Poor misguided Britney Spears. It seems the 25-year old poptart contacted a lawyer to cut her mother Lynne Spears out of her will, according to Life & Style magazine.

The latest in Britney’s long-running feud with her mom is that her ex, Kevin Federline, is getting cozy with Lynne and is quickly becoming her biggest ally, according to Jeannette Walls of MSNBC.com. A lot of the trouble reportedly started this winter when Lynne took Britney to rehab. Since then, the only time Lynne sees her grandchildren, writes Walls, is when K-Fed takes them to visit her. So Lynne is siding with K-Fed on the issue of custody.

Good grief! First, Britney rises to stardom with a fan base of 8-year-old girls imitating her dance moves and gyrations, then moves on to playing with a giant snake on stage, a quickie marriage, then marriage to K-Fed, bears two kids, drinking binges, partying with Paris, maybe some drugs, and public meltdowns culminating with her shaving her own head.

I remember when Madonna first came on the scene with “Like a Virgin.” I watched her morph into a Marilyn impersonator followed by a svelt brunette, then shock the world by parading as a sex fiend, later sacreligious Catholic girl, Warren Beatty’s girlfriend, lesbian, Brit, yoga worshiper, Jew and now uber-homemaker/mom and children’s book author.

Madonna’s transformations were shocking, swift and radical. But unlike Britney, they appeared to be mostly by design. Even though it shocked our parents, Madonna’s marketing genius and penchant for reinvention are what keep her in the limelight more than 20 years after she first rose to public awareness. In many ways, she's lasted much longer than contemporaries like Cyndi Lauper and Deborah Harry.

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Make no mistake about it: I’m a die-hard Larry David fan. I adore his crankiness and when I catch “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO, I can see more clearly which bits Larry contributed to “Seinfeld.”

I'm also convinced that the TV Larry David is pretty much the same as the real life Larry David so I was particularly disappointed when the news broke last week that Larry is separating from his wife Laurie, upon which Cheryl Hines' character is based. Was the split his idea? Does he have a young girlfriend? What’s the deal?

Most reports I’ve read assume it was Laurie who initiated the split because she could no longer take being around such a curmudgeon. There are people who love him and those who hate him, but as one of those in the former group, I find Larry’s self-centered ways and neurosis quite endearing.

I’m finally starting to realize why: My husband Ted is very much like Larry. I get a huge kick out of some of that complaining. In fact, I would often watch “Curb” thinking to myself, “My God, that’s Ted, but more verbal and with much more time and money on his hands. How cute!”

But as adorable as it is on TV, if you’re a fairly optimistic person, it turns into a hellish situation. If types follow suit, what Larry doesn’t portray on the show is the constant and irrational pity he has for himself. On TV, Larry’s typically a moody drag. His wife on the show, Cheryl Hines, does a fair amount of placating.

There are many other issues between Ted and me apart from his being a curmudgeon, but I can tell you with certainty, the charm of a grump wears thin after a while.

Maybe some day we’ll know what actually happened between the Davids, but for now, I guess I have to liken my affection for Larry to my Woody Allen crush—understandable, but unrealistic once you really look at the man.

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Children of divorce are twice as likely to be prescribed a medication for attention deficit disorder (ADD), such as Ritalin, versus those who parents stay together, according to a recent report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by Professor Lisa Strohschein.

The study of more than 4,700 children began in 1994 while the families were still in tact, and the result was that more than 6% of 633 children from divorced families were prescribed Ritalin, versus 3.3% of children with parents who stay together.

“It shows that divorce is a risk factor for kids to be prescribed Ritalin,” said Strohschein.

While other studies have shown that children of single parents are more likely to get prescribed drugs such as Ritalin, the new study probes the question of whether the problem is caused by being born to a never-married mother, or another factor altogether.

“So the question was, ‘is it possible that divorce acts a stressful life event that creates adjustment problems for children, which might increase acting out behavior, leading to a prescription for Ritalin?”’ Strohschein told Reuters.

I say no. I might be overtired and cranky, but is this really a surprise to any of us? Does a researcher really need to spend a whopping 17 years no less, trying to substantiate whether or not divorce, or any home problems for that matter, make kids act out?

Professor Strohschein, take note, unstable conditions do affect people—kids and adults. That may, in some cases, mean divorce. Or lack of divorce for that matter, especially when the children are living in a virtual war zone whenever both parents are home. How about a study on happy vs. unhappy home situations, or kids exposed to parental fighting?

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I know there are a lot reasons men and women don’t agree to a divorce when one partner wants to leave. I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish they’d just let their partner go.

