7-year itch now hits 20-yr-old marriages

Till a few years back, not many couples in their 40s wanted to go for a divorce even if their marriages had soured beyond repair. But the situation has changed now as divorce no more carries the social stigma it carried earlier. Moreover, the proposed amendment in Hindu marriage laws that will allow husband and wife to part ways on the ground of ‘irretrievable breakdown of marriage’, is giving new hope to couples trapped in loveless marriages.

Lawyers and matrimonial counsellors in the city say that there are many couples who, emboldened by the proposed amendment, have started contemplating divorce as a possible way out of an unhappy marriage. Dr Vinod Goyal, one of the city’s leading psychotherapists, said the demand for divorce among couples in their 4os has been growing.

“Many of these couples have been married for 20 years or more,” Goyal said. “But they now want to unshackle and be free.” He said that as divorce was no more frowned upon by society as it was earlier, there was a growing trend among couples who had been married for many years deciding to end their relationship in middle age.

Though official figures on the divorce rate in the state are not available, experts say around 11 marriages out of every 1,000 end in divorce. Earlier, most people seeking divorce were in their 30s.

They were people — both men and women — who had experienced conflict during the first years of marriage. But once a couple had lived together for 10 years or so, their marriages tended to stabilise as other concerns took precedence over personal happiness.

But now counsellors are coming across cases where couples seeking divorce had lived together for more than 25 years. The number of couples seeking counselling on divorce is growing.
Mrugesh Vaishnav, former president of Indian Psychiatric Society, west zone, said many women in  their 40s were opting for divorce
as they had become financially self-sufficient.