A recent survey highlighted the fact that women tend to fare much 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 brunt of 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 proceedings that year were started by women.

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

Leading divorce lawyer, Adam Witkover, of Bross Bennett Solicitors in London, says many women feel the rush of excitement after leaving their husbands.

He says: ‘In my experience, women seem to cope much better emotionally with divorce. They have a wider network of friends, find it much easier to talk about their emotions than men, and although they are not always better off financially, they often use divorce as the springboard to a new career.

‘Men, on the other hand, find it much harder to express how they feel, and are often much more bitter about the split than women. They seem to find it harder to let go of the past.’

Men also tend to struggle with the domestic side of living on their own — doing their own washing, shopping and cooking — whereas for women, that is a breeze.

If there are children involved, women tend to be awarded the family home, so their general lifestyle is not dramatically affected. Men, on the other hand, often struggle with the turn their lives have taken, especially if they find themselves moving into a small flat or even back in with their parents.

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

點擊查看更多雙語新聞

(Agencies)