the times | Monday April 4 2022 5times2
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Wales, more than a fourfold increase
on 1960; and whereas, in 1961, 68 per
cent of people over the age of 16 were
married, by 2011 this had dropped to
49 per cent.
In their book the mantra is that
“there is nothing intrinsically bad
about divorce”. They write: “It comes
down to stigma: there is a feeling that
divorce in itself must be bad for
children. We can’t say this enough:
that is wrong. What causes harm to
children isn’t divorce, it’s conflict.”
“You know, it’s not about saying,
‘Jazz hands, divorce!’ ” Woodham says.
“But equally the prevailing narrative is
so unrelentingly negative, it felt like
there was a real need to counter that.
This doesn’t have to represent a
failure. This is probably the right
decision. There’s a bland assumption
that being married for 50 years is a
good thing. Well, it’s not if you’re
miserable for 30. When you unpack it,
it’s obvious that of course divorce can
be a good thing.”
The “broken family” vocabulary
around divorce also needs to change.
It’s not breaking a family, they say, it’s
“reshaping”. “If 42 per cent of
marriages are going through this, why
are we choosing to make it quite so
awful for them?” Woodham says.
In 2018 Woodham and Gates
became the first barristers regulated
for the “one couple, one lawyer”
approach in their company, also called
the Divorce Surgery. It was, they say,
“heretical” to law’s adversarial nature.
Many colleagues were sceptical.
“It was surprising to me that we
hadn’t, as a profession, tried to do it up
to that point,” Gates says. “We did
spend quite a long time worrying that
someone was going to tap us on the
shoulder and say, ‘By the way, you
can’t do this.’ ”
“Lots of solicitors said to us, ‘You’re
a bit naive because a lot of couples
want the fight,’” Woodham says. “And
I think what we have demonstrated is
that most really, really don’t.”
To have a blame-free divorce you
don’t need to be getting on well, Gates
says. You only need to be united on
one thing. The one thing, he smiles, is
often “we don’t want to waste loads of
money on lawyers”.
Their approach is very slowly
catching on and a couple of other
lawyers copied them after they were
named in good practice guides.
Alternatively some couples hire retired
High Court judges to arbitrate for
their own private Judge Judy-type
experience. Divorce, Woodham and
Gates hope, will soon be free of shame;
just another “boring and normal” life
transition. “Not this cataclysmic
horror show that is so hard to recover
from,” Woodham says.
She and Gates are still married to
their respective spouses. For her, being
involved in the new practice of blame-
free divorce makes marriage more
romantic: it’s not something you stay
in because you dread the process of
extricating yourself.
“It has made me conscious that
marriage is a choice I’m making, and
my husband’s making, every day, and
we don’t have to always make that
choice. So don’t be mean about the
dishwasher emptying, but also don’t
bind yourself to people too tight
because you’ve got to allow freedom to
move and change.”
The Divorce Surgery: The Art of
Untying the Knot by Samantha
Woodham and Harry Gates is
published by Harper NonFiction
at £16.99Mask-fishing:
you might
get hooked
W
hen the British public
were advised by
health chiefs last
week to wear face
coverings in shops
and on public transport — and
outdoors if you actually have Covid
and fancy a stroll — they didn’t
realise they were being put at risk
of a whole other viral curiosity.
#MaskFishing is what you need
to be on high alert for now. This
strange phenomenon, described by
the internet tome Urban Dictionary
as “where a person appears to be
more attractive because they are
wearing a face mask”, has racked
up videos with 332 million views on
TikTok and been reported on in the
US by The New York Times.
Still, we know only a few things
about it. First, it is a relation of
catfishing: the act of pretending to
be someone else, usually on a dating
app. Second, those who are single
are particularly vulnerable to it. And
third, it is important to know that
you may well have already fallen
victim to mask-fishing — or, indeed,
been a mask-fisher yourself.
