When my husband left me six months after our wedding, I was so ashamed I hid. Then I discovered I’d missed the warning signs and I was doomed to be a victim of Short Marriage Syndrome, says EVE SIMMONS

Three years ago, I made Christmas disappear. I flew to California to visit my brother and booked my flight home late on Christmas Eve to ensure that, due to the time difference, when I woke up in London, the dreaded day itself would be over.

It was a success: by the time I arrived at my door, it was 9pm on Christmas Day. I swallowed a sleeping pill, pulled my eye mask over my face and bid farewell to the world for another 12 hours. The truth is, I didn’t want to wake up.

It had been a month since my husband of just six months – but partner of almost a decade – called it quits, for reasons that still remain largely unclear to me. 

One evening he served me a bowl of my favourite pasta, then announced that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be married to me. He’d developed feelings for a younger woman at work, and it had left him ‘confused’ about the strength of our romantic connection.

I could barely breathe and ran to the toilet to vomit. Just six months before this, he’d sobbed as he watched me walk down the aisle, and encouraged me to ditch contraception so we could start a family. 

On his Instagram post of our wedding pictures he’d written: ‘Best day of my life.’

Unsurprisingly, the festive period of 2022 was a devastating train wreck. The thought of families celebrating in their joyful Christmas bubble sent me into a spiral of gloom. I was ashamed of the ‘perfect’ wedding day our loved ones witnessed – surely they’d now feel just as duped as I did.

I remember bolting out of my local Tesco after spotting our next-door neighbour doing her Christmas shopping. I couldn’t bear to tell her what happened. We’d popped round to show her our wedding photos just a month earlier.

Not long after, I was forced to sell my dream family home, give up the dog we owned together, and – aged 31 – move in with my mother while I came to terms with my new, unwanted, single status.

You’d expect that Christmas would be a reminder of the time the world fell from beneath my feet – and for two years it was.

But this year is different, for just last week I sat on the living room floor of my new flat to do something that newly heartbroken me was convinced would never happen. I wrapped Christmas presents for my son.

Almost two years to the day after my break-up with my then-husband, my new partner and I fell pregnant by happy surprise. My little boy, Enzo, was born in July, and today, my life is unrecognisable from that of the hopeless mess of a woman crying over ‘Dear Husband’ Christmas cards in the supermarket.

But getting here has, at times, felt very treacherous, too.

The first step to survival was my decision to ‘come out’ of the divorce closet, as it were, and that meant letting go of the shame.

As a journalist and health editor, I’ve spent much of my career documenting other people’s struggles with illness in the hope of helping those in a similar position.

I’ve written at length for this newspaper about the eating disorder I suffered in my early 20s, and my long struggle to access effective NHS treatment. So part of me felt it was only natural that I follow suit with my most recent traumatic episode. And yet, for months, I held back.

The plain fact was, I didn’t want to be a 31-year-old divorcée. Divorce was for middle-aged couples with children, who’d grown apart over several years, or for those who’d tried everything to make the marriage work but failed.

My husband couldn’t even suffer me for a full year. Putting that out there was hardly good for my ego nor the best advert for any potential new partner.

But also, part of me was holding out hope for the man I’d chosen. Friends assured me he’d suffered some sort of mental health episode, and would soon return to the loving husband I knew. A part of me believed them, even when he asked for my engagement ring back.

But then his behaviour took a turn. He refused to return a hefty lump sum of cash that my mother had paid towards our house. It was a gift to us both, he argued. At first this seemed uncharacteristically mean, but soon became par for the course.

After a series of desperate phone calls to various solicitors I came to realise the cold truth – legally, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. We were married without a prenuptial agreement, so our assets were shared.

My ex-husband kindly had a solicitor draw up a letter spelling this out – along with the fact that, technically, he had access to my savings – just in case I had any doubt. If I was struggling to afford my own flat, the letter advised, perhaps I ought to pay off my student loan to secure a bigger mortgage. Who was this man?

And how many other newlyweds had made the same financial mistakes I had?

We’d been married for just six months, there were no children involved, and yet all my assets – including those acquired through the generosity of my mum – could now be his, too. It was then that I took to Instagram to tell my story and to warn others of the financial risks of marriage, which are all too often underestimated.

I clearly hit a nerve. The messages came flooding in, mostly from other women. All had been similarly blindsided by the man they believed to be their forever person, and most were in their early to late 30s. 

With my journalist hat on, I began investigating. I picked the brains of relationship counsellors, divorce lawyers and more than 20 young-ish divorcées to understand how the man who was supposed to have my back could so easily stab me in it.

What I learned shocked me – and I wish I had known about it before I got married.

Apparently, I was part of a disturbing trend well recognised by those in the divorce industry. Getting hitched after a long period of living together is an acknowledged red flag. Especially if they are under 40, these couples are prime candidates for divorce, family law experts told me.

The most recent Government data appears to support this, revealing that you’re twice as likely to divorce in your early 30s compared to late 50s. Meanwhile, you’re just as likely to split after one year as you are after 25.

No expert is entirely sure what lies behind the ‘short marriage syndrome’, but some have theorised that our social media-led world of instant gratification could be a driver.

