Divorce Rebounding in N. Texas Courts Monday, October 11, 2010 It looks like the real housewives of Dallas are tired of waiting for their princes to become more charming.
While national divorce and marriage rates have plunged along with the economy, Dallas divorces are back on the upswing, giving new hope to a bevy of businesses that count on discord.
This past January, just 823 Dallas County couples filed for divorce, according to data from Dallas County District Court. By March, that number climbed to 1,358.
Through the spring, divorces were up 5.1 percent over the same period last year, although the pace again has slackened a bit. Through the first nine months of the year, divorce filings were up 3.8 percent compared with the same period in 2009.
The mini explosion runs counter to the recent prevailing narrative, with commentators eager to predict that the recession would teach couples to iron out their problems without resorting to divorce.
Ike Vanden Eykel, a man the Dallas Morning News has dubbed a “divorce law Jedi,” anticipated a divorce rebound.
“A year ago, I likened it to a fight at a hockey game: When two players get into it, the referees put them in separate penalty boxes. The recession put them in one penalty box — the same house,” said Vanden Eykel, the managing partner at Koons Fuller. “Once the economy started coming back, this backlog of people started coming out of the penalty box.”
Another Dallas divorce guru, Dr. Richard Warshak, a UT Southwest clinical psychologist who’s often called upon in custody battles and on national TV, said his colleagues have noticed the increasing pace of divorce filings.
Counselors, custody evaluators, expert witnesses, mediators and financial planners will all see more demand, Warshak and Vanden Eykel said.
Warshak’s book, “Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing,” now in its 22nd printing, is a perennial fixture on Amazon.com’s list of best-selling divorce books. In April, just as divorce filings peaked in Dallas, the book jumped from “ninth or 10th” on that list into the top three, he said.
Dr. Stephanie Burchell, a Dallas marriage counselor, says she never saw a drop in demand for her services. In fact, she said, she was surprised at the number of couples willing to “pay any fee and attend as many counseling sessions as it takes to find relief in their marriage.”
At the same time, there was only so much she or any other counselor could do to help couples hang on until the economy improves.
As Vanden Eykel and other family law experts work to split up some of these once-sizable estates, a few other industries can expect to see a renewed interest in their products and services once the splits become final.
Real estate agents, architects and interior decorators should benefit from the new divorce bubble because, as Vanden Eykel put it, “Where once there was one, there are now two households.”
“Regrettably, this kind of upturn actually has an impact on the Dallas area’s business economy,” Vanden Eykel said.
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