Andrii Shapovalov, 51, and Tetiana Shapovalova, 50, had a fantastic life together.
They were married for nearly 30 years, raised two children, and pursued careers that meant something to them:
He as a psychotherapist working with drug addicts, she as an executive at a large ice cream company.
Until last year, they were starting a new stage of their life together as empty nests in Dnipro, an up-and-coming city in central Ukraine.
Andrii Shapovalov, who recently divorced, with the family dog, Tori, in a park in Dnipro, Ukraine, on April 25, 2023. (Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times)
But when the Russian military crossed the border into Ukraine in February 2022, it triggered a series of events that their marriage would not survive.
They separated on the first day, as missiles pounded Dnipro and shook their windows. Tetiana undertook an odyssey as a refugee. Andrii wandered through the empty rooms of his family home.
Like so many other Ukrainians, they would experience the war very differently.
Tetiana was immersed in a whole new world, discovering a new country, a new language and, to Andrii's surprise, a new boyfriend.
Andrii found himself at the front counseling depressed soldiers and, for the first time since he was a teenager, living alone.
The law prevented him from visiting his family.
Both believe they would still be together had it not been for the war.
They have been unusually open about what happened to their relationship.
(His interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.)
Passengers, some fleeing Ukraine after the Russian invasion, crowd the main train station in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, April 16, 2022. (Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times)
Andrii and Tetiana are just one of tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of couples separating as the country experiences, in the words of Anna Trofymenko, a Ukrainian psychotherapist in Kremenchuk, a "divorce epidemic."
It may be one of the most far-reaching social consequences of war, as it may influence dating patterns, family structure, how an entire generation of Ukrainian children will be raised, and the trajectory of the country's population for years to come.
All major conflicts cause people to flee.
But Ukraine's has been different.
One of the first steps President Volodymyr Zelensky took was to pass a decree banning men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving, with few exceptions.
The intention was to preserve a fighting force within the country.
It also created a unilateral exodus.
90% of Ukraine's 8 million refugees have been women and children, and many women, married or not, do not plan to return.
They move on and develop new rooted lives.
Some are fleeing abusive relationships in Ukraine, and the law preventing men from leaving has created a safe space for Ukrainian women now in Poland, Germany and other countries to seek the divorce they have long been thinking about.
But that same law has also created a lot of pain for men with refugee children.
Their wives or ex-wives may have left Ukraine with their children and, at the moment, there is no way for parents to travel abroad to see them.
After more than a week of driving all day and night through 10 countries, Tetiana and the couple's eldest son finally arrived in Turku, Finland, where their youngest son, a semi-professional hockey player, lives.
There he realized that he did not want to return home.
Tetiana Shapovalova, who became a refugee and separated from her husband after Russian missiles hit Dnipro, Ukraine, with her new partner at their home in Vantaa, Finland, on June 19, 2023. (Saara Mansikkamaki/The New York Times)
TETIANA
I was so exhausted that I spent the first few days sleeping, walking and thinking.
I suddenly had some free time when there was no need to go to my work or take care of my parents.
And at one point I realized surprisingly:
I don't miss my home. I don't want to go back. It's not that I don't love my parents or my husband.
I didn't think about divorce.
I just realized that I wanted to be alone.
ANDRII
Those first few weeks were very hard.
After so many years, waking up alone, in a cold bed, with no one waiting for you... And it wasn't just the distance.
It was a lack of faith in tomorrow.
I didn't know if Russian troops would come for us or not.
He didn't know if he would be alive or not. But not a night went by without me dreaming of her.
The number of marriages ending in Ukraine last year was double or even triple what it was before the war, according to estimates by Ukrainian mental health professionals, divorce lawyers, dating gurus, court clerks and judges.
Experts say what's driving Ukraine's divorce rate, which has always been high compared to other countries, is not so much war-related stress, though there's a lot of it, but the sheer scale of the separation.
Tetiana with her new partner in Vantaa, Finland, last month Photo Saara Mansikkamaki for The New York Times
Trofymenko says that when people are disconnected from their communities, they begin to reevaluate everything.
"People start asking questions.
"For example:
Is this person I've spent so many years of my life with still the right person for me if I don't know who I am anymore?"
Tetiana, as she herself admits, experienced something similar.
Her marriage had never gone badly, she said, but over the years she began to feel "an emptiness."
She and Andrii tried a million different things to rejuvenate him:
Fix up your main house, buy an apartment, have a new dog.
But nothing worked, she said, and for her, the relationship was starting to feel like "a book you've already read."
Loyalty kept her in her.
But fleeing to a new country put her in a new frame of mind.
Andrii Shapovalov, who recently divorced, with the family dog, Tori, in Dnipro, Ukraine, on April 25, 2023. Shapovalov and his ex-wife, Tetiana Shapovalova, are just one of tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of couples separating as the country experiences, in the words of Anna Trofymenko, a Ukrainian psychotherapist in Kremenchuk, a "divorce epidemic." (Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times)
Within weeks of starting her life as a refugee, Tetiana met a Finn.
