It’s the same adage for musicians, football teams and marriage. The second album, season, or year of marriage, is the most difficult. Many musicians find following up the success of their first album difficult, so much so it’s become a cliché, the ‘difficult second album. It’s the same for the football teams in the Premiership when they’ve just been promoted. They survive the first season in style (like Reading for example) then when the second season in the top flight comes along, they struggle, and get relegated.

Marriage is just the same it appears. Most marriages that end in divorce do so in the second year of marriage. That’s 10% of divorces in the second year, according to research from the divorce website Divorce-Online.co.uk.

One of the contributing factors to the divorce figures is the quick and easy divorces on offer from online divorce websites. Divorces over the Internet have doubled in the first part of 2008.

According to Christine Northam, part of ‘Relate’, the marriage counselling service:

Younger marriages tend to be less stable. Possibly it was not strong enough to start: one of them wanted a wedding, or there was pregnancy, peer pressure.

It all feels too much too soon and one starts looking outside the marriage.

Clive Bellmore