Extramarital affairs are up, prompting a huge rise in the use of private investigators by divorcing couples to confirm fears that their other half was cheating on them, family lawyers report.
The numbers using snoops to catch out their unfaithful spouses shot up to 49% of all divorcing couples in 2006, compared to just 18% in 2005, according to Grant Thornton Forensic and Investigation Services practice’s fourth annual survey of 100 of the UK’s leading family lawyers.
The survey showed that women were nearly twice as likely to use such a service to check up on their spouse than men—unsurprisingly, perhaps, given that in two thirds (69%) of cases it was men who played away.
According to the lawyers surveyed, the stated reason for marital breakdowns in the UK in 32% of cases was due to one partner having an affair during 2006, up from 29% in 2005 and 27% in 2004.
Behaviour was blamed for marriage breakdown in 17% of cases, followed by family strains in 8% of cases and decisions of a personal nature in 4% of instances.
Only 4% cited emotional and physical abuse as the reason for their divorce, down from 12% in 2005.
Andrea McLaren, head of Grant Thornton’s London matrimonial practice says one of the survey’s most surprising results was the fall in the number of couples who tried to hide assets from their estranged spouse. In 2006, only 10% of couples did so, down from 16% in 2005.
She says that given the House of Lords’ judgment in the Miller and McFarlane cases, this figure was expected to increase as spouses tried to keep assets out of the pot of wealth which the courts can carve up.
McLaren says that possible reasons for the decline could include the sophisticated forensic techniques now available to search for such “hidden” assets.
However, she adds that it could simply be due to the fact that women today have a stronger awareness of and involvement in their financial affairs than in the past.
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