Disclosures last week about Carl Bernstein’s book on Hillary Clinton which alleges that she refused to give Bill a divorce, got me thinking about the topic.

According to Bernstein, Hillary was worried about being a single parent. She also, apparently, had come to terms with Clinton’s tendency to stray before they wed, which is one of the reasons she married him.

I personally know of a few couples with similar situations where one wanted to leave and the other wouldn’t agree.

In one case, the husband of a female friend of mine won’t let her leave. From the things she tells me, he behaves like a sadistic, control freak and it sounds like he gets pleasure out of her unhappiness. (Many of their marital troubles revolve around his lack of ethics in his business, lying and putting his family in a precarious financial position).

I know of other cases that are less complicated, but have to do with economics, where the wife is fearful her husband won’t continue to contribute to the household if they separate.

What makes me the saddest though, is when women don’t let their husbands leave because they’re afraid to be alone. Maybe they can’t imagine not being with their husbands or they think they love their man too much to let him go, or perhaps they have low self-esteem.

I would hate to think someone was staying with me out of obligation, or worse, because I begged him not to leave. Letting the man who wants to leave, go, is probably the hardest thing to do, but it’s also one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves.

 

The Brits are right up there with Americans in terms of escalating rates of obesity and it appears they’re following us in another alarming trend: The increasing use of private investigators in divorce cases.

A new private investigation firm in the U.K. is getting most of its business from spouses who want proof their partners are cheating. God almighty: Following your spouse during lunch, snapping pictures from a parked car, posing as a construction worker…it all sounds eerily similar to the divorce detective character played by Nicholas Cage in the 1992 movie “Honeymoon in Vegas”. But this game is being played at a higher level.

Beyond spying on suspected adulterers and adulteresses, both husbands and wives are increasingly hiring investigators to hunt for secret assets one maybe be hiding from the other. In the long run, this quest is probably more practical and ultimately, may yield far more satisfying information.

Have the urge to say “Gotcha you x!?&”? Want bona fide proof that he’s not just working late every night, losing weight and dressing better for nothing?

Before you spend all that money to hire a detective, consider that if you live in one of the 15 states (including California, Arizona, Colorado and Michigan) that allows no-fault divorce, getting confirmation that your spouse is cheating probably won’t help your bottom line. Why? Because marital assets (or community property) will likely get split down the middle, no matter how much of a louse he is.

For more on this story, click here:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=3199316&page=1

We’ve heard that when men fall in love, they fall harder than women, and that males are generally happier being married than females.

However, a new study out of Canada finds that men who had divorced or separated were six times more likely to report an episode of depression than men who remained married. Also, the rate of depression for men surpasses the rate for women. In fact, men were three and a half times more likely to have been depressed than women who were still in relationships.

Perhaps, but what the statistics don’t say is which sex initiated the breakup among these respondents. If it was split 50/50, the numbers are telling. Personally, I’ve seen both reactions, that of deep depression more devastating than the wife’s, and the reverse situation from the same man.

I was a close observer of a highly masculine, very handsome, charismatic charmer who was thrilled to finally separate from his wife to be with his longtime mistress full-time. Unfaithful, (that’s what I call him), was married to her for over a decade, had two children with her but was never “in love” with her, he said, and later grew to dislike her intensely. He couldn’t stand to be with his wife any longer, but I never knew for sure if his then-girlfriend had also pressured him to leave.

Unfaithful and mistress were married immediately. They were both deeply in love and had been for years. And truth be told, she was more suited to him than wife No. 1. Frankly, I thought his second marriage would last, but she walked out on him after 15 years.

He was angry and broken-hearted. A six-foot tall wounded bird so deeply depressed, he confessed to me he considered suicide until he started taking antidepressants and running around looking for women and sex again after a month or two.

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Psychologists have long told us that some of the most traumatic and/or stress-inducing events are death of a loved one, divorce, illness, losing a job and even getting married—a happy, but nonetheless stressful life event.

It all seems to make sense, right?

Perhaps, but if you buy into some new research, it takes to task this logical information.

What ranks as more stressful than divorce? Forget death of a loved one or illness, because being promoted ranked more stressful than divorce, according to a recent online survey of business executives. According to the survey, nearly 20% of business leaders said climbing the corporate ladder not only beat out divorce in terms of stress, but also death and relocation.

Corporate life can certainly be an all-consuming hell, especially if you’re working with cut-throat colleagues but still, more stressful than divorce or death? After wondering whether these corporate bigwigs were for real, being so unable to see outside of their own life situations, it occurred to me that maybe the reason they find divorce more palatable than getting ahead is because divorce isn’t a constant condition, and is often a relief.

