On a perfectly curated wedding day, no couple thinks there might come a time when they will feel more like cell mates than soul mates. Statistics suggest otherwise.

Last year in Ireland, there were 21,159 marriages and 5,218 applications for divorce. Both figures were down from 2022 (when it was 23,173 and 5,551 respectively) but may still bear hallmarks of the “Covid effect”. Whether lockdown was the making or breaking of a relationship, it delayed legalities in both scenarios.

When a couple splits, the conundrum of how to make two homes out of one is more challenging now than ever, with accommodation both costly and scarce. Increasingly they stay under the same roof right through the mandatory two years of “living apart” for a divorce – and sometimes beyond. Even the most amicable couples struggle to make the sums add up to give each their own place, particularly when both accommodations need to be suitable for children to stay. In fraught breakdowns, the volatility is compounded if neither can, or will, move out while they fight over what happens next.

Divorce is always a court process, whether uncontested – the vast majority – or contested. Applications are decided on by a judge, usually in the Circuit Court but, where assets are valued at more than €3 million, they may go to the High Court. Separating couples can opt for DIY divorces, without either using a solicitor, but the court still has to approve their agreement.

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A jump from 4,073 divorces being sought in Ireland in 2019 to 5,226 in 2020 was attributed mainly to a change in legislation at the end of 2019. This reduced the required living apart period from four years to two years. It also made clear that spouses who reside in the same house shall be considered to be “living apart” if the court is satisfied they are not in an intimate and committed relationship.

[ ‘We don’t speak, we don’t eat, we don’t do anything together’: Inside an Irish divorce courtOpens in new window ]

Dublin Rathdown Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan, a former family lawyer, championed this reform of the divorce law, firstly publishing a Private Member’s Bill in 2016. It was later adopted as Government policy and put to the public in a referendum, which was passed by 82 per cent. It means people are unlikely to need a judicial separation before embarking on the divorce process.

“It’s just nice to have alleviated that for people, from a cost and an emotional perspective,” says Madigan, who had no idea at the time that she would be one of the thousands who would benefit. She and her husband, Finbarr Hayes, have since separated and are finalising their divorce. (In March, Madigan resigned her ministerial role and said she will step down from politics at the next general election.)

Here, five people who have gone through relationship breakdown and have concluded or are contemplating divorce proceedings relate their experience, and professionals involved in different aspects of divorce work talk about what they see.

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Susan: ‘He’s been hell bent on revenge’

Susan is still going through the divorce courts. Her husband was abusive, she says, and she finally got the strength to walk away some years back. At the time there was a four-year wait to get a divorce, so she needed to go for judicial separation in order to sell the house. For that she was in the courts for at least 30 days, she explains.

The separation took two years to complete. Her husband was abusive to her child also, she says. Not wanting to put her child through the court ordeal again so soon after the judicial separation, she decided to wait a few years before applying for a divorce.

“He’s been hell bent on revenge,” Susan says. The cost of her judicial separation increased significantly from the initial quote because “every time he didn’t like a ruling in the courts, he appealed it and went back again”, she adds. The amount of time it took to complete the process was far longer as a result.

There are other fees in addition to the legal fees, Susan says, pointing to elements such as the cost of seeing a psychologist. She estimates that, allowing for other costs and restrictions, the entire process has cost her in the region of €100,000.

They sold the house and the proceeds were split 50/50. Susan lives in rented accommodation and says that even if she could afford a house, she couldn’t buy one as her husband would have a claim on the property because the divorce is not finalised.

Susan says her experience of divorce has been “really horrendous”. She feels there’s a “massive change needed”. Due to fears of running up high legal bills again, she’s representing herself in the divorce courts. Trying to get the information needed, such as pension information and bank account details, is extremely difficult, she says.

There is still some stigma around divorce, she believes. Someone told her “people give up too quickly on marriages”.

Marian: ‘If I sell the house neither of us would be able to live in Dublin’

Marian says if she could get divorced, she would. Her husband moved out about a year before Covid, she explains. “We’re lucky because we have a decent relationship”, but she concedes, it took time to get to that position.

Marian lives in the family home with her child. Due to the cost of rent in the capital, her husband had to move in with his parents, in a different county. Marian’s child was suffering, she says, from not seeing his father as frequently as he needed to, so they made an agreement that she would rent out a room to someone else in the house and manage the bills, meaning her husband could afford to move back to Dublin.

