So you are wincing at how your husband has swelled over the Christmas break to the size of a manatee as a result of having swallowed his own bodyweight in marzipan, and you’re thinking that the Romeo you wed now has the allure of another Liberal Democrat leadership contest. And you, you were chuffed that your wife bought you one of those trendy sporting awaydays as a Christmas gift, but not quite so cheered when you found out it was “A Day’s Quail Hunting with Dick Cheney.”

But if the two of you can just get through the rest of today, there is every hope of your saving your marriage. Today, the first working Monday after the new year break, marks the peak of the divorce season. Lawyers know it as D-Day: D for divorce. Couples whose recent seasonal confinement has had the same effect on their marriage as approaching petrol with a lit match telephone their lawyers with pleas to launch divorce proceedings pronto. A boom in divorces among the over60s suggests that retired couples, too, chafe at unfamiliar, enforced marital companionship.

Nearly two million couples have considered splitting up over the past week or two. Three-quarters of new year divorces are instigated by women, around half of them citing a partner’s Christmas party infidelity as the trigger.

What to do? In Private Lives, Noel Coward’s hot-headed lovers Amanda and Elyot elect to defuse flashpoints by yelling “Sollocks!” as a time-out code. It’s worth a try, even if, in Private Lives, harmony reigned only briefly before a furious Amanda reacted to Elyot’s newest peace-making purr of “Sollocks!” by hissing: “Sollocks yourself!”