Surely at least a quarter of the respondents have been touched by divorce. And perhaps the end result of the hell of separation, legal fees, bitterness and even problems with children and custody arrangements, is well worth the price of freedom.

For more on this story, click here: http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/may/21/survey_promotion_more_stressf...

Married women unhappy with their sex lives might be interested in Michele Weiner-Davis’ seventh book, The Sex-Starved Wife: What to Do When He’s Lost Desire, which is due out next January. After years of working as a licensed marriage therapist and relationship counselor, Weiner-Davis feels divorce can actually create more problems than it solves.

As for the topic in her upcoming book, Weiner-Davis wrote “A marriage void of sexuality and intimacy is a marriage doomed to fail,” in a previous book The Sex-Starved Marriage: A Couple’s guide for Boosting Their Marriage Libido.

Of course, for all of the books on how to save a marriage and reigniting a lackluster—or perhaps non-existent—sex life, there are plenty others out there that articulate the desire to love outside of one’s marriage. There are books, in fact, that not only empathize and encourage the spouse who wants to stray, but actually offer blatant instructions on how to have a extramarital affair without getting caught.

Don’t want to be spotted in the local bookstore? Doing a search on infidelity on Amazon.com brings up titles ranging from Undressing Infidelity: Why More Wives are Unfaithful and Love Affairs: Marriage and Infidelity, to the even more audacious,
The 50-Mile Rule: Your Guide for Infidelity and Extramarital Etiquette and How to Have an Affair and Never Get Caught.

The 50-Mile Rule, for example, instructs spouses to “deny, deny, deny,” never get sloppy about offering playmates a home phone number and to be careful not to cheat within 50 miles of one’s home.

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Think of couples in the public eye that are splitting up or have gotten divorced. Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen? Paul McCartney and Heather Mills? Elizabeth Taylor and everyone?

We know the regular folks, regular couples who are having problems, but when it comes to breakups in popular culture, glamorous celebrities come to mind. But for all those couples that seem to have a free and easy lifestyle, there are plenty of others that have the same problems.

This week, a man who represents perhaps one of the most conservative businesses in the world, country filed for divorce after 37 years of marriage. Most of us don’t know him by name and he’s managed to keep his personal life private: He’s A.G. Lafley, the Chief Executive Officer of Procter & Gamble, the company best known for marketing brands like Tide, Pampers and Crest.

Lafley’s a respected businessman though not a visionary like a Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. According to the divorce filing, the salt-and-pepper haired 60-year-old CEO of Cincinnati-based P&G and his wife agreed that they’d become incompatible. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right?

Among divorced and divorcing executives and entrepreneurs Lafley doesn’t have the image of those testosterone-charged men about town like CNN founder Ted Turner, Revlon chairman and Ellen Barkin’s ex, Ron Perelman, or the ubiquitous Donald Trump. But perhaps underneath the guy-next-door exterior and the conservative appearance lies another larger-than-life ego, whose relationship was marred by a sense of entitlement and a huge salary. Or maybe he has a mistress, who knows.

In any case, Lafley and his soon-to-be ex-wife appear to have put a normal spin on the breakup. But one wonders just how much his wife helped him on the way up the corporate ladder…

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If you’re going through a divorce, you probably aren’t too fond of recalling the nerve-wracking weeks or months that went into the planning of the wedding. Okay, not all women approach it in this way, but for those who did, how much fun was it to prepare for the party of all parties? And as burnt and bitter as you might be now, who still doesn’t love a good wedding?

Pontificating on marriage and divorce, Andy Rooney, syndicated columnist and the resident curmudgeon on CBS’s “60 Minutes”, says getting married is taken too lightly these days. That’s partly because weddings have become such a part of our entertainment culture.

Rooney has a point.

To a certain extent, I fell into the same trap – even as an extremely cynical woman and product of divorce. Not that I jumped into marriage, far from it. Well into my 30s at the time, I lived with my husband for a couple of years before getting married.

Still, marriage is glorified in the movies, on TV and in newspaper’s wedding announcement pages, Rooney says. No one wants to hear this when they’re engaged, but it’s true.

We all think it’s going to be different for us. But it changes. Even if your husband doesn’t change. At least it did for me. Truth be told, he was the same, but I felt different. It all seemed so much more serious after it became official. Maybe that has something to do with all the preconceived notions we have going into marriage and all the notions of what it should be and the envy of those who seemingly have more loving and/or better husbands. Then there’s the longing of wanting to be back in the shoes of our single friends. And then, dare I say it, there’s the longing for something new and the excitement of being in a new romance.

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