Ever swiped right on someone’s
masked selfies, only to find theywouldn’t remove said mask on
the date (which was a bit weird
anyway, but even more so given that
they suggested you go for a pint, then
just let theirs sit in front of them
while you drank yours)?
Or had intense eye-contact flirting
with someone on the Tube, then
have them reveal a terrible goatee
beneath the fabric sheath? I’m afraid
you have been mask-fished. Don’t
worry, the symptoms are mild.
Conversely, you may not be the
victim. In fact, it is possible that we
are all a bit guilty of mask-fishing. It
could be that extra layer of mascara
you give your lashes in place of any
other make-up. Or wearing a mask
on the days you have a spot. Or
admitting you quite like how you
look in a face mask, which is why
you spent £100 on five pretty silk
ones and continue to wear them,
government guidelines be damned.
It’s saying to yourself, “I’ll have this
hot cross bun because I don’t need
cheekbones any more. I have a face
mask.” You, friend, are a mask-fisher.
It has been reported that mask-
fishing is particularly prominent
among teenagers. But, grown-ups,
please be advised that your face
masks are here for your health —
and not to improve your sex life.
Hannah RogersThe big splits From Brangelina to Bill and Melinda
Bill and Melinda Gates
After 27 years of marriage, Bill
and Melinda Gates, right,
announced their divorce in May- “After a great deal of
thought and a lot of work on our
relationship, we have made the
decision to end our marriage,”
the pair tweeted, having already
signed a separation contract
outlining how their estate would
be split. In March Melinda told
CBS the split was down to “many
things — but I did not like that
he’d had meetings with Jeffrey
Epstein. I made that clear to him.”
Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise
Cruise and Holmes married in
2006, following the birth of their
daughter, Suri. In 2012 Holmes’s
representatives made a surprise
statement announcing that she
was divorcing Cruise. Lawyers
reached a settlement just 11 days
after the divorce was filed.Gwyneth Paltrow and
Chris Martin
The actress and the Coldplay
frontman announced on the
Goop website that they were
separating as part of a “conscious
uncoupling” after more than ten
years of marriage in 2014.Ben Affleck and
Jennifer Garner
Affleck and Garner married in- In 2015 they released a
statement saying they were to
divorce. “The biggest regret of
my life is this divorce,” Affleck
said last year.Brad Pitt and
Angelina Jolie
The pair met on
the set of Mr &
Mrs Smith in- The
following year
photos of
“Brangelina”
featured in W
magazine. They
married at their
French château in - Two years on,
Jolie filed for divorce
from Pitt. The divorce was
finalised in 2019, but the couple
are still battling over financial
assets. Last May Pitt was
awarded 50-50 custody by a
private judge, but that ruling was
subsequently overturned.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
After several years of dating
Depp and Heard married in LA
in 2015. In 2016 Heard filed for
divorce from Depp and accused
him of physical abuse. She
obtained a temporary restraining
order against him. A $7 million
settlement was reached out of
court three months later. In 2017
the divorce was finalised. In 2018
The Sun called Depp a “wifebeater”. He brought a libel case,
which he lost in 2020. Depp is
now suing Heard in the US
courts over an op-ed for The
Washington Post in which she
wrote that she was abused
(without naming Depp).Sheikh
Mohammed bin
Rashid al-
Maktoum and
Princess Haya
Bint al-Hussein
Described as the
biggest divorce
case in British legal
history, the
multibillionaire ruler of
Dubai was ordered to pay
his youngest wife and their two
children a record £554 million
settlement last year. Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid al-
Maktoum, 72, was found to pose
a serious security risk to Princess
Haya Bint al-Hussein. She fled
from Dubai to Britain with her
children in 2019, saying she was
in fear of her life after her
husband discovered she was
having an affair with her male
bodyguard. The judge ordered
Mohammed to provide a £290
million bank guarantee and a
backdated £10 million payment
to provide lifetime security for
the princess and their children
until they finish their education.
Elisabeth Perlmangame for good?
The expensive one The sad one
Hannah Rogers