Love and lockdown: The spike in divorces and breakups
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2021
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
The coronavirus pandemic is keeping us all at home and many of us have been taking a long, hard look at our closest and most intimate relationships - and deciding to call it quits. What's causing all the break ups? And with the end of lockdown far from sight are more relationships doomed?
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Guests:
-Katie Glass, Feature writer, columnist and freelance journalist.
-Emma Kenny, Psychologist and broadcaster.
-Lucy Gould, Senior associate at Stewarts.
Host: Manveen Rana.
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Transcript
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| 0:21.0 | See what world-class cyber security looks like at Palo Alto networks.co.2K slash partner of choice. The age of COVID has bought a daily round of alarming statistics. |
| 0:40.0 | And now, here's another. A leading law firm says there was a 122% increase in divorce inquiries |
| 0:48.2 | between July and October, compared with the same period last year. |
| 0:52.4 | Right now, some relationship... compared with the same period last year. |
| 0:53.0 | Right now, some relationships are reacting to this traumatic experience |
| 0:57.7 | as opposed to the problems within the relationship. |
| 1:00.4 | So it has been for a lot of people, |
| 1:02.4 | a bit like an out-of-body experience. |
| 1:04.0 | Is the pandemic and lockdown putting untenable pressure on otherwise healthy relationships |
| 1:11.0 | or is it bringing some people a new clarity about what they want from life? |
| 1:16.0 | I'm glad I was brave enough to leave and I think you know maybe that bravery |
| 1:20.5 | leaving that made me feel brave about everything and think, well I may as well go and |
| 1:24.5 | live this sort of life I've always fantasised about and wanted. |
| 1:27.6 | You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times. I'm Manvein Rana. Today, love and lockdown, the rise in |
| 1:37.8 | divorces and breakups. When the first lockdown was announced, there was a moment when the government and the chief scientists gave everyone a bit of relationship advice. |
| 1:54.4 | This, they told us, was one of those deciding moments. |
| 1:58.8 | They should just test the strengths of their relationship and decide whether one wishes to be permanently |
| 2:05.0 | resident in another household. |
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