WHILE the new year might be a time for new beginnings, today also signals the start of the end for many couples with January 6 dubbed Divorce Day.
On the first working Monday of the year the country’s family lawyers are flooded with enquiries from those who want to start the year by ending their marriage.
But mum of four and nan of nine Monette Dias hasn’t called time on just one marriage – she’s tied the knot and divorced 11 times in total.
Here, in an exclusive interview, she reveals why she still hasn’t given up hope on finding Mr Right.
LOOKING at her wedding ring, Monette Dias took a deep breath before making the call which would signal the end of her decade long marriage.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as the solicitor talked her through the necessary paperwork.
Little did Monette realise at the time, but that phone call would be followed by another ten just like it over the next 28 years.
“I’m not ashamed to admit I have been married and divorced eleven times,” Monette, an interior designer, tells Fabulous.
“People can say what they like about me, I know one day I will find a man that sticks.
“I realise now I rushed into all my marriages and should have dated the men rather than marrying them.
“I have learnt from my mistakes and yes, I am planning to walk down the aisle again.”
Now single, Monette, 56, lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is mum to three sons aged 38, 26 and 24, and a daughter, 33, as well as being a grandmother to nine grandchildren aged between two and 15 years.
She says she can sympathise with those who find themselves splitting in the post-Christmas period.
“I know exactly what so many people are feeling on Divorce Day,” she says.
”The stress of Christmas breaks many couples. What is meant to be a magical time for spouses can quickly become a mess of arguments.
“The New Year makes people want change and for many couples that’s calling time on their marriage. I should know I have done it almost a dozen times.”
We realised we had married too young without truly knowing ourselves or each other.
Monette Dias
As a double digits divorcee Monette now gets messages and calls from all over the world from people wanting her help working out how to end their own marriages.
“I realised I am good at giving advice but until my last divorce, I was bad at taking it,” she says.
Monette came from a deeply religious upbringing and growing up was taught that sex before marriage was forbidden, and as the years passed she chose to marry early than risk being intimate outside of her wedding vows.
“As a little girl I dreamt about having the perfect fairy-tale wedding,” she admits.
When Monette was 15 years old her father tragically passed away, leaving a hole in her life that she was desperate to fill.
She says her first marriage sprang from the need to foll the void and she was just 17 when her boyfriend at the time, Steve, proposed.
“Two months after I turned 18, we eloped to Las Vegas in June 1986,” she says.
“I wore my prom dress, and we were married by an Elvis impersonator.”
Monette and Steve became proud parents to two sons and a daughter but called time on their marriage after ten years in January 1996 and finalised their divorce in June 1996.
“We realised we had married too young without truly knowing ourselves or each other,” she explains.
But it was not long before someone else caught Monette’s eye.
“I met Dean while I was working at a supermarket a few months later,” she says.
I was 32 years old and had been married and divorced three times. My friends thought I was bonkers.
Monette Dias
“He was six years younger than me, but as we stocked the aisles together, there was chemistry.
“But Dean knew my T&Cs – no sex before marriage.”
Six months after they began dating, unable to suppress his desires any longer, Dean popped the question.
“We had such a spark, and my kids were fond of him, so I said yes,” Monette says.
“We married in December 1996 taking a detour to the courthouse on our way to work. We got married in our supermarket uniforms.”
According to Monette, Dean was immature and used to getting his own way and the pair divorced a year later in December 1997.
“Then a year later Dean called me again and begged me to come back,” she says.
“Despite his immaturity we did have something special, so six months later in September 1998 we married again, in a court house wedding with friends watching.”
Monette welcomed her fourth child, a son now aged 24 with Dean in July 1999.
“I thought that would solidify our marriage a second time around,” she says.
“But Dean became jealous, and after 18 months, we divorced for the second time in February 2000.
“I realised I did not know what love looked like, and I felt lost.
“I was 32 years old and had been married and divorced three times. My friends thought I was bonkers.”
In 2000 the mum of four met Rob, who was a couple of years her senior, on a religious dating site.
“He was older and in my eyes offered stability,” she says.
“When we met up in person within a week my feelings grew stronger.
“He also believed in abstaining before marriage and within five weeks of us meeting in person we married in May 2000.”
However, the couple faced challenges when Monette became ill and needed a heart procedure.
“Rob complained that I wasn’t as fun as I used to be,” Monette says.
“I realised he was not in for the ‘long haul’ and so five months later in September 2000 I filed for divorce.”
Monette says she then had a premonition that she would meet someone – and the very next day, she was in a bar when Sam walked into her life.
On New Year’s Day 2003 Sam proposed to Monette and they were married the next day on January 2, 2003.
“I hoped my January wedding would beat the divorce day curse,” she says.
