Recession affecting families in United States, United Kingdom

20090201-downturndivorce.JPGAccording to The Independent newspaper in England, many couples there are heading to the divorce court as the country there heads deeper into recession. Unprecedented numbers of men who have either been made redundant, or fear their jobs may go, are suddenly splitting from their partners because they know they will likely be asked to pay out smaller settlements if they are no longer earning big money. Others going through marriage breakdowns are being forced to continue living with their estranged partners as the property market crash means they cannot sell their houses. Some women are even trying to make sure they divorce their partners before the credit crunch bites to save their homes from the debt collectors.

“We’re seeing unprecedented levels of divorce,” Vanessa Lloyd-Platt, a leading divorce lawyer, said. “This recession has been a staggering leveller that has forced people to really look at their lives and ask themselves what’s important.”

And according to Francine Kaye, a divorce therapist: “Many people who want to divorce simply can’t afford to because they can’t sell their properties. I have one client trapped in a £1m house in Chelsea with her husband because they can’t get the right price for it. They’ve even marked which rooms they can use and have specific times for using the communal areas so they don’t have to see each other. It’s terribly tragic.”

Read the full article here.

20090201-downturndivorce2.JPGMeanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, USA Today reported an increase in people visiting therapists as signs abound that the battered economy in the United States is causing serious damage to the mental health and family lives of a growing number of Americans. They are stressed out, domestic violence has increased, and so has fears of suicide.

The demand for therapists surged 40 percent from June to December — driven largely by money-related fears — at ComPsych, which runs the nation’s largest employee-assistance mental-health programme. Nearly half of Americans said they were more stressed than a year ago, and about one-third rated their stress level as “extreme” in surveys out in September from the American Psychological Association. That was before the stock-market dive.

John Jones, a financial planner at ComPsych, says he’s referring many more workers to counselors. “They start crying. They tell me they’re not eating or sleeping. One even said about his family, ‘They’d be better off without me,’ ” Jones says. Many colleagues around the USA are having the same experience, he adds.

Read the full article here.

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