Is “Divorce Month” a Real Thing?

Is there a “divorce season”? What about a divorce month? Last summer’s slew of celebrity splits might have had you believing summer was prime time for a breakup, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But it’s not the only time of year divorces spike.

Some claim January is the definitive divorce month. Yet experts have consistently debunked that argument, pointing out that January only sees a spike in divorce filings because people are so much more unlikely to divorce during the holiday months of November and December. So if divorce was on their minds in the fall, they’ll likely wait until the holidays are over to officially throw in the towel.

If you’re wondering why all the relationships around you are falling apart at the same time or noticed you tend to fight with your spouse more toward the end of summer, this might explain why.

Is there actually a more popular month for divorces?

A 2016 study conducted by researchers at the University of Washington suggests there might actually be a divorce month — or specifically, there might be two. According to the study, which analyzed divorce filings in Washington State from 2001 to 2015, March and August were the most popular months for filing divorce. 

When the researchers presented these findings at an annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, they suggested their conclusions might indicate that people are driven by “domestic ritual” — meaning that people might file for divorce more frequently at certain points in the year as a means of minimizing family pain. 

This might be why December was the month with the lowest number of divorce filings in the study. But why did August and March reflect such high rates of filings? 

The researchers suggested couples might choose August because it would follow any vacation time, and precede the start of school time. As for March, the researchers pointed to the strange trend of suicide rates peaking in springtime, too. Experts don’t have a conclusive answer to either of these trends, but they’ve speculated that it might have to do with the change in weather — meaning, ironically enough, that people might want to do things like file for divorce in the wintertime, but might not be able to muster up the energy to do so until the days start to lengthen and they feel more energy to follow through on their (often tragic) plans. 

Hollywood divorce attorney Nancy Chemtob, who has represented A-list clients like Mary-Kate Olsen and Tory Burch, has another possible explanation for the summer spike. “Parents may have their kids away at summer camp and realize that they have nothing more to talk to their spouse about,” Chemtob recently told Katie Couric Media. She added, “A lot of children are going off to college. So parents might take the empty nest opportunity as a chance to say, ‘I’m done.’”

Why do people think January is “divorce month”?

The data on divorce trends is relatively inconclusive at this point — but certain lawyers and law firms do maintain that divorce filings see a spike in January. Why might that be, besides the holiday explanation mentioned above?

In an interview with USA Today in 2019, celebrity attorney Laura Wasser, who has repped celebs like Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, confirmed that she sees a spike in outreach during January. “It is absolutely true that the first month of the year, and in particular the first half of it, is the highest for either new clients or divorce filings,” she said. “Definitely that first week back (after the holidays) is always very busy.”

In terms of why Wasser thought that happened, she acknowledged the holiday element. “By the end of [the holiday season], many people feel like, ‘I do not want to ever go through this holiday period again with this person,'” she noted.

She also suggested another possible explanation. “I think it’s starting a new year and knowing that in a lot of states, like in California for example, there’s a six-month waiting period. So, they want to really make sure that they’re done with their divorce by summer, by half the year, really getting a head start.”

Why different states might have different “divorce months”

Though the University of Washington study on divorce filings has been cited on numerous occasions (unsurprisingly, since it’s one of the only studies of its kind), it’s important not to extrapolate too much from the findings. After all, this study only examined filing rates within the state of Washington. 

Different states likely have different seasonal trends for divorce filings, since they all have different legal timelines for the divorce process. In Georgia, for example, a divorce can be granted in the same month that a couple files for it. In California, on the other hand, a couple must wait six months for a divorce to become official after the date of filing. In Vermont, a couple may have to wait for over nine months from the time of filing for their divorce to be finalized. 

These different timelines don’t just impact the divorce rate, but the divorce filing rate, too. A couple in California might choose to file for divorce at another time in the year than a couple in Georgia, depending on when they expect the divorce to become official.  

The various state filing laws are just one microcosm of the endless variation that exists within the world of divorce: each couple’s circumstances are personal. For that reason, some divorce lawyers are skeptical of the notion that there are any hard-and-fast rules about when people “like” to get divorced. 

“It is my firm belief that people get divorced because their expectations were not met,” Susan Myres, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and a divorce lawyer in Houston, told The New York Times in 2020. “When enough of them are not being met, divorce will happen.”