Divorce in modern Ukraine has become not an exception, but a trend. In our country, there are more and more families that do not live to old age together. Every year, thousands of marriages break up, leaving silent joint custody agreements, outstanding loans, emotional debt and divided children’s lives. These processes can no longer be explained only by the incompatibility of characters. The marital crisis increasingly reveals systemic violations in the very fabric of trust — between partners and in social obligations. In the conditions of war, economic turbulence, psychological burnout and cultural transformation, marital relations cannot withstand the load, transforming family life from a space of support to an arena of survival. Divorce statistics are growing rapidly, and behind the dry numbers hide the emotional ruins of fatigue, silence and disappointment. Spouses who were building a joint life yesterday are now on different sides of the divorce process. And these are not only personal dramas, but a mirror of social changes that cover the entire country.
The social barometer: why the rise in divorce says more than meets the eye
Today, we are increasingly witnessing how the family albums of typical Ukrainian families end not with christening photos, but with documents with a seal of divorce. According to the new report According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Ukraine is among the top ten countries with the highest divorce rates in the world. In 2024, there were 2.88 divorces for every thousand Ukrainians. Considering the real scale, where some statistics are simply not taken into account, the situation looks even more gloomy. Behind the dry numbers (141,800 broken marriages) is chronic fatigue from war, separation, losses, overload and general human exhaustion.
Figures that do not forgive illusions: the number of divorces has almost caught up with the number of new marriages. In 2024, Ukrainians got married slightly more active (150.2 thousand) than in 2023, but they also divorced faster – by 42% more than a year earlier. At the same time, the figure provided by the Ministry of Justice (34,000 divorces through the DRATS) is only the tip of the iceberg. The bulk, amounting to more than 107,000, is due to court decisions, which are much more slowly but inexorably turning family unions into legal wreckage.
But it is not so much the numbers that are interesting as the very dynamics of divorces. The first year of the great war, 2022, became an unexpected moment of unity: more than 222 thousand marriages and only 91 thousand divorces. Psychologists explained this growth by the fact that in a state of uncertainty, people grab each other, as if for a lifeline. Ukrainians, under the pressure of war, signed papers, made plans, tried to find at least some peace. But in 2023-2024, reality caught up. Life has become cramped, stress has become chronic, and endurance has become scarce. The war does not end, but illusions are quickly shattered against household stones.
The Ukrainian model of divorce looks like a complex system in which it is impossible to even calculate everything correctly. Some divorces are registered through DRATSS, when both partners agree and they do not have minor children. All other cases, which make up the vast majority, go through the courts. Courts work long and hard, because in addition to emotional collapse come property disputes, conflicts regarding children and endless appeals. And another part of the divorces of Ukrainians does not enter any official database at all, because they take place abroad and disappear in the fog of bureaucracy.
Ukraine, with a divorce rate of 2.8, ranks 9th in world ranking and not alone in this trend. At the top of the rating are the Maldives (5.52), Kazakhstan (4.6), the Russian Federation (3.9), Belgium (3.7), Belarus (3.7), Moldova (3.3), China (3.2), Cuba (2.9), the United States (2.7). Eastern European countries have significantly higher divorce rates than the Mediterranean or the Middle East. The reasons lie not only in social or economic difficulties. Religious norms, attitudes toward marriage, legal restrictions, and cultural shyness can also influence people’s decisions about whether to go to court or stay in a toxic relationship. In Ukraine, this filter becomes noticeably smaller. People are tired of suffering and are getting divorced more and more often.
Many will begin to blame the war for this, but it is rather assigned the role of a catalyst. Mass migration, evacuations, prolonged separation, employment problems, alcohol, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the inability to re-establish family relationships after the front or the loss of a home constitute the new marital arithmetic. Instead of love and hope, fatigue and irritation appear. The joint “we” quickly turns into a single “I” with a long train of unresolved problems.
However, behind all these statistics, another signal is hidden, which indicates that neither the family nor the legal systems can withstand the load. In Ukraine, there is still no single database on divorce, and the authorities operate only with fragmentary figures. This creates an illusion of control over the situation, which in fact does not exist. As long as marriage and divorce remain matters not only personal, but also legally chaotic, no analytics will show the full picture. But the fact remains – the Ukrainian family in most cases is supported only by the force of inertia. And each new wave of stress pushes her closer to the edge.
Divorce after 50: when love collides with the reality of illness and old age
Traditionally, it was believed that if a couple lived together for 20-30 years, then their marriage stood the test of time. However, recent research shows that more and more people over the age of 50 are getting divorced, and this trend is gaining momentum. What used to be considered a rarity is now turning into a fairly common phenomenon and often not without scandalous details. American psychologist Mark Travers writes about this in a column for Forbes, analyzing the results of a large-scale research, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family.
Four decades ago, divorce among couples over 50 was almost the exception, with only 5 divorces per 1,000 married couples. But over the years, this number has doubled. Scientists paid attention to this shift and decided to dig deeper. The data turned out to be not only indicative, but also sometimes outrageous. Researchers analyzed information from more than 25,000 heterosexual couples from 16 European countries for the period from 2004 to 2022. The results made us reconsider the concept of mature relationships. Marriages in which both partners remained relatively healthy turned out to be the most stable. Even if the husband was ill and the wife continued to run the household, the divorce rate remained within the “normal” range.
However, the situation changed dramatically as soon as the woman’s health deteriorated. It was then that the risk of divorce increased the most. Researchers have noted a clear pattern: if the wife can no longer perform daily household duties due to illness, the marriage is in jeopardy. Much more often, men cannot withstand the pressure of a new role – a caregiver. And then, instead of conjugal solidarity, the chasm in relations and misunderstanding grows, which ultimately becomes the legal end of the story. The author of the study notes that this phenomenon exposes old models of thinking, when domestic responsibility still automatically falls on a woman, and her absence is often perceived as a “failure in the system.”
