Of course it’s a gimmick, but it got our attention. If you’re divorced, and headed for marriage No. 2, you probably don’t want to go through the whole formal wedding deal a second time, nor do you want to pay for it.

Now comes “Elope for Obama.”

For all weddings in October, the Brooks Hill Historic Church in Portland, Oregon, will donate the entire rental fee to the Obama presidential campaign. In fact, you’re told to make a check out to Obama for Change.

You can have up to 50 guests. The nondenominational church is on a hillside 20 minutes from downtown Portland. You can choose from any wedding on their website, with rentals from $395 for an intimate two-hour wedding to $695 for a four-hour wedding. Use of the baby grand is included. Local ministers, usually $200 to $300, will pronounce the vows (religious or secular), also at no charge, in support of Barack Obama. Or you can bring your own minister. Everything, of course is subject to availability. And you need to be in Oregon four business days in advance to get your license. Other than that, party on!

What can we say... Portland is that liberal a place. Cindy Lou Banks, the owner of the church, feels that Obama, if elected, would bring a new beginning to the country, and said, “What better way is there for couples to support his election than eloping in October and forging their own new beginnings?"

How does Banks make money from this? Volume!

Oh, and if you reserve the chapel ($150 deposit) and don’t show up for the wedding, they keep your deposit.

We will now give equal time to any lawyer offering a free divorce in honor of John McCain.

A recent poll of church-going Catholics in England and Wales found that the majority believed a couple should separate or divorce if they are not happy or compatible.

Nonetheless, last Sunday the Pope, speaking in in Lourdes, emphasized his disapproval of “irregular unions,” which is to say Catholics who divorce and remarry without getting a church annulment.

"Initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted," he told the French bishops. The Catholic church holds that marriage is irrevocable and indissoluble because, the Pope said; that’s the way it was instituted by Christ.

Catholics who remarry after divorcing their spouses will not be allowed to receive communion unless the second marriages are unconsummated.

Yes, that’s right. The Catholic church is not against remarriage. The church that reveres the Holy Virgin Mary is against sex.

As Benedict put it last year when he was explaining the church’s views, Catholics cannot receive communion if they remarry because then they would be committing adultery.

The Church, he said, "encourages these members of the faithful to commit themselves to living their relationship ... as friends, as brother and sister."

Now that kind of defeats the whole idea of the honeymoon, doesn’t it?

We hope these kinds of rulings don’t make the difficulty of divorce even harder for some to take. For simplified information on annulment in the Catholic Church, go here.

Liv Tyler is one of many women who find themselves young and coming to terms with a painful divorce. A-listers like Britney Spears, Kate Hudson, and Reese Witherspoon have also waded through the emotional turmoil of dissolving a partnership and starting anew.

Celebrities they may be, but, in fact, they hurt and heal just like the rest of us.

In June, 31-year-old Tyler told Contactmusic that she'd "rather live 100 percent and feel fully the sadness and loss than not have lived at all" in response to her split with musician Royston Langdon after their five-year marriage ended earlier this year.

In the October 2008 issue of British Harper's Bazaar, Tyler added further explanation on the grieving process:

"For the first time in my life, it's so much harder for me to get up and brush [off] my knees," the actress said. "I am feeling the pain and the loss of everything.

"I don't feel calm and collected. I feel neurotic, like Woody Allen," says Tyler. "I'm a Cancer and sometimes I just feel like a crab without a shell."

The Japanese Chauvinistic Husband Association is opening its doors and branching out.

We've discussed the plight of Japanese men who are affected by a new divorce law that allows ex-wives 50 percent of their ex-husband's pensions before here at FWW — basically, a whole bunch of wives are threatening to waltz out the door after decades of marital neglect.

But now we have numbers and they're pretty shocking.

Japanese wives have played second fiddle to careers, strip clubs, and drinking with the boys. Now that the divorce laws have changed, wives who are fed up have an attractive reason to leave. Some enterprising husbands have formed a support and learning group to help them figure out how to be nice to their wives.

The change in divorce law was first put on the books in 2003, but it didn't come into effect until this year. April showed a 6.1 percent increase in divorce filings, and 95 percent of the petitioners were women. Marriage counselors and legal experts across the country are predicting this is going to get worse before it gets better as wives nearing retirement age look ahead and see a future that looks bleak.

The group's founder is 55-year-old Shuichi Amano, and he says that the fear of divorce is very real for the men of Japan.

"To be divorced is the equivalent of being declared dead," he says. "We can't take care of ourselves."

When his own wife told him she was ready to leave him eight years ago, his sole knowledge of domestic responsibility consisted of pouring water over noodles and frying eggs. He realized something needed to be done. He set about starting the group, and in the meantime learned to cook, take out the garbage, and clean the house.

You’ve seen them at dinner, the couples whose fighting escalates to shouting matches or those who close their eyes into slits, purse their lips and fire off sarcastic put downs at their mates over their Chardonnay or Coors Light.

They seem like they’re heading for divorce.

Not necessarily. Some people fight and like it.

John Gottman, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, says there are three types of fighters:

• The ones who validate the other person’s experience and work it out together. (“I understand why you spent the rent money on a motorcycle for your mid-life crisis.”)

• The ones who fight vocally. (“You middle-aged, mindless jerk! How could you?”)

