Most of us at some point in time have heard the horror stories surrounding child support payments and alimony. You may have experienced it first hand, or perhaps a friend or loved one has become exasperated trying to collect money that is owed to them. But now a recent poll conducted by GFK Roper gives us a better picture of just how many people are affected by lack of support payments.

The poll showed that 24 percent of divorced Americans are supposed to be receiving child support payments, but only a handful of people are actually getting the payments. Only 25 percent of people who are supposed to be receiving alimony actually got the entire amount, 29 percent didn't receive any amount at all and only 17 percent received a partial amount. Perhaps the even scarier statistic is that only 6 percent of people not receiving child support or alimony payments are actually fighting for their rights.

Something has to be done when only 6 percent of people not receiving money owed to them because of a divorce are able to stand up and ask for what they deserve. There may be a few reasons why this is so. I know of a few people who have decided not to go after their ex-spouse because they know their ex does not have the money the court has ordered them to pay. However, this rarely seems to be the case.

Instead, there is a prevalent belief that either the court will not be able to make the ex-spouse pay, or more commonly it is too expensive to go to court in the first place. Because they are not receiving support payments in the first place, many people in this position can't come up with the money to pay for additional court costs and lawyer fees.

Many factors can lead to a town's prosperity and its eventual rise to city-hood. There are all the usual suspects: some towns grow because of mining or forestry, some grow because of lumber or ship-building. Sioux Falls, South Dakota came to be because of divorce. And the Minnehaha County Historical Society wants to commemorate this with a nice little plaque.

When Sioux Falls began, divorce was an arduous prospect. Most states required at least one year of residency in that state before you could apply for divorce, and even then the state would only consider a divorce on the grounds of adultery. Not so with Sioux Falls.

According to Bruce Blake, a member of the historical society, the residency requirement in Sioux Falls was "scandalously short" at only three months. Even then, people were not necessarily residing in the town. Wealthy couples looking for a quick divorce in a closed courtroom would often rent a hotel room and hang up some clothes to make it look like they were staying there, and then move back home only to return to Sioux Falls in three months' time.

Adultery was certainly one reason to get divorced in Sioux Falls, but it was by no means the only reason. Old divorce records show one man claimed that his wife refused to bathe. Another man used the fact that his wife would keep touching his back with her cold feet in his petition. Both men were granted divorces.

While it may seem a strange beginning, it certainly attracted a number of people to the area. And while some stayed at the local hotel, others fulfilled the residency requirement by building homes there. Since the majority of people getting divorced were relatively wealthy, art and culture flourished during this time period as couples waited out the three month residency requirement.

Although the number of divorced in Sioux Falls have dropped today to 3.1 per 1000 people, it's always good to know where you came from.

With all the divorce drama going on in the news today, it's interesting to see the way things were. This weekend I learned about Caroline Norton, daughter of British playwright Richard Sheridan. She is the woman directly responsible for modern British divorce law. Caroline married George Norton, a conservative politician, in 1827. Their marriage quickly ran into trouble when George began beating his wife.

During this time, a woman could only apply for a divorce under the regulations set out by the Church of England. The church might grant a divorce under one of three conditions. The first was if the marriage could be considered annulled through potential incest, insanity, or impotence. In these cases the church would allow the petitioner to re-marry, but any new children would be considered illegitimate. The second condition to prove adultery, in which case Parliament would eventually grant a divorce with the church's blessing that would allow the spouse to re-marry and their children would be considered legitimate. Finally, you could prove sodomy or physical violence, but this would only allow the couple to separate and neither would be allowed to re-marry.

Obviously unhappy with this state of affairs, Caroline petitioned, with the help of sympathetic members of parliament, to have the divorce laws changed. She asked that mothers not convicted of adultery be allowed to keep custody of their children, who at the time were considered to be property of the father. Her call for reform resulted in the Marriage and Divorce Act, passed 150 years ago, which transferred the jurisdiction of marriage and divorce away from the church and to a newly-created civil court.