According to Travers, the authors of the study themselves recognized that this trend requires much deeper analysis. After all, it is not only about numbers, but about fundamental social ideas about responsibilities, care, emotional support and the role of women in married life. Unfortunately, even after decades of marriage, in many cases marital vows are only strong in theory, i.e. promises to “be together in sorrow and in joy” are held only until the first serious test. As we can see, late divorces have become a kind of litmus test for deeply rooted stereotypes. In a world that has learned to talk about equality, marriage at an older age is often an arena of unequal expectations. And when the health of one of the parties is taken out of the equation, it becomes clear that not all marriages were built on partnership. Some of them were kept only until everything worked “as it should”.
When love cannot withstand reform: the record of divorces in Ukraine at the beginning of independence
The first years of independence in Ukraine are remembered by many as a time of change, chaos and struggle for survival. Historians usually focus on political transformations, economists on hyperinflation, entrepreneurial deadlock, and rejection of the Soviet economic model. But in the shadow of these events, another quiet but massive collapse of marital unions took place. And if today we talk about the shock of the war as a reason for divorces, then this role was played by the economic shock.
From 1991 to 1994, more than 200,000 marriages broke up in Ukraine every year. And this figure still remains a record. It was a period when families literally survived: salaries were delayed for months, businesses stopped, pensions were devalued before people could receive them. The shelves were empty, the wallets were filled with reusable coupons, and the minds were filled with uncertainty and fear of tomorrow. In such conditions, even the strongest relationships began to crack.
It is clear that home comfort is not only based on romance and shared dinners. His material basis in the form of stability, a roof over his head, the ability to pay for utilities is of great importance. When all this crumbles along with the illusions, marriages lose their emotional core. Add to this the legacy of the Soviet patriarchal model, where the clear roles of men and women were determined not by partnership, but by functionality, and when one of the partners “didn’t pull” or the system demanded the impossible, the break became a logical, albeit painful, step.
Young families who managed to create themselves on the wave of romance or due to the inertia of Soviet habits felt this crisis especially acutely. The young couple entered a new reality with no capital, and with children in their arms, without a job or with a job that did not guarantee anything. Often, men were the first to lose a stable income and self-confidence, and women, who also had to take care of children, simply could not withstand the double burden. In these conditions, marriage lost any point of support. Social institutions, which could become a buffer, were also disoriented at that time. Family protection services had not yet formed, and advice such as “hold on for the sake of the children” or “a man must endure” did not work. In the 1990s, marriage, like the economy, went into a wild market mode, where everything operated according to the unwritten rule “who survived, survived.” This period should be remembered not only as a stage of high divorce statistics, but as an indicator of deeper social upheavals. After all, the family is an excellent reflection of any changes in the country. When everything goes haywire in the state, families are the first to feel the turbulence. And only then it reaches the level of government, laws or analytics.
Today’s wave of divorces in Ukraine, caused by the war, is a direct parallel to the crisis of the 90s. Of course, factors change, but it is quite natural that if a family is left alone with its problems, it begins to fall apart. This lesson is worth remembering, because only those societies that can support the family in the most difficult moments will build not just a state, but social trust.
Investing in love: how families are saved abroad
Developed countries have long understood that marriage should not be treated as just a private matter between two people. There it is social capital, which every state tries to preserve in all possible ways. Divorce is expensive and not only morally. This results in legal costs, additional state payments, psychological problems for children, and an increase in the burden on the health care system. Therefore, where they know how to count, the family is supported not by words, but by purposeful politicians.
In Norway, for example, even before the marriage, future spouses are offered free courses on family communication. Future newlyweds are taught how not to lose respect in everyday life, what to do in case of financial stress, how to resolve conflicts without shouting and insults. After the birth of a child, the state provides both parents with a long paid leave. The state does not divide by gender. The more balance in roles, the less quarrels and burnout.
In France, a couple experiencing a crisis can turn to special mediators (specialists who help to get through family conflicts without leading to divorce). Such assistance is provided free of charge and is supported by the state. Couples do not hesitate to ask for support, because they know that this is not a sign of weakness, but a step towards maintaining a normal life.
In Germany, strict conditions are put forward for divorce if there are children in the family. The court always checks whether the parties have done everything possible to save the marriage. If not, the process is postponed and the couple is referred to a special counseling program. All costs are covered by the state. Financial support is also provided for single parents so that the child does not remain in the social abyss. Here they think ahead, because they know well that childhood in chaos later turns into big problems for the country.
Of course, all these examples are not ideal models. In Europe and the USA, they are also divorced, and in some places often. But there they understood that families do not fall apart due to lack of love. Fatigue, lack of resources, information vacuum and inability to find help at the right time often lead to divorce. And this is where the system intervenes.
In Ukraine, none of these mechanics has become the norm yet. The help of a psychologist is perceived as a luxury, or even something that causes condemnation and shame. Mediation in our society is a real rarity, and government assistance is limited to one-time payments and paper certificates. A family in a crisis is left alone with problems and when it can’t take it anymore, it becomes another number in the statistics. Probably, in order to break this circle, Ukraine should stop perceiving the institution of the family as a purely moral category.
It is quite obvious that families need planned support: free family consultations, real psychological help, affordable courses for parents, benefits for young couples and systematic support in difficult periods of life. No one disputes the fact that love should be a personal affair that concerns only the two of them. But the infrastructure for its preservation must still be in the sphere of influence of state policy, as well as education of family values. And while other countries are building bridges where we still have holes, the divorce statistics will not surprise, but only confirm the obvious: it is more difficult to stay together when there is no system nearby that is ready to lend a shoulder.
