NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Attorney Rob Turner says few cases stand out like a recent one. "The argument was who's going to stay home with the kids," he said, "day-cares are closed. They have three minor children. Who's going to sacrifice their career and stay home to take care of their three minor children?"
Since the start of the pandemic, his firm has seen a 25-50% increase in divorce cases. For many couples, COVID-19 plagued their marriage.
"What we saw a lot of is they would come to us for divorce consultation and the problem was that they were spending too much time with their spouse and a lot of them they just decided I don't like him or her anymore," said Turner.
"When the stimulus was released what we saw is all those people that we had met with during the pandemic were able to actually afford to hire us and to get their divorces started," he added.
Pre-pandemic divorce rates nationally were on the decline, but numbers for divorces during the pandemic are still yet to be determined."
"The numbers were actually far better. As a matter of fact, the number of people who were considering divorce had been cut in two since the start of the pandemic," said Nashville relationship expert Lee Wilson. He conducted two studies - one in April of last year and one this past January.
He found fewer couples were actually considering divorce in the most recent study than in the survey he did a year ago.
He thinks the time together meant confronting insecurities. "During that time I think there were a lot of people who had one person they were seeing every day and they were tired of hiding and so they got to be seen in 'their truth'."
Wilson hopes that "truth" is a lesson couples take going forward as their relationships leave COVID behind.
