Alcohol, Infidelity and Relatives: Recipe for Divorce

Jan. 10, 2008 — -- Friday, barely 10 days after making a New Year's resolution, Donna is going to see her therapist about divorcing her husband of six years.

"Emotions run high around the holidays," said the 56-year-old California businesswoman who did not want her full name used because she hasn't yet broken the news to her husband.

"You really look at yourself in the mirror and dig deep, because Christmas is a time that is supposed to be so personal and family-oriented — the best time in a relationship," she said.

New Canaan, Conn., divorce lawyer Gaetano Ferro says the time between December and Valentine's Day is high season for breakups. Marital misery is often magnified during the holidays and many unhappy spouses want a clean slate in the new year.

"People in bad marriages find that the holidays accentuate the miserableness of their relations, and it causes them to run off to the divorce lawyer," said Ferro.

Often couples initiate consultations with their lawyers in the fall, but hold off because it's "bad form" to serve a spouse with divorce papers on the eve of the holidays, Ferro said.

The spike is not just an American phenomenon. In Britain, divorce lawyers call the Monday after New Year's "D-Day."

"Couples are very reluctant to consider the possibility of divorce in the lead-up to Christmas," British lawyer James Stewart told the Washington Post this week. "It's a terribly important time of year here. No one wants to give their husband or wife a proverbial bloody nose during the holidays."

The second-busiest divorce season is in September, according to Ferro, who just finished a term as president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

"The family goes away on summer vacation, and they're supposed to have a good time," said Ferro. "The kids go back to school and off to college, and Mom and Dad face each other with miserable faces without the kids to deflect it."

The most common reasons cited for divorce are infidelity, abuse, boredom and lack of sex, according to lawyers.