SADIE NICHOLAS investigates how couples reconcile after ending their marriages 

Jennifer Smith and her husband Caleb are one of those sickeningly tactile couples who hold hands and gaze dreamily at each other. You would think the fortysomethings were in the first flush of love.

You would be half right. For though they have technically been married for 12 years, Jennifer filed for divorce three years ago.

Citing irreconcilable differences, they went their separate ways and dated other people — with Jennifer vowing never again to speak to Caleb.

‘I was utterly distraught at the end, trying to talk myself out of it but realising that, actually, it had to happen — we each needed a new start,’ she says.

‘I couldn’t see us ever getting back together,’ Caleb reflects. ‘In our counselling sessions, Jennifer described her ideal partner, and I didn’t fit the characteristics she was looking for. 

‘She’d threatened divorce on numerous occasions, but I think the realisation hit when we met to talk that weekend and realised there was no going back.’

Jennifer filed for divorce online, with the couple separating for 15 months. But then came a dramatic U-turn — and now they are enjoying what they call ‘marriage 2.0’.

It was a remarkable turnaround by anyone’s standards, because Jennifer’s desire for divorce wasn’t simply an ill-tempered grenade launched in the heat of a fierce argument. It was a genuine acceptance that the marriage was over.

Government figures published last month showed that divorce applications are now at their highest level in a decade, having risen by 11 per cent last year. 

Family law experts attribute the rise to the introduction last year of so-called ‘no-fault divorces’ — which removed the requirement for couples to attribute blame for their marriage breakdown — and the cost-of-living crisis putting people under financial strain.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 42 per cent of marriages end in divorce.

That said, research suggests as many as 10-15 per cent of couples reconcile after they separate — with 6 per cent remarrying each other after they divorce.

‘I think there are couples, particularly those who have a long history together like us, who may secretly harbour regrets about divorcing,’ says Jennifer.

‘You’re not just losing your lover, but also your best friend and the person you’ve always leaned on. It’s heart-wrenching. But in order to go back, you need to be willing to face up to painful truths and examine your own behaviours.’

So just how do you go from the brink of fighting it out in the divorce courts to building a new and improved marriage?

‘Separate bank accounts,’ declares Jennifer, 40, who works in communications for a pharmaceutical company. Though it may sound like a quip, she’s deadly serious.

However, Caleb, an entrepreneur, is more circumspect.

‘Everything that happened before our separation is gone,’ says the 44-year-old, resolutely. ‘That was the old us. That part of our marriage has no bearing on the people we are now or the ‘new’ marriage we’ve created.’

Some may well argue that a leopard does not change its spots, but Jennifer and Caleb are vigilant when it comes to harking back to old gripes; the past must remain in the past.

The couple, who live in Greenwich, South-East London, first fell in love after a chance meeting in 2006, when Jennifer walked into the concierge company Caleb owned and asked for help booking a hotel for the night while on a business trip.

‘We flirted immediately and I asked him to have a drink with me as I didn’t want to be that girl alone in the bar,’ Jennifer recalls.

‘Five margaritas later we were having fun. He had a gorgeous smile, great teeth and I loved the way he made me laugh.’

As for Caleb, aside from finding his unexpected date physically attractive, it was how different she was to other women that captivated him.

‘I was drawn to the fact she knew her own mind, had no qualms about sharing her opinions and was assertive. We kept in touch, emailing and calling, then began dating and married four years later.’

The pair wed in November 2010. ‘We knew we didn’t want to have kids — when we started getting serious, Jennifer let me know she didn’t want to have children — so it was all pretty uncomplicated,’ Caleb adds. 

Both big believers in the sanctity of marriage — Jennifer’s parents have been married for 42 years, while Caleb’s were wed for 40 years until his mother died six years ago — they were certain they were making a lifelong commitment.

Yet, ironically, those qualities which first attracted them to each other became, over time, the things that drove them apart. Jennifer’s forthright character in particular caused friction as she questioned her husband’s spending habits.

‘She kept a constant check on our bank account and would blow her top if I spent 50p more on a coffee than she thought I should have done,’ recalls Caleb.

‘I’d buy a sandwich at lunchtime or maybe something new for the house, such as a lamp or rug, and she’d hit the roof, even though the account was mine, too. It felt stifling.’

SADIE NICHOLAS: For though they have technically been married for 12 years, Jennifer (left) filed for divorce from Caleb (right) three years ago

Another bone of contention for the couple was Jennifer’s wanderlust. With six weeks’ holiday allowance a year, she expected her husband to accompany her on frequent trips abroad — even though being self-employed meant taking time off could cause problems.

‘I love travelling, but I don’t value it as much as Jennifer does and would have been happy with three or four weeks a year,’ he explains. ‘Of course, if I made noises about not taking the same time off as her, she’d guilt-trip me, which led to friction.’

As for Jennifer, she admits: ‘I also resented the times when Caleb would pay himself little to no salary if he was investing or raising funds for a new venture, while our joint account benefited from my regular corporate salary in the meantime.’

‘I started to feel that Jennifer and I just weren’t on the same journey,’ Caleb explains. ‘She was expecting me to live my life the way she wanted to live hers, while I was giving in to her needs rather than speaking up about the fact that she wasn’t meeting mine.’

With all these problems building, the marriage began to unravel in 2018. ‘I remember receiving a text from Jennifer asking where I was one evening. 

‘When I replied that I’d be about another 20 minutes in the gym, she was furious — and all because she expected me to get home to watch something on Netflix with her,’ says Caleb.