I read a very interesting piece on the plight of divorce dads. Basically the writer says that men are unfairly treated by the courts when it comes to divorce. She believes that the unfair treatment stems from the fact that women are almost always awarded custody in divorce cases, something that can been seen as an injustice in and of itself.

This is in spite of the fact that studies "show children want and need both parents, and no studies show sole parenting by a mother serves children's best interests." She feels that this is especially unfair, since women are twice as likely to initiate a divorce then their male counterparts which means that men end up losing their children in a divorce they did not initiate and in most cases did not want.

I have to admit when I started reading this article I was sure I was going to be outraged against the author, but I find myself having to agree with her. There is one clarification I would make about who initiates divorce. While women may be the ones actually filing for divorce in many cases it is the husband giving her the reason to file. For example, it is pretty well accepted that if you cheat on your spouse and are caught, divorce will follow. A husband who cheats on his wife and is found out may not want to divorce her, but he should have seen it coming. However, other than that one minor point I do agree with the rest of her article.

Over the last little while, we've posted quite a few articles discussing the state of divorce in various countries around the world. One thing that has become clear is that divorce is not a Western phenomenon. Today I found an article in The Times of India that discusses divorce in the city of Pune, India.

Pune saw an increase in their divorce rate from 150 cases per month in 2006 to 240 cases per month in 2007. There were a multitude of reasons given including lack of compatibility, cruelty, domestic violence, irregular communication, and interfering in-laws.

There were two interesting facts that I took from this article. The first involved the counseling provided by the family court where couples filed for divorce. I would never discourage couples from going to counseling, but this was interesting. The courts found that counseling, rather than encouraging couples to resolve their issues and stay together, ended up turning a unilateral divorce into a divorce by mutual consent. In other words, counseling turned one person demanding a divorce into both people agreeing that divorce was a good idea.

Secondly, one of the most popular reasons cited for divorce in India was interference from family members. Quoted from the article, "spouses prefer to talk about personal issues not with each other but with their respective families. This creates a communication void between them which results in misunderstandings.

Also, parents can't easily let go of their authority over their children. They are in the habit of interfering in the couple's day-to-day activities." Now, I come from a family were I love my parents very much, but if a month goes by without us speaking no-one is all that concerned, so it's hard to imagine parents who feel that they should interfere in a marriage.

It's a little bit more interesting than your garden variety "irreconcilable differences".

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The divorce rate in Chile is still skyrocketing, thanks to divorce legislation that was finally passed late in 2004. Previously, Chile was the only country in the Western world without a divorce law.

Lat year saw a total of 15,609 divorces, compared to 10,107 in 2006, an increase of about 50 percent. Perhaps the most significant change was who was getting divorced. Previously, the majority was older couples who had been separated for many years but in the absence of legislation did not have legal divorce status. Now, however, the average divorcing couple is made up of young professionals — many with children — who are likely to marry again.

An interesting fallout of the divorce law is that more couples are opting for a church wedding which gives them full marriage benefits without the possibility of divorce, as is the practice of the Catholic church. Chile's populace is overwhelmingly Catholic, but in 2004 there were only 64 marriages that occurred in the church and were officiated by a priest. In comparison, in 2007 — after the divorce legislation had passed — there were 1523 marriages that took place under the guidance of a religion that proscribes later divorce.

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It turns out that when they met, he told her that he had been born in October of 1970, when the real year was actually 1968. He also claimed that he had his MBA, which was false, and he had inflated his salary. The wife claimed that when she discovered that this information was false, she was forced to leave their matrimonial home.

The court agreed with her, stating "she certainly had a reason to deny the man's marriage proposal". Although I wonder why she was "forced" to leave the home — there was no mention of any kind of abuse — I agree with the court treating this like a contract situation. The judge in this case explained "misrepresentation regarding age, qualification as well as salary amounts to fraud". Tomorrow, I would like to examine this idea of matrimonial fraud a little further.

