The short straw
If you believe everything you read, then you’ll know that apparently men rather than women are more likely to be emotionally scarred by divorce.
Although I don’t believe everything I read, I still think this is true, and I didn’t find this apparently groundbreaking information surprising. Having acted for both husbands and wives in divorce proceedings over the years, I have seen many career focused and intelligent men, who were often the financial decision makers in their marriage, breakdown right before my eyes. Since they are often more financially aware, husbands can actually be ‘easier’ clients so to speak, as they are fully aware of their investments and liabilities and therefore well equipped to make decisions as to the division of matrimonial assets and can often quite clearly describe an accurate picture of the matrimonial finances. However on balance, they find the entire divorce process much more emotionally challenging than their counterpart wives and as this new research unsurprisingly suggests, this is simply because men don’t tend to share their thoughts and feelings with others as much as women tend to do.
According to this new research typically 71 per cent of men would have turned to their partners for emotional support if they were anxious or depressed, however only 39 per cent of women would do the same, being more likely to confide in family and friends. So it makes sense that this life changing event – divorce, is typically harder on men overall as the only person they would normally confide in, their partner, is no longer someone they can trust. As such, this research suggests that divorced men are seven times more likely to become depressed than women and are more prone to sleepless nights and alcohol dependency in order to cope with the reality of life post-divorce. Of course this is not surprising given that divorced men often find themselves drawing the short straw by being the ones who move out of the former matrimonial home and succumb to seeing their much loved children only every other weekend, which can be a massive shock to previously utterly devoted and hand-on fathers.
If you don’t want to draw the short straw, drop us a line at Simone@kleymansolicitors.com to have a chat about how we can prepare you for divorce.
Kleyman & Co Solicitors. The full service law firm. Don’t let the straw break your back.