THE Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Tini Owens must remain married to her husband, Hugh. Despite the couple separating in 2015, she is unable to end the marriage until 2020 as her grounds have been contested by her husband. Like Tini, there are plenty of people being held hostage in marriages they do not want, with partners they no longer love, by an adversarial legal process that binds them until some future date.

Divorce in Scotland, much like the rest of the UK, requires the pursuer to prove the defendant’s unacceptable behaviour or to stay married but separated for a period of time to demonstrate the breakdown.

This is not the case in many other parts of the world, such as the US, Canada and Sweden. In these countries there is no requirement to prove wrongdoing, making it easier for everyone to move on with their lives without dwelling on the other person’s flaws and failings.

The problem with our out-of-date system is that it turns the tumultuous and already fraught ending of a relationship into a full-blown war. Instead of a couple choosing to part ways and going through the necessary admin, they are set against one another.

It forces couples to look back through their relationship with a belligerent lens to concoct a retrospective war of attrition. The good parts are filtered out, the happy memories dampened for the sake of a strong case. Divorce proceedings, as they stand, compound the unhappiness that led to them being sought in the first place. They’re a drop of lemon in the milk, curdling all that survived unspoilt.

When you’re forced to mine your recently failed relationship for evidence of irretrievable breakdown, you will find it. If you’re divorcing, the chances are you’re not feeling particularly disposed towards your ex, which makes it far easier to look back on your relationship and cherry-pick events and reinterpret situations to support your claims. Our brains are wired for story and can deftly form a narrative from the cinders of extinguished love. Thinking in this way can fundamentally change the way you see your ex-partner and colour the entire marriage the dark shade of the divorce.

In 2015, Resolution, a family law body, found that thousands of couples in England and Wales were making false allegations in court because it was the quickest way to get a divorce. Having been through a divorce in Scotland, I can see why they would consider it. When a relationship breaks down, staying attached – emotionally, financially, legally – for years after the separation is a nightmare scenario for many. It’s not inconceivable that couples could come together and agree to work the system to get out of the marriage quickly.

But there is the problem. People are working the system because it does not work for them. That, surely, is reason enough that we reform divorce. If separated couples don’t have a problem with one another, it’s unconscionable to make them look for one. This situation is grim enough even for people with no dependents. At times this new acrimonious relationship, where nothing is held back, can be more trying and more emotionally taxing than the marriage itself. No-one should have to choose to remain married for an internment period or to go into battle to be free from a relationship that has no hope of working.

But this is especially distressing and often deeply ugly for those with children. For those of us with a family, divorce is no clean break. Separation is just the start of a relationship, often a difficult one, that will last far longer than the marriage itself.

An unhappy marriage followed by a messy divorce does not set you up well to continue to have your ex in your life and the lives of your children. It does not lay sound foundations for what the court would hope to be a post-divorce situation of co-parenting and continuing to be a functioning but separated family. An adversarial divorce does not help you to do the number one thing you must do and do well: plan the future for your children.

My ex-husband and I split up in 2013. Our divorce wasn’t finalised until 2016. If I’d have known how unpleasant, prurient and draining the process would be, I would never have got married.

The fall-out from the legal process has irrevocably changed the way we relate to one another. It’s unfortunate to think this is the enduring outcome for two people who were once in love.

Of course, no-one goes into a marriage expecting it to end – but if both parties have tried their hardest and cannot make it work, a straightforward exit strategy that minimises the distress to both parties should be an option.

A divorce that prioritises the post-marriage relationship for the sake of everyone it touches is undoubtedly not just the preferable option, but the humane one too.