Today marks not only a return to work for many, but it is also the media’s annual celebration of ‘divorce day’.

The theory goes that couples become so discontented after 10 days of enforced togetherness that they march down to their solicitor’s office before the tinsel is even down.

The media, usually sluggish in the new year and craving easy clicks, is happy to report this trend, always illustrated with stock photos of models pulling sad faces turning away from each other.

Law firms are not averse to feeding this particular frenzy. Press releases started as far back as early December and continued until 4 January was upon us. Slater and Gordon reported 50% more divorce enquiries on this Monday than on Mondays pre-Christmas.

‘It is like it is becoming a new year’s resolution,’ the firm’s head of family law Andrew Newbury told the Huffington Post.

National firm Irwin Mitchell was similarly quick off the blocks, reporting to Metro that family business is usually up 25% in January.

Presumably none of the media outlets reporting this trend have noticed the press release from family law organisation Resolution, which has found that 82% of its lawyer members saw no spike in enquiries in the first week of January.

Chair Jo Edwards says that dubbing today divorce day 'trivialises the very painful and difficult decisions couples make when they separate’.

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