Proposals and Partings: A Holiday Paradox

Every year, around this time the air turns crisp and the holiday lights go up, I find myself preparing for a particular kind of joy. The kind that shows up in the form of a text message that simply reads, “Guess what?” Or that posts a freshly manicured hand with a recently received diamond ring. Engagement season always arrives with a rush of celebration. In my line of work, it is formally known as the stretch between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day when love often fills the air, and the data confirms this sentiment.

Love, Data, and December

National wedding research reveals that between roughly one-third and nearly half of all U.S. engagements occur between late November and mid-February. December alone carries an outsized weight, accounting for approximately 19% of all annual engagements. And year after year, the same moments rise to the top: Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and Valentine’s Day consistently rank as the most popular proposal dates (The Knot Real Weddings Study). 

Rituals That Invite a New Beginning

There is something undeniably tender about this season, and it is not romance alone but ritual too. The holidays offer couples a rare combination of festivity, nostalgia, reflection, and community that naturally lends itself to big decisions. Psychologists have long observed that these moments act as “fresh-start effects”—temporal landmarks that prompt people to imagine a new beginning and take meaningful action toward it. In their landmark study, The Fresh Start Effect (2014), Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman, and Jason Riis demonstrated that holidays, new-year markers, and birthdays encourage people to pursue long-term goals with greater intention. The holidays, then, do not merely give a good aesthetic to engagement photos; they create the psychological opening many couples need to say, “Let’s begin the next chapter.”

Why I Fancy This Season

As a relationship, marriage, and family educator, I anticipate this season for the obvious reasons but also because it confirms evidence that people are still choosing each other, still daring themselves toward intimacy, still believing in the possibility of shared life. I admire the idea of couples choosing to build something sacred and stable at a time when the country itself is family-focused, gearing up for a new year, and high-spirited.

Even more, I treasure watching men declare their love and intentions as future husbands, and women celebrate feeling seen, envisioning the shape and possibility of their futures as wives.

My Front-Row Seat to the Stages of Relationships

One of the most interesting parts of my work is that I witness nearly every side of relationship and family formation: the connection, the establishing, the proposals, the planning, the matrimony, and, at times, the separation and divorce. While most of my clients sit on the joyful side of that spectrum, I also offer divorce ideation as a service. Just as I walk some clients through dating and relationship formation and toward partnership or marriage, I help others reimagine what life might look like if their marriage ends and, when necessary, guide them through marital dissolution. Because of this professional reality, I occupy a unique vantage point—one that allows me to spot trends across both spectrums. And from that vantage point, I know that beyond the glittering window of celebration lies another quiet seasonal rhythm.

An Interesting January Trend 

For decades, family law scholars have documented a post-holiday surge in divorce filings. A major University of Washington study analyzing fourteen years of county-level divorce filings found that divorce filings surge by 30 to 40 percent between January and March, with March emerging as the statistical peak. The rhythm was so stable across years that researchers described it as a “predictable seasonal pattern” in marital dissolution.

Family lawyers and court administrators see the same pattern in practice. Some call the first business Monday of January “Divorce Day” because consultation calls spike as soon as offices reopen. Even outside of legal articles, the pattern is widely recognized. Family attorney Lauren the Lawyer, who also shares insights on TikTok, posts content about what she calls ‘divorce season,’ echoing the same trend documented in the research.

The Pause Before the Decision

But the data tells a more nuanced story than the nickname suggests. Couples are not suddenly falling apart because of holiday stress; rather, December acts as a cultural pause point. Sociologists describe this as part of the “domestic ritual calendar”—the idea that families avoid major disruptions during holidays, school breaks, and milestone events. Even couples in deep conflict often commit to “getting through the holidays,” hoping for calm or simply trying to preserve a sense of normalcy for themselves or their children. Once the decorations come down and routines resume, the decision that has been quietly waiting finds its moment, and the legal act simply catches up to the emotional reality.

Two Rhythms, One Calendar

When you place these two seasonal rhythms on the same calendar, a subtle irony emerges. Engagement season, with all its warmth and surprise, is a season of choosing. People reach for each other with a positive and hopeful energy. Divorce season, with its legal precision and emotional complexity, is a season of truth-telling. People confront what they can no longer carry or repair. And both seasons, for all their differences, are shaped by the same forces: reflection, ritual, and the emotional honesty that surfaces when the calendar year turns.

I don’t see these rhythms as opposites anymore. They don’t compete for meaning or moral weight. They coexist because human beings are complex, and the holiday period presses on the realities of our relationships. For some couples, it crystallizes clarity: We’re ready. For others, it reveals a truth that has been lingering: We can’t keep doing this.

 A Mirror at Year’s End

So the end of the year becomes a mirror. It reflects the love that is beginning and the love that is ending. It reveals couples stepping forward and couples stepping apart. It lets us hold joy in one hand and honesty in the other, reminding us that the two are not mutually exclusive. And maybe that is the point.

Not because every relationship will last, but because every person has the capacity to choose what aligns with their growth, their peace, and their future. Hope looks like a proposal and a ring, but it can also look like a new life without a spouse.

Choosing Forward: In Love and in Truth

So this season, as the engagements roll in and the filings quietly rise, I hold space for both. I celebrate the couples stepping into commitment, planning families, and daring to imagine a shared life. And I extend compassion to those stepping away. Engagement season reminds us of how boldly we can choose each other. Divorce season reminds us of how bravely we can choose ourselves. And together, they tell a truth: that every ending and beginning brings us closer to the life we are meant to build.