It can end amicably, with each partner walking calmly through the door into another life and agreeing, without recourse to the courts, on maintenance and who gets what from the house and other assets.

It can also end up in an ugly, expletive-peppered slanging match in which each partner threatens legal action against the other and is punctuated by some vigorous finger pointing and maybe even some crockery throwing.

If things do get really out of hand and a spot of plate and pot pelting commences, don't worry too much – it's one less thing for you to argue about when it comes to ownership rights of the crockery.

Audacious door slamming is always a dramatic way to walk out on a relationship accompanied by the announcement: "That's it! I'm leaving!"

Whatever you do though, make sure that you take everything you need with you when you make your grand exit.

It's no good storming out only to realise that you have left your keys indoors.

Knock. Knock.

"Err excuse me but can you let me back in."

Silence. Knock knock a little louder.

Shouting through the letterbox: "Hello it's me again. Sorry I slammed the door and it almost fell of its hinges, but can you let me in. I've left my keys in the house."

Pause.

"Hello! I didn't mean what I said about you being the Betamax video recorder of wives and that your mother-in-law had all the charm of a frozen turd. I just stole that line from the bloke who writes in The Evening Telegraph and it seemed funny at the time. Hello! Open the door please."

"Pleeeeeeeease."

There are other ways to exit in style.

These include making a knicker chain out of her best M&S underwear, attaching it to the marital bedknob, which has not seen much activity as of late, and abseiling down the side of your semi in just your underpants shouting: "She has even taken the shirt off my back."

Gunthorpe will have never seen anything quite like it before. However, ditch the idea if you have pebble-dashed walls.

If she is threatening to take you to the cleaners in the divorce settlement, don't leave without kidnapping her favourite cuddly toy.

Send her e-mail shots of him bound and gagged and send her a letter with an eye from the cuddly toy enclosed (it can always be sown back on after) and a ransom note which reads: "Unless you agree to the lower maintenance payments and the return of my, that's MY, CD collection, Eddy the Hippo loses the other one."

The time for diplomacy and compromise is over.