More than two years after October 7, divorce and separation are spiking in Israel as the trauma of conflict takes its toll on society.
At the start of 2025, Israel’s rabbinical courts revealed a 6.5 per cent jump in divorces year on year and, while this year’s latest statistics showed a 3 per cent reduction, experts are warning they mask an ongoing problem.
Survey data from Polly Labs and the Forum of Reservists Wives of more than 2,300 spouses and partners of reservists, 310 reservists and 94 commanders, found that 21 per cent of couples had considered divorce in the first quarter of 2025 versus the annual national average of less than 2 per cent.
In September, findings from the Reserve Duty Families Survey, which polled thousands of families through the Central Bureau of Statistics, found that 36 per cent of the spouses married to reserve soldiers whose service was up to 50 days reported damage to their relationship, jumping to 57 per cent of spouses of those who served 200 to 350 days.
And 34 per cent of the spouses married to reserve servicemen admitted that the damage to their relationships resulting from service led to thoughts of separation or divorce as men continue to be positioned in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Alina Shkolnikov from Polly Labs said. “The first quarter of 2026 does not look like the numbers are getting better. We are seeing good numbers going for treatment with more people seeking counselling though not everyone is taking what they can and the system to access help isn’t as easy as we’d like it to be.”
She said that the survey results show wives to be the primary drivers of separations. Reasons given included changes in the reservist on returning home, and women realising they can parent alone.
Divorce in Israel can take years to process, with mediation efforts and counselling usually recommended. Shkolnikov said damage will take time to reveal itself. “And if your husband is going for three more rounds of reserves, will you file for divorce now, or will you wait?”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one combat soldier spoke of the enduring crisis in his family of six. As soon as war broke out, the father of three volunteered on the Lebanese border. After five months’ service in his elite combat unit, he returned home as his wife gave birth to their fourth child.
“She was already angry with me because I left without asking if it was OK,” he said. “But for me, October 7 sparked an existential crisis we were facing as a nation and it was not a question of if, but how, where and when I would serve. This was also about protecting my family.”
After he returned to the front, the second time in Gaza, the rift deepened. He was critically injured after three months of fighting when he and his unit entered a booby-trapped building. He has since undergone six operations to rebuild his shoulder.
“It’s been really hard for her to forgive me and now that I’m injured, it’s made the situation even worse. She feels she has me to take care of as well as the children, and it’s been extremely challenging to get our relationship back,” he admitted. “She barely touches me, she’s so angry. We’ve been to therapy but it’s a process and one which I don’t know we can survive.
“These stories are all around me, I know way too many, stories of cheating, violence, of the breakdown in communications,” he said. Once in a high-paid engineering job, he now relies on state support, which leaves him with a quarter of what he once earned.
A combat medic blamed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for the end of his relationship with his fiancée. He suffers night terrors that cause him to wake up screaming and sweating, and anxiety that limits his daily life after more than 250 days of combat in Gaza.
“The things I’ve seen haunt me, day and night,” he said. “People who haven’t been on the front lines can never understand what this hell is like and for them, life just goes on as normal, which is extremely hard to fit back into when you come home.”
Prof. Eyal Fruchter is a psychiatrist specialising in PTSD. He said: “The spouses I spoke to said they don’t want their partners back because it’s less peaceful when they come back and they’re already used to handling life without them. People are still trying to keep the marriage going, to go to therapy, to try to fix things, but a lot of the damage has been done already.”
Despite the latest rabbanut figures this month suggesting less divorces year on year, Prof Fruchter, co-founder & director of Medical & Scientific Affairs at ICAR Collective, said: “Fifty per cent of couples are experiencing marital difficulties, and about one third are already talking about divorce. You won’t see it yet in the numbers because it will take time. But unfortunately, it will come.”
The current figures conceal a tidal wave yet to come, he said, as reservists are still not yet home and the process of divorce takes around 18-24 months in Israel to progress.
“The data does not yet show an increase, because divorce takes time. A year or two after the war, the numbers will begin to reflect what is happening,” he explained.
“Many reservists’ spouses say that when their husband comes back from war, he is over alert, hyper-aroused, abrupt, and impulsive and they are already used to running the home without him.
“Some spouses of reservists say they prefer their husband to remain in Gaza rather than return home, because the house feels quieter and more stable without the tension. It’s sad, but that is what they describe.”
War has created a new reality for the women left behind to run the home.
“When your husband has been away 500 days in two years, the situation changes. Single parenthood becomes the reality. And you get used to being alone,” he added.
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