full control over my funeral, my body, everything. These days I have a very robust will specifically to prevent that from happening.
The divorce system in the country is punitive and it needs reform. It’s just a shame that everyone who knows that first-hand is so busy dealing with the hideous process that no one has the time to actually reform it.
You should be able to legally dissolve the marriage status and work out everything else afterwards. Of course the financial questions have to be answered, and of course custody has to be agreed. But there’s no reason that should have to come before you’re allowed to end the marriage.
I truly believe that for everyone’s safety and well being it should be possible to legally end a marriage at the click of a button, and then to have a grace period in which to work everything else out. Which is probably why, despite the fact that I’ve still got months of horrible emails, tense meetings and resentful negotiations, I’ve let myself have the word “divorced” now. When you need to not be married to someone, you need to not be married to them. But I refuse to let a system which values staying married over being happy, force me to be a “wife” when I know I’m not one anymore.