“I planned a beautiful day for 30 guests in just 24 hours. It was wedding number five for me.
“I loved him, but he drank too much and could lose his temper.
“Our relationship became strained and, after two years, I’d had enough and we divorced in January 2005.”
Monette admits she was devastated that another marriage had ended and turned to her friends and family for help.
“Many of them encouraged me to slow down and not rush into relationships,” she explains.
“But I considered myself a free spirit and nothing would stop me from diving right in.
“It was especially hard taking things slow when I couldn’t be intimate with any of my boyfriends, and I felt too guilty to go against my faith.”
A year later, Monette joined a dating site and hit it off with a “tall, rugged” man named Jamie.
It took just six weeks for Jamie to propose and this time the pair settled on a cowboy themed ceremony for the St Patrick’s Day marriage in March 2006.
“I thought I had got it right, but I was wrong,” she says.
“He became too jealous, so we divorced after a year in May 2007.
“He said he gone to therapy and yes you guessed it I remarried him in June 2008.
“I filed for divorce six weeks later in August 2008 after I realised the therapy plan had not happened.
“I still wanted my fairy-tale ending, and a year and a half later, I met Lewis on a dating site in February 2009
“He lived four hours away and when we finally met, we had an amazing time, and he did not want to say goodbye.
“So, he suggested we get married, telling me he wanted to be with me forever.
“A week later in April 2009, I was queuing for a wedding licence in Las Vegas, dressed to the nines for our big day.
“I remember the woman at the counter shrieking when she discovered that this was wedding number eight.”
Sadly, in June 2008 just six weeks into their marriage, Monette discovered that Lewis was not her much wanted ‘hero material’ and so at age 41 she divorced again.
But while Monette’s interest in finding Mr Right was waning, her friends had other ideas.
She explains: “One Thursday, in March 2009, a friend called me from a bar to tell me that my perfect man was there.
“She talked me into popping by, and the minute I got there, he swooped in and asked me out.
“His name was Alex and after a whirlwind romance of six weeks, I was back at the register office to say ‘I do’ in April 2009.
“But I didn’t like the way Alex treated my son – he was trying to change him, and I would never put a man before my kids.
“So, he was out on his ear four months later in August 2009.”
The next man Monette fell for was Ollie, an old high school friend that she reminisced with after they reconnected on Facebook.
She says: “I ended up falling for him, so we moved in together, and six months later, we were married in March 2010
“But while we had the past in common, we had a lot of differences. Within a month we got divorced in April 2010.
I was subconsciously protecting myself from a man causing me to feel pain like I felt when my dad died.
Monette Dias
“We both realised we were better as friends.
“With every divorce, the heartache got worse.”
But a year later Monette hoped her heartache would be cured when an old friend cropped up from her past.
“Jeremy went from friends to something more,” she says.
“We planned to wed and, determined to make it work, we went on a marriage boot camp, designed to counsel couples as well as foster self-improvement.
“It was so therapeutic. I was finally able to mourn my dad properly, so it wasn’t an open wound any more.
“I also learnt it was the reason I ended my marriages so quickly, so that the relationships wouldn’t get deep enough for me to get hurt.
“I was subconsciously protecting myself from a man causing me to feel pain like I felt when my dad died.”
Despite me telling men I have been married and divorced 11 times they keep popping the question
Monette
But despite the therapy sessions, Monette’s 11th wedding in November 2011 didn’t go to plan.
“A backdrop got knocked over, and while my husband jumped out of the way, I got hit and I spent my wedding night in hospital with a concussion,” she says.
“It was an omen of things to come.
“Once again, my marriage didn’t work out. I saw a side to Jeremy that I didn’t like, and I got a divorce in November 2012.”
Fourteen years later Monette is still single but certainly isn’t short on offers.
“I have been proposed to 28 times,” she says.
“Despite me telling men I have been married and divorced 11 times they keep popping the question,” she says.
Monette became engaged in August 2023 but at Christmas the pair called off their upcoming nuptials.
“I loved his family, and they loved me, but I knew I would end up on a fast track to another divorce if we stayed engaged,” she says.
“Now I am single again, but I am not looking for Prince Charming – he is going to have to find me.”
Monette says she has received a fair amount of criticism over her many marriages.
“I regularly get trolled and called a slut for marrying and divorcing so many men,” she says.
“But I know for better or for worse my multiple marriages and divorces have happened for a reason.
“I know when I marry again my divorces will make me a better wife and ensure I choose the right man and this time it will be the keeps.”
And for those facing divorce this January, Monette has the following advice: “I tell people on divorce day it is not the end, it is the beginning.
“Take time to grieve your marriage, learn from it and find joy in the hope of tomorrow as I have.”
