In 1989 Lange announced in a brief press statement on 10 November that he was separating from his wife of 21 years. On 12 November Naomi Lange named his speech-writer, Margaret Pope, as the other woman in a "Sunday Times" article, and said that she had been told by her husband five or six months beforehand that he planned to leave the marriage. Lange's mother Phoebe also publicly criticised him, but they later reconciled. He had three children, Roy, Emily, and Byron, with his first wife Naomi, and one daughter, Edith, with his second wife Margaret. Lange married Margaret in Glasgow on 12 January 1992 while holidaying in Britain.