According to new figures, the divorce rate in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level for 26 years. This represents the third year in a row that the divorce rate has fallen.

The divorce rate in 2007 was 11.6 divorces in 1,000, which showed a fall from 2006 from 12.2 divorces. Scotland showed a fall in divorce rates of 1.9% last year, whereas the rate in Northern Ireland rose by 14%.

Couples in their late 20’s were the most likely to divorce, and more than 50% of those divorces involved children.

These figures were released in a report by the Office for National Statistics.

One Plus One charity worker Penny Mansfield stated that fewer couples were choosing to get married these days:

Annual divorce statistics no longer offer us a clear picture of the state of British relationships - those who don’t marry can’t divorce, but they and their children are just as likely, if not more likely, to experience the impact of relationship breakdown.

Ayesha Vardag, a divorce lawyer, said that social changes and celebrity divorces had led to a decline in marriages.

Quite often people are in really untenable situations - with conflict or violence in the home - but they can’t get out of them, and their children can’t get out of them, so people are trapped.

Everyone needs to move on in their life after they’ve gone through a divorce, that’s just what Sarah Millican did after hers, and it led to a comedy award.

Last weekend saw the final weekend of Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe, and the If.comedy Awards were presented that saw Newcastle-upon-Tyne divorcee Sarah Millican pick up a £4,000 prize as the best newcomer.

Millican’s comedy routine is largely based on her bitter divorce as she addresses: “the questions that you ask when you split up with somebody”.

She’s stayed very down to earth as well after her success, saying she’ll probably spend the money on a new car as hers is about give up the goat:

I don’t want the loan to outlast the car. If I can pay it off, I can get a newer car a bit sooner. It’s really boring - but it’s normal.

After winning the best newcomer award, Sarah was delighted with the reception she received:

I got loads of kisses and hugs. It was worth it just for that.

Millican started her career in comedy after her recent divorce as she wanted to move in her life and try something. She began her comedy life by taking the mike for a five minute in turn:

In a really scary pub in Newcastle where they were all sat with their arms folded saying, ‘Come on then, woman’.

The first half was hard and the second half went really well. I thought, ‘Oh, I like this.’

Her comedy is about the thoughts that go through someone’s mind after a divorce or break-up, and the effect to the self esteem that entails.

It was things like ‘what if I want kids?’, ‘what if nobody fancies me any more?’ and all these things that most people have probably thought.

Even if they weren’t in a marriage, everybody’s split up with somebody and had all of these horrible thoughts. I answered mine throughout the course of the show.

Millican can look forward to a promising career in comedy from now on, proving that there is life after divorce.

Divorce isn’t a pleasant thing to have to go through, and often affects the children just as much as the adults involved. However, when the wife seeking the divorce is a child herself, it must be so much worse. That’s exactly what is happening in Saudi Arabia, where an eight year old girl whose mother has filed for divorce on her behalf from her husband, who is in his fifties!

The girl, who is getting ready to begin the new year at her primary school, lives with her parents and doesn’t even know that she is married. She was married without her knowledge to the man by her father.

The mother of the girl does not want her daughter to be married off, and sought legal help on the divorce from human rights groups, who put the family in touch with divorce lawyers.

Her husband protests the claim, saying he hasn’t done anything wrong.

The justice system in Saudi Arabia is an interpretation of Sharia law, and although arranged marriages involving child brides is fairly common, sometimes the older husbands are reported to the authorities.

In April this year, another girl aged eight years old legally divorced her husband, who was twenty-eight.

Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin has put pen to paper to write a divorce guide for men to help them get through their divorce. Alec’s book, “A Promise To Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood And Divorce” is to be published next month, on the 23rd September.

Alec had a particularly public and messy divorce from his actress wife of seven years, Kim Basinger. His book however isn’t another attempt to spark further argument with his ex-wife. His book is to help other men, and not to snipe at Kim Basinger, even though Alec did once describe his ex wife Kim as:

‘dark and manipulative’ and ‘a thoughtless pain in the ass’.

Alec wants to make peace with his ex wife now:

I took care to be very kind and measured in dealing with her.

It is not a personal memoir, and I have no desire to settle some score with her through this. In fact, I was originally reluctant to write this book for that very reason.

Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger were married in 1993, even appearing in an episode of The Simpsons together. They were separated in 2000 though, and went through a bitter breakup and custody battle for their daughter, Ireland, who is now thirteen.

Kim Basinger once famously called Alec:

A tinpot tyrant and bully.

Alec hopes that his book will help other men get through their divorce without the trouble he went through.

This summer might have been another total washout in terms of weather, but it hasn’t helped married couples stay together either. The divorce rate in the UK has risen by a staggering 150% this summer, with experts stating that the credit crunch that has affected the nation is the main reason.

Traditionally most marriages break-up in January due to the stress of Christmas, both financially and because of the extended period of time that families spend together over the festive period. However this year has seen a divorce rate in July 40% higher than the rate in January, a 150% rise on the divorce rate in the summer of 2007.

Experts say that summer holidays are also to blame, as families are spending money they don’t have on going away together, when they really should be avoiding extended periods together in this difficult financial climate.

In addition to the holidays, the amount of alcohol consumed while on holiday has forced tempers to fray, leading to divorce.

Holidays are supposed to be a relaxing time spent with your family in the sun. With a struggling economy they’re just breeding grounds for contempt and malice, leading to divorce lawyers.