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If you've ever made the decision to get divorced, you've probably spent some time dreading the process. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Imagine you and your ex-spouse walking away from the finalized proceedings saying "We both liked both lawyers. As a group, we had some laughs together, and that made it nicer."

I'm sorry, can you repeat that? But it's true — there is a relatively new process called collaborative divorce that is a step between mediation and the adversarial "fight tooth and nail" style divorce. And it seems to be working.

The idea behind collaborative divorce is that each party and their lawyer agree to work out what is best for all involved instead of each party trying to get everything they can out of the other party. Says Talia Katz, executive director of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, "Most of us had that moment where we realize the adversarial process is so damaging for our clients — and there's a recognition that we can do better."

There are some drawbacks to the process. The Colorado Bar Association argued that the process was unethical as it meant each lawyer would have divided loyalties rather than acting only in the best interest of their client. The American Bar Association's Ethics Committee ruled that the process was not unethical as long as each party was informed about the provisions of the process and understood their lawyer was not just acting in their own interests.

The second drawback is that the collaborative process is generally more expensive than straight out mediation. According to the Boston Law Collaborative, the median cost for mediation is $6,600, where as for a collaborative divorce it's $19,723. Settlements negotiated by rival lawyers came in $26,830 whereas full-scale litigation had a cost of $77,746.

What is the one thing divorced couples have in common? Ask any of them, and you'll find at least one member of the ex-couple is not happy with the way divorce is currently handled by the legal system. One organization, Men and Women Against Discrimination (MAWAD) is attempting to do something about that.

MAWAD bills itself as an organization attempting to level the playing field in divorce proceedings within a system that they feel is skewed. Among their complaints, they state that the system is favored towards those who can afford the best lawyers, which means that women are usually the ones at a disadvantage.

On the flip side, they also feel that men are disadvantaged when it comes to child custody. The current system automatically favors mothers unless the father can prove she is unfit. As well, they state that the current system is extremely susceptible to doctored charges of child abuse and domestic violence.

So here's what they are doing about it. To date, MAWAD has introduced legislation for the following:
1. 50-50 parenting, where each parent enters custody talks on an equal footing, with no assumption of who would "naturally" be the best parent
2. Open family court documents and decisions, making them part of the public record
3. Mandatory consequences for false allegations of child abuse or domestic violence
4. Mandatory consequences for denial of visitation rights and child concealment.

Interestingly, for this last point MAWAD is looking to have the penalties for denial of visitation and child concealment reduced. Currently these charges are automatic felonies, which has resulted in enforcement agencies refusing to press charges. They argue for a "3 Strikes" system where the charge would not be considered a felony unless it was the third occurrence. Hopefully, this would result in more charges being laid.

Imagine you've just caught your spouse cheating — unfortunately for many, not a difficult task. You go through the entire gamut of emotions, and you ask your spouse to leave. But what do you do when they just won't go?

Lawyers are now counselling their clients not to leave until they have a full divorce agreement in writing. Martha McCarthy is a family law lawyer who has practiced for over 15 years. When asked if she would counsel clients to remain in the home despite a breakdown in relations, McCarthy answered she would, lamenting "But I hate giving that advice. Every time I give it, I hate hearing myself say it. I think it's awful."

During divorce proceedings, the court examines what it calls the status quo, and diligently attempts to maintain it. They examine if the status quo has changed and if so, who changed it. What this means is that a person who makes a temporary decision — "I'll move out until the arrangements are finalized" — may end up unwittingly making a permanent change. The court asserts that since they moved out, this is the new status quo and must be maintained.

Such was the case for Louise, a Canadian woman who discovered her husband was cheating on her. She asked him to leave and he agreed. However, after one visit to his lawyer he changed his mind and refused to move out. His lawyer had advised him that by leaving the home, he would be changing the status quo by making Louise the primary caregiver of their children. That would put him at a disadvantage when it came to custody and visitation hearings.