I went on TWO make or break holidays like Jac Jossa & Dan Osborne – one was even my honeymoon… why they don’t work
As actress Jacqueline Jossa and husband Dan try to salvage their marriage on a make-or-break trip, Fabulous columnist Kate Wills, 40, warns these hols are not what they’re cracked up to be…
On paper, it should have been honeymoon heaven – three weeks’ island hopping around Indonesia with my new husband.
To anyone who saw us, we looked like typical newlyweds — smooching on sunloungers, holding hands on sunset walks along white sand beaches, and enjoying romantic candlelit dinners by our own private pool.
And yet less than a year later, we were divorced.
It’s easy to feel romantic on holiday — it’s when you get home that reality bites. I wonder if Jacqueline Jossa and Dan Osborne are going through something similar following their make-or-break family holiday to Mexico to save their eight-year marriage.
The EastEnders actress, 32, and the former Towie star, 33, looked remarkably loved-up while they soaked up the sun at the Hard Rock Riviera Maya Hotel in Cancun recently.
And yet they were said to have split up last month.
The couple — who have daughters Ella, ten, and Mia, six — were already living separately after Dan allegedly bought his own home in secret which “reignited trust issues”.
Sources close to the pair said Dan had “fallen out of love” with the former I’m A Celebrity winner, who was reportedly “devastated” by their split.
They’re certainly not the only celebrities who have hoped that some fun in the sun and a change of scenery might be just the thing to salvage their relationship.
In March, Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury — who announced their split in August 2024 after five years together — went on a trip to Dubai with their daughter, Bambi.
Molly-Mae, 25, said in a video on her YouTube channel: “It’s obviously not a secret . . . we’re just figuring things out.
“We had a really, really amazing time, probably the best holiday ever for all of us.”
Last April, Harry Styles, 31, reportedly split from actress girlfriend Taylor Russell, 30, after a make-or-break holiday in Japan, with an insider claiming the pair had hit a “rough patch” after the trip.
While these new pictures of Jacqueline and Dan’s loved-up PDAs by the pool might make it seem like everything is back on track, holidays aren’t real life.
And I know from experience that a fortnight of sun, sand and strong cocktails simply isn’t enough to heal a relationship that’s fundamentally not working.
I can understand when you’re out of other options and looking for a way to save your relationship that a getaway might seem like the solution.
In fact, one survey revealed 36 per cent of British couples view a holiday as a chance to reconnect with their other half and rekindle their romance.
But they’re a terrible idea because holidays are a bubble — they tell you nothing about whether you work as a couple.
You might think that a break from the stress and strain of life is just what you need to reconnect as a couple, but it’s all just waiting for you back at home
With enough sand, sea and Sangria any two people will get on — it’s when you get home that things start to go downhill.
Although I had an amazing time on my honeymoon in 2017, with hindsight, the cracks were already there.
We’d met when we were 20 on our year abroad from university in California, which in itself was a bit like a holiday romance.
We were together for 12 years before tying the knot. Although I had doubts about walking down the aisle, I told myself it was just pre-wedding jitters. He is now 41 and an academic.
In many ways, our trip highlighted how different we were. He liked going to museums and traipsing around dusty monuments, while I loved lounging on the beach all day.
He made fun of our luxury hotels, saying they were inauthentic and full of terrible, rich people, but I thought they were lovely.
And yet while we were 7,000 miles away in paradise, it was easy to push our incompatibility to the back of my mind and just order another cocktail with a mini umbrella in it.
There were certainly plenty of distractions to take my mind off any worries, like spotting Komodo dragons and visiting monkey temples.
We didn’t talk about any of our problems while we were on our honeymoon, and it was easy to keep them out of our minds. Life back home seemed a very long way away.
Band-aid baby
But when we landed back in cold rainy London, it became impossible to reconcile how separate our lives had become.
We hadn’t been getting on well for some time, but there was always a reason why — wed-min was stressful, our house renovations were hard, and so on.
After our honeymoon was over and our tans had faded, we had the stark realisation that we simply weren’t right for each other. He wanted to live in Liverpool and pursue his dream of being an academic. I wanted to live in LA and be a footloose and fancy-free writer.
We had some therapy together, but ultimately I realised we were never going to be right for each other.
I was the one to end things, but it was obvious that we had grown apart — although getting divorced less than a year after getting married was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. I felt I’d lost my best friend and my family, not just my partner.
All the problems we’d had before we got married weren’t magically erased by our lavish honeymoon.
The make-or-break holiday is like the Band-Aid baby — it never works. You might think that a break from the stress and strain of life is just what you need to reconnect, but it’s all just waiting for you back at home.
Expecting one trip away to magically fix a relationship that’s struggling is a recipe for disappointment
Having a good time on holiday can be misleading as it makes you get your hopes up of a reconciliation, when you’re probably just prolonging the inevitable.