Both the rise of dating apps and the endless series of beautiful models on Instagram and TikTok promotes a fallacy that someone more attractive is just around the corner.

In the year after my break-up, I became obsessive about finding answers, and collected my discoveries in a book, which will be published in the new year. I hope it will help others like me feel comforted, inspired and, most importantly, not alone.

In my research, I came across young women from all walks of life, in myriad different circumstances, who’ve survived a life-ruining, blindsiding break-up.

Some discovered covert affairs; others had to explain sudden heartbreak to young children. One 34-year-old only made it two years into her marriage before her husband began an eight-month affair with a colleague. He’d pretended his reason for withdrawing from intimacy with his wife was that he’d felt ‘depressed’.

I heard from women who were so afraid of being blindsided again, they’d given up on men completely and instead chosen to grow old in an all-female commune.

You might think listening to a series of romantic horror stories wasn’t great for my sense of hope for the future.

But quite the opposite. The wonderful thing was, no matter how traumatic the split, all the women I came across were grateful for their divorce. In fact, many went so far as to say crushing heartbreak was the best thing that ever happened to them.

The blessing of hindsight taught most of these women that their break-up wasn’t so shocking after all. They all had reason to believe it would have happened anyway and, given that, the sooner the better.

More than one story featured a man’s quiet hum of resentment about their wife earning more than they did, for example. Some remembered unhealthy drinking habits they chose to ignore, or the litany of casual insults they put down to their husband’s unusual sense of humour. I was no exception. 

It took just a week with a new partner to realise how dreadful a match my ex and I had been (more on that later).

The second prong to my survival involved escape. In October 2023, almost exactly a year after my split, I flew 3,500 miles across the Atlantic to start a new life in New York on the health desk of the Daily Mail’s US office.

A new city felt daunting, of course, so too did the fact I’d have to live independently for the first time ever. Suddenly, there was no one else to rely on. It was a series of firsts: building DIY furniture alone, setting up my own utility bills, food shops for one – all at the embarrassingly mature age of 32.

Yet with every self-sufficient act, I realised I didn’t need a man for survival – and, with that, I found freedom.

In the Big Apple, an exciting land of strangers, I could abandon the heartbroken divorcée and try on the fun-loving career woman with no troubles or ties.

And it worked, for a while.

I travelled across the US with a new gaggle of girlfriends, sipped dirty martinis on the West Side, and saw my career thrust to dizzying heights. But the truth is, there was always a subconscious tether pulling me home.

It wasn’t my ex. Rather, a man who was a relatively recent discovery. I initially held back from writing about this latest chapter in my story. I didn’t want to leave women with a hollow message – that the key to recovering from heartbreak is meeting someone new.

But it would be naive to ignore a facet of life that the majority of people see as crucial – a romantic partner. A few weeks after my break-up – still wearing my engagement ring – I made the uncharacteristic decision to download the dating app Bumble.

The intention was nothing but distraction: I wasn’t looking for romance with anyone. Instead, I considered it material for girls’ nights, having been told I’d likely be swiping through a catalogue of creeps.

But one Friday, while sunk into my mother’s couch, I came across the profile of a man with a particularly charming smile.

Let’s call him Mr G. I scrolled down to look at his favourite activities. It was a hilarious and refreshing change from the usual ‘foodie and football fan’ quips I loathed. Instead, he wrote two words: ‘Microwaving’ (a nod to his culinary difficulties) and ‘asthma’.

It was the first time I’d laughed in three weeks.

I knew from the first date that I was smitten. His immediate warmth and gentle nature made me feel instantly at ease. We laughed over cocktails until the bar closed, and he listened, unfazed, while I told him my whole sorry divorce tale.

When I arrived home, he texted to ask when I was next free. ‘I can do tomorrow or Thursday,’ I replied. He texted back instantly: ‘I can do tomorrow or Thursday, or both.’

What followed was almost two years of back and forth trips between London, New York and Cape Town – where he worked – while we soaked up every blissful minute of each other’s company, and also tried to work out if we had a future.

And this ocean-hopping was exactly what I needed. It meant I didn’t jump from one shared life to another, and could win back my independence. I got the chance to deal with the trauma of my sudden divorce with intensive therapy, outside of a new partnership.

The physical distance also meant we were realistic about whether or not we’d end up together, which took the pressure off. The key to this was a constant stream of calm communication that meant there were no surprises.

I soon realised these still waters would never have been possible with my hot-headed ex.

In October 2024, having recently moved back to the Daily Mail’s London office, I visited Mr G in Cape Town, and took an extended break to write my book. Ironically, it was on this trip, while I was penning a guide to post-break-up singledom, that I fell pregnant.

A fortnight ago we took Enzo to his first-ever Christmas carol concert, featuring an eclectic mix of festive pop hits, as well as the usual favourites. 

As Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You blasted at the crowd, and Mr G jostled our son along to the music, Enzo let out one of his earliest giggles. Amid the joy, I shuddered to think about where I would have been, if it hadn’t been for my heartbreaking divorce.

• What She Did Next: What To Do When The Life You Planned Is F**ked Up, by Eve Simmons (£22, hardback, audio and ebook, Dialogue Books) is out on January 8, 2026