Britney Spears has had perhaps the most public breakdown of a relationship, subsequent divorce and custody battle for her children of any celebrity. Her split with her ex-husband, former backing dancer Kevin Federline, has seen the American singer on the brink of self destruction; such was the anguish of her divorce and battle to see her children.

However it’s her lawyers, and indeed the lawyers of Federline, who are the real winners in the divorce. Because Britney and Kevin were unable to come to an agreement between them and their divorce became so acrimonious that they argued over everything, Britney looks to be paying out $700,000.

Her battle has meant she’s been billed by two separate law firms a total of $466,000 in legal fees. She’s also been ordered to pay Kevin’s legal costs, which come to a further $250,000.

One law firm, Stacy D. Phillips, has billed Britney a staggering $407,000 for just 4 months of legal services. They also claim they’ve written off $125,000 in legal fees already.

It’s only going to get worse for Britney however as she and her father Jamie claim they will contest the agreement when it goes to court for approval. This will end up costing Britney even more money.

When getting divorced it’s important whenever possible to remain civil with your ex-partner in order to keep costs down to a minimum and to keep your divorce as stress free as possible.

What happened to Britney Spears could happen to anybody.

Genesis front man Phil Collins has broken records with his latest, and third, divorce. This time Phil has divorced his wife of six years a staggering £25 million in a settlement.

Phil’s estranged wife, Orianne Cevey, is twenty-two years his junior at thirty-five, and has two children with fifty-seven year old Phil Collins. A report by the Daily Mirror states that the £25 million settlement Phil Collins has been ordered to pay represents a new record for payouts by a British celebrity. It just pips the previous record of £24.3 million that Sir Paul McCartney was ordered to pay his ex-wife, Heather Mills, in their divorce.

This settlement raises questions of how people like Phil Collins can be ordered to pay sums of such magnitude from their personal fortunes when they earned all of that money over the course of their careers, before they met their wives. Both Phil Collins and Sir Paul McCartney were multi-millionaires before marrying, and both have been ordered to pay out huge sums of money to women they have been married to for just a short time.

Do Orianne Cevey and Heather Mills deserve to be awarded £25 million and £24.3 million respectively, from the fortunes of men who have earned their money over decades entertaining the world?

Breakfast TV’s divorce expert, Vanessa Lloyd Platt of GMTV fame was arrested on Friday by police over supposedly false claims that her husband has been trying to poison her.

Platt is a member of the GMTV team, and also appears on Richard & Judy offering divorce advice for viewers. She had made claims that her husband Daniel had been trying to kill her by poisoning her food.

She made the allegations against her husband last year, causing the police to investigate her husband and search for evidence in their £1.5 million Barnet home. However they found nothing, and Vanessa was arrested on Friday for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Vanessa has previously been divorced twice herself, and is a mother of two.

The police stated:

She alleges Daniel made comments about being a very good chemist who was able to poison her without anyone finding out. But when we looked at her story we had concerns.

According to Vanessa’s lawyer she insists she is innocent of the charges.

Vanessa split from her husband of seventeen years, Daniel Lloyd Platt, three months ago. She is also a divorce lawyer with her own firm, and has represented a series of celebrities in their divorces, including Les Dennis and Anne Diamond.

Websites with names like ‘Elena’s Models’ and ‘Russian Brides Cyber Guide’ aren’t the sort of websites you’d expect to be involved in a study on marriage and divorce, but that’s just what they’ve done.

Both sites are known for their ‘Russian Brides’ and they’ve invited their members to participate in the survey, which is the largest of its kind in the last 18 years. The sites have over 200,000 members between them, and the survey they are participating in is about marriage and divorce between cross-cultural couples.

The survey is catered towards couples of mixed nationalities and features questions about the length of marriages and aims to discover the divorce rate surrounding them.

Some of the factors in the divorce rates, or success rates of the marriages include:

Age difference between the partners
Education and income levels
Presence of children from former marriages and children born in the new marriage
Age of the partners
Duration of the courtship
Participation of a marriage broker.

168,000 members from Elena’s Models and 37,000 members from Russian Brides Cyber Guide were invited to participate in the survey.

Previous research into the field of mail order marriages was conducted in 1990, and it showed that the divorce rate among these marriages was far lower than the divorce rate among regular marriages. Mail order marriages featured a 20% divorce rate, when compared with a 50% divorce rate at the time in conventional marriages.

With divorce rates on the rise throughout the world, it appears that the dissolution of same sex marriages, or gay divorce, isn’t anywhere near as common. In fact, less than 1% of same sex marriages actually end in divorce.

Gay website PinkNews.com discovered that fewer than 250 gay marriages actually ended in divorce in the UK. In the two years between 2005 and 2007, 24,629 gay weddings took place in the UK. Since December 2006, when couples have been able to petition for divorce, only 245 couples have filed for a dissolution of their union.

Of those 245, just 108 have been so far ended in dissolution, with three ending in separation and one declared null and void. In June this year Matt Lucas (of Little Britain fame) became the first celebrity gay divorcee when he ended his marriage with Kevin McGee, just two years after their wedding.

Stonewall’s Ben Summerskill stated:

This is a small number and it confirms that many people entering into civil partnerships take it very seriously indeed.

Certainly there is no credible evidence that lesbian and gay people do not live in stable relationships.

We hope the Office for National Statistics will include questions to build on this in the next census.

The difference between gay marriages and heterosexual marriages in terms of divorce rates is quite staggering. 2005 divorce rates suggest that 45% of marriages will actually end in divorce, and half of them before the tenth anniversary of the marriage.

In 2006 in the UK there were 275,140 weddings in England and Wales, and 132,562 divorces.