When his father was dwelling, the Dwights had vehement arguments that greatly distressed John. Nigel and Vanessa Lawson divorced in 1980, when Nigella was 20. They both remarried: her father that calendar year to a House of Commons researcher, Therese Maclear (to whom he was married until 2008), and her mother, in the early 1980s, to thinker A. J. Ayer (they remained married until her mother's death).