Jana Hocking reveals the savage effect lockdown has on marriage

Being stuck at home due to the pandemic has been hard on everyone – but it’s had an even more brutal impact on relationships.

It’s safe to say the past 15 months (and counting) of on-off lockdowns has tested nearly every part of our lives, but especially our relationships.

Any couple will tell you that having to juggle cooped-up kids during school holidays or fighting for space while working from the dining room table is, ahem, nothing short of memorable – and not in the way you would want it to be.

Dating expert and host of news.com.au’s podcast, Kinda Sorta Dating, Jana Hocking said lockdown meant there was now “so many divorcees back on the market”.

“I think the pandemic has really sorted out the couples that are supposed to be together and the ones that were probably quite miserable,” she said.

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Kinda Sorta Dating host Jana Hocking. Picture: Instagram/Jana Hocking.

Her guest, former My Kitchen Rules contestant and chef Steve Flood agreed, saying that lockdown had “sorted out friendships as well”.

“Some people would have grown apart and some people would grow closer and I think that also offers opportunities for the people you grow away from to come back together again,” he said.

But when it came to breaking up Jana said men and women handled the end of a relationship in completely different ways.

“I read a really good thing the other day and it said the way girls deal with heartbreak is when they know something’s coming to an end and it’s just not the right relationship, they’ll cry for like a month leading up to the break-up,” she said.

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Jana Hocking, columnist for news.com.au and host of the Kinda Sorta Dating podcast. Picture: Instagram.

“Then by the time they break-up with you they’re completely prepared and then they’ll sit for another month kind of processing it and then they’ll get on with it.”

Meanwhile men just “won’t process it at all” and instead may rely on a rebound relationship to help them get over the previous one.

Has lockdown caused more couples to divorce?

While there’s no exact data available yet on whether more Australia couples have split because of coronavirus lockdowns experts are predicting home isolation will mean more people call it quits.

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Kinda Sorta Dating host Jana Hocking. Picture: Instagram/Jana Hocking.

After China’s lockdown, which was one of the strictest in the world, ended in March 2020 the country recorded a surge in couples seeking divorces, the Financial Times reported.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics also recorded a spike in the number of divorces following the global financial crisis.

Courtney Mullen from Australian Family Lawyers has predicted a similar increase to occur due to coronavirus.

“Financial stress and arguments over money can often be one of the main factors in divorce,” Ms Mullen previously told news.com.au.

“The enormous number of job losses and the huge economic downturn will be putting many families into financial stress, some of which have never faced this kind of financial hardship, so it stands to reason more relationships will be impacted.

“We certainly saw a jump in inquiries about divorce and separation when the coronavirus crisis began, especially when lockdowns were in place across the country.”

Originally published as Jana Hocking reveals the savage effect lockdown has on marriage