‘It triggered the first of many painful conversations over the coming months about our respective need for space and what we both wanted from the marriage. 

‘She would reel off the characteristics she wished I possessed, including a love of opera and music, because those are things she likes, and it left me feeling there wasn’t much she wanted in me.

‘I generally maintain an optimistic mindset, and while I wouldn’t say Jennifer is the exact opposite, she certainly wasn’t an optimist. 

‘Often, whether it be something important or trivial, such as the weather forecast for the weekend, our different mindsets caused a lot of friction and bickering. It led me to question whether we’d each be better suited to someone with more aligned thinking.’

Some of these exchanges took place during marriage therapy sessions, but in April 2019 they decided to separate — with Caleb moving out of their marital home to a flat 20 minutes away; Jennifer moved out the following January.

‘The day he left I realised what people mean when they say you could die of a broken heart,’ Jennifer remembers. ‘I was losing my best friend, the man I loved, and with him my identity, which had been intertwined with his for so long.’

Initially, they planned to separate for three months, during which they spoke on the phone and via WhatsApp messages — though ‘not in a positive way’.

They arranged to meet over the August bank holiday weekend in 2019 to talk, only to end up at loggerheads once again.

Resigning herself to the fact there was no way back, Jennifer paid £500 and filed for divorce online.

‘My parents were shocked as they loved Caleb,’ says Jennifer. ‘Friends were gobsmacked; but at the same time they only heard my side of the story — all the things he did to annoy me — and they told me to move on.’

They both started dating again, and became involved with other partners — something Caleb admits felt ‘weird’ initially. ‘But it was also refreshing to start a new relationship without tensions,’ he says.

‘During our separation, I went on a few casual dates, then met someone with whom I had a short-lived relationship. Jennifer behaved in a very jealous manner, so when I heard she was dating someone, I was actually happy and hoped that she would move on, too.’

Jennifer reveals she ‘dated casually and then had short relationships with two men’.

‘Since we’ve reconciled, we’ve been transparent about our dating history and what we learned from those interim relationships — good and bad,’ Caleb continues. ‘We agreed to leave them in the past in order to move forward with our new relationship.’

Jennifer adds: ‘It felt strange and upsetting when we starting dating new people and, although I may have appeared happy externally, it was Caleb who I yearned for.

‘I had a lot of therapy to deal with the jealousy I felt that he was also dating, and — I’m ashamed to admit — I did rather a lot of internet stalking of him and his new love interests.’

Then, within weeks of filing for divorce online, by some quirk of fate the application was rejected on a technicality on the form. But rather than complete the paperwork again and reapply, Jennifer quietly took it as a sign that perhaps divorce wasn’t meant for them.

It was during the first lockdown of 2020 that Caleb felt compelled to phone Jennifer for the first time in several months.

When she revealed she wasn’t well (pre-tests, she didn’t know if it was Covid), he offered to buy groceries for her, something which reignited the more caring side of their relationship.

‘We started going for walks in the park, although I made it clear that I wasn’t up for discussing a relationship of any kind,’ says Caleb. ‘We needed to talk about all the things that led to the relationship we used to have because there was no way I was going back to that.’

Jennifer had by this point been ‘ready to dive in’ but had to be patient. As she strove to be more understanding, Caleb realised his own part in their difficulties.

‘I had to accept that there were daily irritations that I’d caused her and which she saw as disrespectful,’ he says. ‘Like the way I never used to push my chair back under the kitchen table when I’d finished eating or always leaving my clothes on the floor.’

In June 2020, 14 months after they’d separated, they decided to try dating again, enjoying a string of restaurant meals together as Covid restrictions eased.

Satisfied that the love — and spark — was still there, at the end of the summer they moved into a spacious Victorian house.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 42 per cent of marriages end in divorce. That said, research suggests as many as 10-15 per cent of couples reconcile after they separate — with 6 per cent remarrying each other after they divorce (file image)

Still, this wasn’t the happy ending quite yet.

‘Those first six months were tough,’ Jennifer admits. ‘We had to allow each other to be honest without taking offence. Then there was the small matter of figuring out how to co-exist happily.’

At this point, Jennifer was still ahead of Caleb in terms of the speed with which the relationship progressed. ‘I craved affection from Caleb, but the reality was he simply wasn’t ready to give it,’ she admits. 

‘It was hard not to feel rejected, but I had to respect that he had to learn to trust in us again. I had to learn that his needs were as important as mine.

‘Eventually, after many months, there was a moment when we were lying in bed one night and he hugged me in a certain, loving way, and I started crying because it was what I’d longed for.’

‘I knew withholding affection was hard on her,’ adds Caleb. ‘But I still couldn’t let myself go until I heard that she loved me for who I was.’

Now, they are happier than ever. They still bicker about the domestic drudgery but there’s a major difference. ‘This time, I consciously strive to be the best partner I can be to Caleb,’ says Jennifer. 

‘Not in a dutiful 1950s housewife way, but I dial down my temper if something annoys me . . . ‘ Her voice tails off. ‘I wish I’d done that before.’

Meanwhile, Caleb has realised that niggling domestic gripes can be interpreted as ‘lack of respect’ to the other person. ‘He’s also learned to stand up to me, which I appreciate,’ says Jennifer.

‘I look at other separating and divorcing couples and urge them to fight for their marriages the way that we have. We had a narrow miss — and have worked hard to ensure we never risk losing each other again.’