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What can we learn from serial celebrity break-ups, billionaire bust-ups, misbehaving spouses, pants-on challenged politicos and the ever-shifting landscape of divorce law? Question is, "What CAN'T we learn"? With latte in hand and clicky finger at the ready, dive in for the best in divorce news, views, gossip, and buzz – assembled below for your reading pleasure.

Our current contributors are Jill Brooke, Maureen Dempsey, Naomi Dunn, and Linda Lee.

Jill Brooke's picture

I-vana Divorce

Posted by Jill Brooke on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 10:42am

In the movie “First Wives Club,” Ivana Trump immortalized the words, “Don’t get mad, get everything.” In her indomitable way, she has done just that by shedding her latest husband, Rossano Rubicondi after seven months of marriage.

In the announcement, Trump said, “Rossano wants to live in Miami and work in Milan. But I am a New Yorker and my family, friends and businesses are here.”

It was no surprise that the marriage disintegrated. After Rubicondi, 35, was photographed snuggling with a blonde and licking a brunette named Sara Varone over the weekend, Trump, 59, trumped him by announcing that she had filed a legal separation three months ago and already said “Ciao.”

As she has often advised others, Ivana Trump had a pre-nup before walking down the aisle in the gardens of Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach estate belonging to her ex-husband, Donald.

Donald Trump told The New York Post that the family is happy.

"You can't be overly surprised by this, it's unfortunate it [the marriage] ever took place," The Donald told The Post. "The marriage was unfortunate and now it has to be unwound."

The Donald and Ivana had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric.

Jill Brooke's picture

Mothers Are Tightening Their Purse Strings

Posted by Jill Brooke on Fri, 11/14/2008 - 12:14pm

Leave it to Moms to give researchers a spoonful of reality. A poll of online mothers conducted by Allen & Gerritsen on the economic challenges facing the US found that 80 percent thought Americans had been encouraged by the culture to overextend themselves and that 58 percent believed the average American is too greedy.

The researchers recognized that moms “teach and enforce family values” – and manage family pocketbooks – and believe that these findings may predict more saving and less spending. That seems confirmed by figures for retail sales for October, released this morning, which showed a 2.8 percent decline from the previous month. That’s the biggest drop the Commerce Department has recorded since measures began in 1993.

Maybe that isn’t so good for Coach and Gucci but it certainly will be for the culture at large. And this way Mom won’t have to ask Junior to support her down the road.

A&G surveyed moms to get a pulse on how the economy will affect their purchasing behavior. The report didn't make distinctions between divorced or married moms but I would bet the single moms have already been on a fiscal diet for some time and are quite good at it.

According to the report, 65 percent of the mothers said they were eliminating purchases that are not absolutely necessary, and 52 percent were cutting back in general. Some 71 percent say they have made more sacrifices this year than last. Only 49 percent say that the economic situation may improve within the next year, but perhaps President Obama can alter that view.

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Maureen Dempsey's picture

Heather Mills Blows Through Settlement

Posted by Maureen Dempsey on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 1:53pm

Take this as a lesson in how not to manage your money (should you ever acquire millions)...According to The Denver Post, Heather Mills has spent roughly one-third of her divorce settlement from Paul McCartney. Yes, one-third of the $48 million she was awarded in March.

Granted some of this covered a $300,000 public relations bill and a hefty lawyer tab, a New York City apartment, and renovations on her Sussex, England, home. Additional funds covered her pledge of $6 million to charitable organizations. Throw in a few vacations, a lavish divorce party, and a $1 million staff bill, and...hey, where'd all that money go?

Maureen Dempsey's picture

Free Wedding Contest Gets No Takers

Posted by Maureen Dempsey on Sun, 10/26/2008 - 11:37am

An Atlanta area "marriage for life" essay contest is offering $10,000 toward a wedding, which includes free flowers, photography, invitations, and honeymoon airline tickets. Why aren't droves of engaged couples entering?

It's sponsored by an abstinence group, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and we'll give you one guess what that means…keep your hands to yourself!

The contest is sponsored by Marriage Appreciation Training Uplifting Relationship Education, which aims to eliminate marriage conflict and divorce. Director of the non-profit organization Phillippia Faust stated the contest stipulations "are designed to promote a marriage that will 'really last a lifetime.'"

