Bucharest remained the capital of divorces in 2021. Seven couples broke up here, on average, every day, adding to the 20,000 divorces that took place nationally the same year.

Divorce rates in Romania remained low immediately following the 1989 Revolution. Around 5,000 couples divorced per year back then. Nowadays, that number has doubled. Some believe infidelity is one of the most common reasons for couples to divorce, while others say that the pandemic has made spouses realize they are not right for each other.

“The first reason is infidelity. Infidelity is a symptom of divorce and not the deep cause of divorce. Why do people cheat, here is the question. They cheat because they are disconnected from each other and then they look for solutions,” believes Gabriela Şaulea, divorce counselor. “Women are the ones who choose divorce in the majority of cases, mostly because they were cheated on. Men leave less often, sometimes when someone new appears in their life or when they’re being nagged too much,” she adds.

“Let’s call it a mismatch in characters. You only understand [someone’s] character when you spend time together. The pandemic forced us to do just that, and then we saw the good things and the less good things," sociologist Gelu Duminică told Observator.

Higher divorce rates in the post-pandemic era are not unique to Romania. Italy, for one, recorded more divorces starting with 2020. 

Roughly 2,600 divorces took place last year in Bucharest alone. Three other counties, namely Iaşi, Constanţa, and Prahova, registered over 1,000. On the other side of the spectrum are Vâlcea and Covasna, with slightly more than 200 divorces each.

“Traditionally, the age group in which the most divorces were registered was between 50-54 years, but in the last year we notice that a very important number of divorces, 911, also occurred in the category over 60 years old," said Vlad Alexandrescu, spokesman for the National Institute for Statistics.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Andrey Popov | Dreamstime.com)