Ignore ‘Divorce month’ noise – over 83% of marriages thrive!
January is often dubbed ‘Divorce Month’ in media and legal commentary, with the first working Monday sometimes labelled ‘Divorce Day’. Some family lawyers describe it as more media narrative than hard evidence. That alone should raise suspicion about the annual hype.
The same defeatist soundbite then rolls in: “half of marriages end in divorce”. It is memorable. It is also wrong.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports: “...around 1 in 6 (16.8%) marriages formed in 2013 had ended in divorce by their 10th wedding anniversary”. That implies roughly 83% did not end in divorce within ten years. That should be the real headline.
The myth also smuggles in a distortion. Annual divorce totals include divorces from first, second and later marriages, and some people will appear more than once across a lifetime because they remarry and divorce again. And because many divorces come from second and later marriages, the outlook for first-time adult marriages is likely even higher than that 83% figure!
Divorce remains a serious problem. ONS reports 102,678 divorces were granted in 2023. But that figure should not be used as a cultural weapon to tell every couple their future is doomed.
Marriage is still the majority family structure. ONS reports that across the UK “married couples made up 65.1% of families in 2024”. And while commentators obsess over divorce, ONS provisional data reports 216,901 opposite-sex (real) marriages in England and Wales in 2023. Marriage is not dead. Quite the opposite.
January is also a cultural reset. Research on the “fresh start effect” shows that temporal landmarks such as the new year can increase motivation to pursue goals. That energy can be spent on recommitment, not retreat.
Coalition for Marriage (C4M) is a non-political, grassroots organisation with supporters from across the political divide and from all faiths and none. It exists to champion the unique public value of one-man, one-woman marriage, and the freedom to say so in law and in public.
If your church, workplace, or local organisation wants to strengthen marriages proactively in 2026, C4M can help. Last year, I delivered - usually for free - tailored marriage enrichment sessions to hundreds of couples through churches and community settings across the UK and beyond. Invitations can be made by replying to this email with a location and a couple of suitable dates.
This January, the ‘Divorce Day’ noise does not need to set the mood. The myth is weak. The marriage reality is so much stronger. And the best response is practical: back marriage, talk about it plainly, and invest in it early. Get in touch to find out more.