They split the time with their child equally. Her husband has tried to get a mortgage to buy his own property, rather than paying high rent, but because his name is on the mortgage of the family home, the bank won’t allow it, Marian says. “The reality is if I sell the house neither of us would probably be able to live in Dublin and my son has had enough upheaval,” she says.

In spite of their ability to discuss and sort things amicably, they cannot get divorced until all the financial elements have been sorted out, Marian explains.

She has a new partner but says that not being divorced and still living in the family home can create challenges for a new relationship in the early days, as people can feel it means a reunion is still possible.

Separation is hard, she says. A person can lose married friends, dreams and confidence. She says she feels stuck in limbo as she watches others move on with their lives. Marian says while her married friends can start to take things a little easier as they get older, she and her separated friends have to work even harder.

Daniel: ‘It was a complete nightmare. It was messy’

Daniel says he and his ex-wife were just incompatible. They got married when he was in his early 20s and they had no children together. Due to work commitments, Daniel spent a lot of time away from home. The couple separated for a period but then reunited. Shortly after buying a house, they split for good.

He knows the split was the right decision but says “things went down rapidly” after he called time on their marriage, even though they both agreed it was the right thing to do. They earned similar salaries, though Daniel says that his wife went out sick within a few weeks of the separation and he ended up paying maintenance to her. She emptied their joint bank account, he says.

He took on all of the couple’s debt. They had to be two years apart before applying for judicial separation. They went through the mediation process and had an agreement in place that he would cover their debts, and she would stay in the house. But things fell apart when lawyers got involved, he says. As part of the separation agreement, she was entitled to a third of his pension. “That’s life,” he says.

When Daniel began a relationship with a new partner, he had huge difficulty finding his ex-wife to serve her with divorce papers. “It was a complete nightmare,” he says. “It was messy.” While acknowledging that most lawyers are representing their clients to the best of their ability, he says that things went “downhill” once the matter became legal. “All ground that you thought was covered had to be re-covered again”, he explains.

While accepting the mental toll and financial costs were significant, he says getting divorced is the best decision he ever made.

Daniel is now married to his new partner.

Vicky: ‘I felt very judged’

Vicky has been divorced twice. When she came out to her parents “it was still illegal to be gay”. Her father was “devastated” and worried about how his daughter would be treated. She moved abroad, where she married her first wife some years later. But Vicky says she struggled with intense grief following her father’s death, and the marriage broke down.

While there were a lot of “legalities”, she says, the divorce wasn’t “messy” because the couple didn’t have any assets.

Vicky married again. This time she married a woman who had considered herself to be heterosexual, prior to falling in love with Vicky. The couple married abroad, and later moved to Ireland. This marriage however was a more “platonic” relationship, according to Vicky. Their relationship shifted when Vicky’s wife said she felt “she was really straight” and didn’t want a sexual relationship any more.

The second divorce was “more messy”, Vicky says. Her ex-wife was very hurt by the break-up, and so there was “anger, bitterness and resentment”, she says. Vicky had met someone else by this stage but felt very guilty about the break-up. The actual divorce process was straightforward though, she says, and not particularly costly: she estimates a little over €2,000. Vicky had signed a prenuptial agreement in advance of her second marriage, which protected her ex-wife’s property.

Irish people can be very judgmental, particularly when there’s a second divorce, Vicky believes. She says people looked at her like she “was a monster, for a while”. She also believes people reacted differently because they were same-sex marriages. “I felt very judged,” she says.

Vicky has since married again and is now on good terms with both of her ex-wives.

Mark: ‘We did all our fighting at the separation stage’

Mark was separated for several years before he got divorced. The couple were renting, which meant that there was no property for them to sort out as part of their separation or divorce agreement. “The main issue was access to the kids,” he says.

He wasn’t in a hurry to get divorced and says by the time it came around it was just a case of “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, really”.

The separation, on the other hand, was very “awkward”, he says. “We did all our fighting at that stage.” he says. Mark’s wife is from another country, and she wanted to move home. He wasn’t so keen, and ultimately he believes this led to the end of their marriage.

He describes the separation as the most stressful time of his life. His wife took the children abroad and he wanted them to return. He put a “stay” on their divorce. He familiarised himself with family law by studying it as much as he could.