Expecting one trip away to magically fix a relationship that’s struggling is a recipe for disappointment.
There’s a saying that “no matter where you go, there you are” — and travelling across the world won’t heal any rifts because at some point it’s inevitably time to go home. No wonder divorce enquiries spike in September, after couples attempt their make-or-break holidays.
My honeymoon wasn’t the only ill-fated couple’s holiday I’ve been on, so I should have known better. When I was 22, I had been trying to break up with my boyfriend for weeks.
I was no longer attracted to him, but every time I tried to tell him it was over, he presented me with a reason why I should give it another chance.
I was just gearing up to give the “you’re dumped” speech when he announced that he had a surprise — a week’s holiday in Barcelona.
Save the time and cash
He had already booked and paid for everything and I was too much of a coward to tell him how I really felt. Plus, as a skint student I hated to turn down a free holiday.
I’m sure a part of me thought maybe we might have a great time and fall back in love with each other.
But the trip was a disaster from the minute we got to the airport. I have horrible memories of wandering around the Sagrada Familia pretending to be like all the other loved-up couples, when really I wanted to be anywhere but there.
Unfortunately he had made so much effort — organising a private boat trip with champagne, booking intimate restaurants — that I felt it was impossible not to play the part of the loving girlfriend.
The stress of pretending to still be in love and happy really took its toll. I remember spending one day by our rooftop pool, crying behind my sunglasses. I was surrounded by genuinely adoring couples, which made the pain worse.
I realised I would have loved to be whisked away to Barcelona on a romantic minibreak — but not by him.
We’d only been back home a few days before the act became impossible to keep up, and I finally plucked up the courage to end things once and for all.
If I were Jacqueline Jossa and Dan Osborne, I’d save the time and cash and invested it in couple’s therapy instead.
It might not be as fun — and you won’t come back with a tan — but at least you might mend your relationship.
Jacqueline Jossa and Dan Osborne relationship timeline
Jacqueline Jossa and Dan Osborne have weathered several storms since they first got together over 10 years ago. Here's how their relationship has played out
2013: After meeting at an awards ceremony that year, Jacqueline and Dan start going on a string of dates
November 2013: Jacqueline is forced to defend Dan online after it was revealed he had also been on dates with Ferne McCann, Jac cleared up the matter by saying he was “single and can do what he wants”.
August 2014: Dan and Jacqueline announce that she is pregnant with their first child together
February 2015: The couple welcome their first baby, a daughter named Ella.
June 2015: Dan excitedly announced on Twitter that he and Jacqueline were engaged after a romantic proposal in Greece. He wrote: “She said YES!!! I am the luckiest man in the world to be marrying the woman of my dreams.”
June 2017: The couple exchange vows at a star-studded wedding ceremony at Cheshire Manor House.
January 2018: The couple announced they were expecting their second baby together.
May 2018: News reports that the couple have split with Dan heading off to a Marbella bootcamp when she was 30 weeks pregnant. Dan later confirmed he was living with a friend, and told Daily Star Sunday: “I’m still staying with a mate. I left because we were arguing and it is such a waste of energy.
“The way I look at life is every day spent unhappy is a wasted day, and we were both having a lot of unhappy days,” he added. “I still obviously care for Jacqueline but if we can’t make each other happy then we shouldn’t stay together. Life is too short.”
May 2018: Dan was seen getting close to Gabby Allen, sparking rumours they were now seeing each other during his break with Jacqueline.
June 2018: The couple’s second daughter, Mia, is born.
October 2018: Dan and Jacqueline confirm they are giving their relationship another shot, telling OK! Magazine they “went through a bad patch” but are “stronger than ever”.
March 2019: Dan is accused of cheating on Jacqueline with Love Island star Alexandra Cane. Both sides denied the claims.
November 2019: Jacqueline enters I’m A Celebrity but threatens to quit when Myles Stephenson confesses to her he thinks Dan cheated on her with his ex, Gabby Allen. She later is given a voicemail, and chooses to stay, winning the show.
December 2019: Celebrity Big Brother star Chloe Ayling accuses Dan of having a threesome with her and Natalie Nunn on a boozy night out. Chloe stated in an interview with The Sun that Dan was “making a fool of Jacqueline”.
August 2024: Dan and Jacqueline become victim of a terrifying kidnap plot while they’re on holiday with their daughters. The pair claim £20,000 worth of jewellery and even their girls’ tooth fairy money was stolen.
January 2025: Gabby Allen denies all relationship rumours with Dan and claims they have now completely cut contact, saying she “hopes he and Jacqueline are happy together.”
January 2025: The couple are one again forced to deny split claims, with friends saying they were “upset and hurt” at the allegations after they put their home on the market.
March 2025: The Sun exclusively reveals that Dan has moved out of the home he shares with Jacqueline.