He says it was very difficult to talk about it with Andrii.
He phoned him and said:
"I don't want to continue our relationship. I want a new place, a new relationship, everything new. I want a new life."
ANDRII
At that time he was driving a car.
I felt like I was covered in boiling water.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't breathe.
I stopped.
Even after hanging up the phone, he was trembling.
I thought I was going crazy.
I blamed the war, the Russians, our government, everyone around me.
I was surprised, yes, absolutely. I refused to believe it.
I thought it was a flirtation and it would end.
But one night at the end of May, I called her and texted her all day and she wouldn't return my calls.
I was up all night.
Y entonces lo entendí: Ella está con otro hombre.
Finalmente le envié un mensaje que decía: Lo entiendo todo.
TETIANA
Pasó todo el verano. Andrii dijo que me apoyaba.
Pero no hizo nada.
Esperaba que cambiara de opinión.
En agosto, volví a llamarle y le pedí ayuda.
Aceptó tramitar el divorcio porque estaba en Ucrania, y yo firmé los papeles aquí, en Finlandia, y los envié en autobús.
En Ucrania es posible divorciarse a miles de kilómetros de distancia.
La gente envía certificados de matrimonio, partidas de nacimiento, escaneos de pasaportes y documentos fiscales.
Como sus hijos son adultos, Andrii y Tetiana no tuvieron disputas por la custodia.
En realidad, una vez que acordaron separarse, no tuvieron ninguna disputa sobre la casa, los bienes compartidos, nada.
Pero para muchas parejas ucranianas, la cuestión de la custodia es especialmente complicada en estos momentos.
Cuando una nación no está en guerra, sería difícil para una mujer abandonar el país con un hijo sin el consentimiento del padre.
Pero ahora hay una guerra.
¿Qué hacen los jueces si una mujer ha abandonado el país con un hijo, la pareja se separa y el hombre se queda en Ucrania pero quiere ver al niño?
"No puedo ordenar a la mujer que vuelva con el niño", no con los ataques diarios con misiles, explicó una juez de Kiev, Ivanna Yerosova.
Y añadió que no está facultada para autorizar a los hombres a cruzar las fronteras ucranianas para visitar a sus hijos en el extranjero.
That leaves her, and even more so the couples whose cases she settles, in a less-than-ideal situation for now.
Judges can order mothers abroad to allow their children to communicate with their fathers by video chat.
And when the war is over, Yerosova says, she envisions new divorce agreements that establish a father's right to see his son, wherever he is.
For Andrii, it has been heartbreaking not to see his children.
ANDRII
I miss the human warmth when they are around, but my contact with my children is not over, it has only taken on a new form.
We talk all the time.
And sooner or later, if I'm still alive, I'll see them again.
But Tetiana is another story.
I will never fall in love with another woman, I don't want to take care of anyone else.
I don't want to solve someone else's problems.
She was the only person who deserved it.
TETIANA
Since last August I live with someone else.
My life is flourishing.
I don't miss anything.
Maybe it's trauma, maybe it's not logical, but I really don't want to go back to Ukraine and see all the changes.
I don't know why, but I don't cry at all.
Maybe later I'll burn.
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, the number of divorces dropped to 17,893 in 2022, down from 29,587 in 2021.
But experts say the data is misleading.
The war has severely hampered all aspects of the Ukrainian judicial system, and judges, psychologists and divorce lawyers say the number of separating and soon-to-be-divorced couples is increasing considerably.
The consequences of so many separations in the same country are likely to be far-reaching.
Ukrainian demographers are already beginning to model the effects, along with refugee flows and war victims.
"We expect the population to continue to decline," says Oleksandr Hladun, a demographer at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Since the 1990s,
Ukraine has continued to lose its inhabitants, to 38 million today, compared to 52 million in 1991.
Experts predict that in the next 15 years the figure will drop to 30 million.
Andrii and Tetiana finalized their divorce in December.
They have not seen each other since the first day of the war.
Tetiana is studying Finnish and preparing for Finnish citizenship.
Andrii lives alone.
He spends much of his time working with soldiers who have problems with drugs and drinking, which he says have increased since the war began.
The other day, he took Tori, his new dog, an intensely loyal Shar Pei, for a walk in a park in Dnipro.
Looking at Tori, who kept looking at him, he half-joked:
"This is all that's left of my family."
What do he and Tetiana think would have happened if their country had not been invaded?
TETIANA
I would never have done it.
It was a classic case of not seeing the problem until you're out of the problem.
ANDRII
One hundred percent we would still be married.
But I'm still angry with myself for letting it happen, for not being able to do something to make it stay with me.
Almost every day I fantasize about meeting her.
Sometimes I blame her.
Sometimes I blame myself.
But I'm not angry with her.
I love her very, very much. Even now.
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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