In addition, every fifteen seconds someone else in the world is infected, twenty million so far, mostly hetero s, one in two hundred and fifty of all adults alive today - and the epidemic has hardly begun. Then there is a broken generation of young people who are casualties of divorce. They have lived through the feuds, the battles, the bitterness. They have friends who have never fully recovered from the isolating numbness, depression and despair. Divorce often means poor exam results, damaged health and stress, four times the risk of needing psychiatric help as a child and a greater risk of breakdown in middle age.
Remarriage is no answer.
It carries six times the risk to the emotional health and welfare of the children, and ly abused children are ten times more likely to come from step-parenting households. Yet despite all the risks, we remain optimistic when it comes to love. Every day almost 500 people in Britain plan a wedding, intending their marriages should last. It reduced marriage to a mere twelve week rolling contract to be together. The collapse of communism, the death of materialistic dreams, the extinction of idealism, the stench of corruption and sleaze and the ticking of the clock towards a new millennium.