In wake of the recent economic slump, more UK couples are heading towards divorce, and the most likely date for them to put a legal stamp on their separation is January 12, claim lawyers.
Many estranged couples, according to lawyers, have stuck together over the past year to calculate whether they could afford to go their separate ways when the economy is heading into recession.
And now legal experts have predicted that the couples will stick together for one last Christmas as a family and then split up the Monday after their children go back to school.
In fact, a record number of separating spouses are expected in the New Year as the rising unemployment rate and the crumbling housing market puts relationships under greater strain.
The revelation comes just weeks after academics claimed that a 10 per cent drop in property prices leads to a 5 per cent increase in the divorce rate.
"We believe January 12, 2009, the first Monday after children return to school, will be D-day - divorce day," The Telegraph quoted Shelley Hesford, of Cheshire law firm SAS Daniels, as saying.
She added: "We get more calls in the first few days of New Year from couples wanting to separate or divorce than any other time of the year - and the reasons behind divorce are often, though not always, based on money problems having pushed a relationship to breaking point. And it's blindingly obvious that a large part of the population has money worries.