He’s on good terms with his ex-wife now, he says, and she and their children are back living in Ireland.

He says the earlier animosity was likely a result of neither party being able to do what they wanted during the period of separation. When this “died down”, the couple decided they just “had to get on with it”, he says.

The divorce was a very straightforward and comparatively fast part of the process for him, Mark says.

He is now in a new relationship.

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The family law solicitor

I can give you legal advice, but I can’t give you life advice

Solicitor Catriona O’Rourke handles an increasing number of cases where separating couples have to remain in the one home until they have resolved their divorce, whether through settling or court hearings.

“I think that’s had a huge impact on people. It’s obviously very stressful.” Legally it might be beneficial for a client to stay in the family home, because moving out makes it harder to get back in, if you want to buy your ex out or have a right to residence, she says, but there may be safety and emotional considerations.

“I always say to people, I can give you legal advice, but I can’t give you life advice,” says O’Rourke of The Family Practice in Dublin, which she cofounded with her husband Jeremy Ring. “Our role is to try to resolve matters as amicably as possible, but also making sure that there’s proper provision for both parties, in particular where there’s children involved.” Separating couples who are agreed on everything quite often ask if she could process their divorce but one solicitor cannot act for both.

“We need to do our due diligence before we get to a point where we can enter into settlements.” Although she can only represent one half of a couple, she says, “genuinely, I’m of the view that people should really work to try and get an amicable solution to the issues, if at all possible, and obviously bearing in mind ‘proper provision’.”

After two years of “living apart”, the divorce can be completed within six months, she says, where both partners engage with the process, respond to queries from the other’s solicitor, meet for a settlement, sign the agreed terms and then have it ruled on by court. “If people prolong it, it could be 18 months, it could be three years.”

In Dublin the waiting times in family law cases at the end of 2023 were 14 weeks for contested cases and five weeks in non-contested cases, according to the Courts Service. However outside Dublin, waiting times range from nine to 30 weeks for uncontested cases and from 12 weeks to two years for contested.

Where people stay under the one roof, O’Rourke has noticed they are less likely to say anything to the children, whereas one parent moving out usually precipitates that sit-down conversation. In other situations, she has seen clients opt for “nesting”, whereby the children stay in the family home and the parents come and go.

“It’s not ideal. I’ve heard of people sleeping on friends’ sofas over the weekend to facilitate that. You could be doing that for two years or more.” While more often than not couples can agree arrangements over the children, the big stumbling block to a settlement usually relates to property, she says. If you’re moving out and you have two or three children, you have to rent a place that is suitable for access.

“It’s going to cost you three grand [a month] in Dublin,” she suggests. That may be on top of continuing to pay half the mortgage on the family home, maintenance for the children and your own day-to-day expenses. However, she observes that generally couples do not want to sell the family home. “People go to all sorts of different lengths to try and keep the house,” she adds, to minimise disruption for the children.

The mediator

The longer people are separated, the more successful mediation will be

The Covid-19 pandemic was a wake-up call for many people in unhappy marriages, says mediator Rachael McDaid. “The Covid effect has been that people have said, ‘Oh my God, this life is so short. I don’t want to waste any more time in this situation’.”

She was a family law solicitor before training to become a full-time mediator. About 80 per cent of her clients at Mediation Dublin are separating and “want to get things agreed, stay out of the courts and ultimately use it for divorce”. Since the start of 2018, mediation agreements are legally binding unless the couple decides they want to bring it to their respective solicitors to convert into a legal document for an uncontested divorce, which will then be submitted to the court.

She feels sorry for people whose relationship has broken down but they can’t move out. “Volatility builds up unnecessarily.” In some cases people have to stay in physically dangerous situations.

The idea that a separating couple could sell their house and each buy their own place is becoming increasingly unrealistic. Couples tell her that neither of them would be able to get back on the property ladder. Keeping the house can be the smart thing to do, she believes, because if it is sold “they may never get another property and then you have two families looking for somewhere to live ... I think that the whole property crisis has pushed people to being more creative.”

Mediation allows for creative solutions, she says, whereas the courts “don’t have time to get into all the dynamics of people’s situations”. In mediation, a couple can devise their own “recipe” for an agreement to bring before a judge. She will always advise each of them to consult a solicitor at the outset and to have them on standby to review the document before they sign it.

