© shraddha mishra
What can you expect if you decide to step out of your marriage?

1. Living standards plummet

Your living standards drop because the money available has been halved and the expenses have risen – one establishment has been split into two. Jyoti Chatterjee’s* husband decided to leave her and move in with his mistress. As a nursery school teacher, living in her own apartment with her 11 year old son, Jyoti did have the means to survive, but there were many things she could suddenly not afford or had to think twice about – like holidays or getting an air conditioner in her living room. “None of them necessities, considering I had enough money to put food on the table. But…at a time of emotional turmoil like a divorce, one can do with some creature comforts to cheer oneself up,” she says.

Jyoti was lucky. There are others whose lives change completely in terms of the kind of homes they live in or the amount of housework they suddenly have to do. After all, a spouse, even a bad one, shares half (more or less) of the chores with one. It’s hard but you do eventually find less expensive ways of enjoying yourself and you learn to strive harder to earn just that bit more. With this comes that sense of satisfaction that you ‘did it on your own.’

2. Children lose the plot

The children, if there were any, start acting up – doing badly at school or college, being socially inept and quarrelsome.

Divorce means that a child’s world falls apart and the two people he/she loves best in the world don’t love each other...