• The ones who agree to disagree. (“Ok, I guess I’ll have to figure out another way to pay the rent.”)

As long as the verbal fighters understand each other and aren’t bothered by it, they can stay together. Husband and wife know it’s a way to let off steam and so they manage their expectations.

In a study, Gottman discovered that couples argue about the same issues 69 percent of the time. As reported in “Psychology Today,” his long-term study of 670 couples showed that couples don’t actually resolve their problems, but learn to live with them.

Should they change partners, they’ll just get a different set of unresolved issues.

So what’s the key to happiness? “Establish a dialogue with the problems, learning to live with them much the same way someone learns to live with a bad back," he says.

The trick is to acknowledge your partner’s limitations.

Uh-huh. That’s not hard.

Gottman, however, also pointed out that the positive interactions in your relationship have to outweigh the negative arguments five-to-one.

Otherwise the couple won’t last until their silver anniversary, or even their fifth.

I was shocked. I stared at the first sentence and thought, "What is wrong with this world?"

"Alarming." That word tripped my whole reaction. "An alarming 70 percent," the news report began.

Yes, it's true. 70% of the American population thinks that divorce is morally acceptable, according to Gallup's 2008 Values and Beliefs survey.

Oh, I'm not shocked at the statistic or large figures. I'm not upset that people think it's okay to get divorced. Divorce doesn't compromise my personal morals in any way.

I was shocked because some poor news reporter out there hadn't hailed the 21st century along with the rest of us.

Aaron Leichman claimed that the statistic of 70% was an alarming number. What's alarming about the majority of people believing that it's acceptable for two people to end a relationship? I get the feeling that Aaron was one of the 30% of the people polled that day.

Ask the people who suffer emotional, physical or financial abuse in a relationship whether they believe divorce is an acceptable moral choice. Ask the people who live hollow relationships or simply co-exist with a stranger in the same house whether they believe separating is immoral.

Immoral means a deliberate violation of the rules between right and wrong. Is it a violation to say, "Oops, I made a huge mistake. Help, please?" Is it a terrible moral conflict to say, "I'm sorry. I fell out of love. I don't want to cheat you or me at a chance to be happy."

Of the other 16 ethical issues covered in the Gallup pole, divorce breezed right on through. No issues, really.

The 30% that believe divorce to be an immoral act are those who identified themselves as conservative, religious or over 65. In short, the opinion that divorce is wrong is an outdated one.

"Powerful" — "A Masterpiece" — "Highest Recommendation" — "Nearly every page sent chills up my spine" — "Everyone should read this book"

Reviews like these are generally reserved for authors like Cormac McCarthy, John Grisham, or Alice Walker.

But all the raves are for FWW contributor and New York Times bestelling author Debbie Ford and her new book, Why Good People Do Bad Things: How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy.

Since its release in March, the book has been flying off the shelves and wowing readers and critics alike. Like Debbie's previous books Spiritual Divorce and The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Why Good People Do Bad Things both inspires and guides readers to achieve personal growth and transformation.

If you'd like to find out more about Debbie and her work, click here. And to see her features on FWW, click here.

We've covered the wedding-ring coffin biz in depth (check it out here, here, and here), and it's gaining even more popularity. Atlanta divorce attorney Melody Richardson now gives them to clients as a token of appreciation for their business.

Richardson had gifted champagne and massage kits in the past, but says she found these apropos and couldn't pass them up. I don't know about you, but if I just shelled out a few thousand for legal fees, I'd prefer the liquor. (Guess it depends on how the court ruled.)

Click here for more.

During audiences at the Vatican on Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI called divorce and abortion "grave sins" and warned that a "culture of death" may even put the lives of the elderly at risk.

The pope says divorce and abortion harm the dignity of human life, cause suffering to those involved and hurt innocent victims, such as the unborn child or the children of a divorced couple.

He told participants in a Catholic congress that "The ethical judgement of the Church on divorce and abortion is clear and well-known, they are serious offences... which violate human dignity, inflict deep injustice on human and social relations and offend God himself, guarantor of conjugal peace and origin of life."

However, he did add that there were those that have committed such "errors" and have "suffered" from wounds of the soul and sought peace.

"Divorce and abortion are choices....which sometimes develop in difficult and dramatic circumstances... and are a source of profound suffering for those who take such decisions."

He then called on the Catholic church to be merciful to those that have experienced such events.

Click here for more.

It's an image we've seen far too often lately: The supportive wife standing beside her man, doing her best to remain stoic while he reveals his extramarital blunders to the entire nation.

The media's response seems to follow a strict pattern. First, there is speculation ("Will Clinton be impeached?"), followed by the questions ("Who was McGreevy's lover?"), and finally, a healthy dose of political spin ("Senator Craig wasn't soliciting sex, he just needed some toilet paper").

Only after all the dust has finally settled does the media's eye turn to the most obvious victim: Yes, the supportive wife in the smart pantsuit, still standing beside her man.

So how does the media handle "the wife"? Much the same way it handled the husband — even though she wasn't the one cavorting around with interns and prostitutes (both male and female).

Take Silda Spitzer. Fox News speculated on whether she would leave her husband or not. The Washington Post questioned her choice to stand by Eliot's side during his announcement. By the time the spin came, Silda was all but forgotten - the "other woman" was discovered on myspace, and the whole cycle repeated itself again. Wash, rinse, repeat.