“The only thing that can’t be decided upon in mediation is pensions. However, I always put a clause in to deal with pensions because the court will still look at what parties want to do and then they will make their decision on pensions.” She estimates the cost of getting a divorce through private mediation, with some legal advice, to be around €2,000 to €2,500 each, whereas in a contested divorce it is likely to be about €15,000-€20,000, and more if time and complications drag on.

Although more people are using mediation, with free family mediation services available at the Legal Aid Board, it won’t work for all. “The longer people are separated, the more successful mediation will be,” adds McDaid. In the early days of relationship breakdown, “people can’t think straight”.

The Family Mediation Service, which offers free services to all families, including married, cohabiting and same-sex couples, has reached 5,079 mediation agreements over the past five years, reports its director, Fiona McAuslan. “While the waiting time across our centres vary, the current average waiting time is 11 weeks.”

The psychologist

I’m not looking at what’s fair, I’m looking at what’s in the best interest of this child

It used to be relatively rare for Dr Vincent McDarby, a chartered member of the Psychological Society of Ireland, to see divorcing couples still living together. Not any longer.

“Very often they don’t have any plan on how to move out,” says McDarby, who conducts independent assessments for a family law judge where a couple cannot agree on issues of custody and access over children, so he is involved at a later stage of the process. Quite often parents will tell him they have not yet told their children about the separation but, he says, “the kids know”.

One parent might have been taking turns with the children during the week while the other keeps out of the way. This can be managed by some, he says, but often there is either high conflict, or they ignore each other. Children pick up on both.

Although cold shouldering is not as bad as open conflict, witnessing this rejection is also detrimental for children. They identify with both parents and see themselves as a part of each, McDarby explains. “If one parent rejects the other parent in front of the child, you’re actually rejecting part of the child. They find that very difficult.” You also get “triangulation” where parents talk through a child, eg “tell mummy I am going to bring you to swimming tomorrow”. The situation can become so distressing for the child, they will attach themselves to one parent and actively reject the other to alleviate their feelings of being rejected.

Where couples can amicably manage a divorce, the children will almost certainly soon adjust to their new normal, McDarby says. Once they get over the initial upset, and as long as arrangements are consistent, predictable and both parents remain loving towards them, “they actually do really well”.

However, he tends to see the bad cases. People can become very hung up on what the other parent has done wrong and he has to tell them: “That’s not the point of my assessment. I’m not looking at what’s fair, I’m looking at what’s in the best interest of this child, and that’s what I’m focused on. I’m not interested in the breakdown of your relationship. We need to move on from that.”

In an ideal world, a child would have plenty of access to both parents and he, like the judge and family lawyers, look at what might be an impediment to that. He sees parents, typically fathers with two or more children, aware that if they move out of the family home, they are likely to have less access if they can’t rent, or buy, a place suitable for the children to stay. So they decide, for better or for worse, to stay in situ until the divorce is settled.

Divorce coach

Legal is only part of it. There’s so much more

The business of ending a marriage is a marathon, says Mel Murphy who believes the professional individuals she works with need a lawyer, a financial adviser and a divorce coach like her to get through it all.

“The actual legal process can take up to two years depending on what’s going on, but the legal is only part of it. There’s so much more.” A divorce coach provides emotional support and helps create a strategy to get somebody through the process and on to rebuilding their life.

Since Covid, she sees a much more pervasive sense of “I just want to live my best life”. She helps clients work out if leaving the marriage is what they really need, or are there other reasons for their unhappiness.

If it does not make sense to sell the family home, people might consider dividing it in two if possible, she says. But that only works if they remain reasonably well disposed to each other and consider how they are going to handle the other starting a new relationship.

She finds clients tend to be preoccupied with financial issues. “I’m kind of concerned that more people aren’t asking me about the children. There are a lot of very simple things you can do to make it easier for them and that’s what the courts are focused on. The courts don’t care about the story. It’s a no-fault divorce in Ireland.” Murphy went through divorce here herself. As four years of separation was required then, they went for judicial separation first. “We were so broke and emotionally spent by the end of it. By the time it came where we could actually get divorced, we had gotten used to our routine and the emotions had kind of ebbed away.”

They opted for a DIY divorce, tweaking their separation agreement and representing themselves in court. “We still put the paperwork through our own lawyers to double-check everything.”

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