"Although the majority of people who contact a lawyer with marital problems go on to divorce their partner at some stage," British divorce lawyer Martin Loxley told the BBC this week in response to the new report, "we have seen an increase in the number marriages saved through counseling and therapy." He also pointed out that "it was widely expected that divorce levels would rise in 2008 as a result of the strains and stresses added by the recession."

But another divorce lawyer, Ayesha Vardag, had a different explanation. "Our experience is that fewer couples are divorcing because fewer are marrying," he told the BBC. "This comes partly from the increased social acceptability of living together and having children outside marriage, and partly from anxiety about the unpredictable financial consequences of marriage."

The Office for National Statistics' research also found that the age group with the highest divorce rate was people in their late 20s. On top of that, the percentage of divorcees who had already been divorced at least once is now twice what it was in 1981.

About 50% of U.K. divorcing couples had at least one child under the age of 16. And of the divorce decrees that were awarded to one ex-partner (as opposed to a joint decree for both), roughly two-thirds were decided in the wife's favor.