The battle of the sexes: A new survey shows that men are hit far harder by divorce than women.

A recent survey highlightedthe fact that women tend to faremuch better than men after divorce.

The survey revealed that men suffer far more in emotional terms than women — and are much more likely to let themselves go and not eat properly.

In the year after divorce, 48 percent of men describe themselves as feeling ‘very lonely’, compared with just 35 percent of women.

Men often bear the financial bruntof divorce, too, finding themselves supporting the family they have left behind and somehow having to finance a new roof over their own head, too. If they meet someone new, they are then faced with the prospect of supporting their new partner and any additional children.

Women, the survey stated, find it much easier to ‘move on’ and leave the past behind, and have a far wider emotional support network of friends.

As a result, it is perhaps no surprise that more women than ever are initiating divorce. The latest UK figures for 2009 show that 68 percent of the 113,949 divorce proceedingsthat year were started by women.

More long-term marriages are ending, too — divorce initiated by women in the age 45-plus bracketrose by an astonishing 30 percent in the ten years between 1997 and 2007.