From forgetting to do the washing up to hogging the TV remote, many people would say their partner has at least one irritating habit that drives them up the wall.
But could those annoying tendencies become so insufferable they actually lead to divorce? The answer is yes, according to one Altrincham-based solicitor.
From witchcraft to squeezing toothpaste from the middle of the tube, when it comes to separation stories, James Maguire has seen it all. The 53-year-old, who lives in Cheadle Hulme, founded law firm Maguire Family Law in 2010 and has more than 28 years’ experience specialising in family law.
The dad-of-two has seen all types of family disputes over the years – ranging from child custody matters to who gets to keep the ring when the engagement is called off.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, James has revealed some the craziest divorce cases he’s dealt with over his career – as well as some of the top reasons Greater Manchester couples decide to call it quits.
“In terms of breakdowns, an affair has to be up there,” he said. “That just brings everything to the surface.
“I’m not a counsellor, but doing my job, you find that the affair might have been the thing that broke the relationship, but fundamentally it might have been leading that way for many reasons.
“I’ve seen people where [an affair] happened out of the blue and I’ve said, ‘Give it six months’. There can be a knee-jerk reaction where people think, ‘My partner has had an affair, I have to get a divorce’.
“You don’t have to get a divorce. A divorce is a very serious and difficult time emotionally and financially, particularly where there are children involved.”
James, who can be dealing with up to 15 divorce cases at a time, says other major reasons for wanting to separate include addiction to substances and gambling.
“Particularly in this economic climate while there’s financial pressures and couples not having common goals in terms of money,” he added.
James also says shift patterns can contribute to relationship breakdowns – particularly when couples have demanding careers.
And while the cost of living crisis may also be adding strain to marriages, James believes it may actually help to bring some couples together. “What I’ve found is that sometimes these pressures on finances and families can actually cause people to pull together for the family,” he said.
“They can think, ‘Maybe we’ve got problems in our relationship but we need to make things work for the children and the finances’.
“Equally, there might not be enough money for food or heating or anything else and that could be final straw. People are going to be taking on extra jobs with longer hours and not eating or sleeping properly.”
James can recall some of the wildest divorce stories he’s heard over the years – with witchcraft surprisingly cropping up time and time again.
The first divorce case he ever dealt with saw a wife looking to divorce her husband because he kept killing slugs in the back garden.
“He also squeezed toothpaste from the wrong end of the tube,” James added. “To anyone else, that might be reasonable. But back then, we had grounds for divorce. That was ‘unreasonable behaviour’.
“I’ve had cases involving witchcraft over the years. One client found a spell in their freezer, it was some sort of liquid with a herb in and a photograph of him. He said he was going to be burnt while he was asleep. In another witchcraft case, there was a ring in a child’s toy and that had a spell on it.”
James says there are certain times of the year where couples are more likely to file for divorce. Many couples call time on their relationships in January due to wanting a new start in the new year.
Other popular times include after any holiday period and the summer break when children go back to school. “I sometimes find that after a holiday period, it can cause people to speak to a divorce lawyer like me,” he added.
“They can realise the relationship wasn’t what they thought it would be. Another time is September after the school holidays when children go back to school.
“After bank holidays is usually a trigger, unfortunately, and sometimes you find that with domestic violence cases.”
In 2021, there were 113,505 divorces granted in England and Wales, research from the Office for National Statistics has revealed. That’s a 9.6 per cent increase compared with 2020 when there were 103,592 divorces.
The majority of those divorces were among opposite-sex couples, standing at 111,934 cases. There were 1,571 same-sex couple divorces, with female couples making up 67.2 per cent of that number.
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