And how would one go about creating a marriage that lasts a lifetime? From Faust's perspective, no premarital sex. Additional stipulations are as follows:

Bride and groom must agree to undergo premarital education. Must agree not to serve alcohol at reception. Couple either agrees not to have premarital sex or at least acknowledge it’s preferable not to. At least one of the couple must live in DeKalb, Newton or Rockdale [Atlanta] counties.

Hmmmm…no takers? Really?

Perhaps their slogan should be "Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder."

Linda Lee's picture

When Is a Boyfriend a Reason Not to Get Alimony?

Posted by Linda Lee on Thu, 10/23/2008 - 7:12am

In a 1997 divorce in New York, Linda Graev was awarded a $2.5 million settlement, with her husband, Lawrence, paying her maintenance of $120,000 a year. The payments would continue for 12 years — as long as she did not remarry, or cohabit with someone for “60 substantially consecutive days.”

That larger number ($120,000 a year) should have made it easy to keep the smaller number (60 days) firmly in mind. But her husband, Lawrence Graev, a lawyer and, since 2000, the head of a private equity fund, claimed that in 2004 she and a boyfriend lived together for more than 60 days.

He argued that he, therefore, should no longer have to pay her maintenance.

The New York State Supreme Court cited New York case law, or precedent, saying that cohabiting involves not just living with someone but “sharing finances,” thus melding a couple’s lives together. The court decided, therefore, that Linda Graev did not cohabit.

Her husband appealed.

Earlier this week the New York Court of Appeals ruled 4 to 3 that the term “cohabiting” means many “physical, emotional, and material factors ... depending on the parties' intent.” Because the term was “ambiguous,” they said, the case should go back to state supreme court to determine what the couple’s divorce agreement meant by “cohabitation.”

The dissenting opinion was even tougher for the wife. The three dissenting judges said that she and her partner, who lived nearby, may have not commingled their finances, but they had “spent virtually every day and night together for over 60 days from June through August 2004” in her summer home. The dissenting judges held that her husband, therefore, should stop paying spousal support.

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A homemaker from Ahmedabad, India, is facing grim prospects — both financially and matrimonially. According to The Times of India, the woman lost more than $60,000 in the plummeting stock market last week, and her husband is threatening divorce.

The 34-year-old wife and mother trades stocks in her free time and says her husband encouraged her hobby, even benefiting from her profits. But when the market took a nosedive, her husband said he'd rather leave than help shoulder the financial burden.

Now that doesn't sound like a case of "for richer or poorer," does it?

Just last week, we reported on the stress that money places on relationships — but it sounds like more is at play than financial burden. If a partner so quickly threatens to dissolve a marriage, perhaps this was the easy "out" he was hoping would come along?

Maureen Dempsey's picture

Money Woes Affect Women More Than Men

Posted by Maureen Dempsey on Tue, 10/14/2008 - 12:57pm

According to the American Psychological Association's new "Stress in America" study, "the declining state of the Nation's economy is taking a physical and emotional toll on people nationwide, and it is women who are bearing the brunt of financial stress."

The study confirms that women are more stressed about money (83 percent of women versus 78 percent of men) and the economy (84 percent versus 75 percent).

Financial stress is clearly a global issue and is, in fact, the main cause of divorce for Australian women, reports The Brisbane Times. More than one-third of women cite money as the reason for break-ups, divorce, and relationship stress.

Why more women than men? Researchers suggest that in times of economic crisis, women are more aware of mounting bills and expenses, particularly with regard to children. Consequently, they feel stress, and that stress carries into the relationship.

And economic crisis it is. The number of Australians citing financial insecurity as a relationship stressor has doubled since 2006.

Linda Lee's picture

Fraudster Bilks Divorce Group

Posted by Linda Lee on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 11:42am

By all accounts the Divorce, Separation Support Group of Raleigh, North Carolina, is a terrific bunch of people, both men and women, at least 600 members, who meet once a week to give advice and help each other. The group was betrayed last January by a Fayetteville woman, Margaret Irene Haithcock, 51, who got $6,241 out of them by lying.

She came to the group and announced that she had a triple tragedy that had put her in debt. Her son had been killed in Iraq, she said, and she had cancer, and needed further treatments at Duke. Also, a fire had burned down her house and her letters from her son who was killed in Iraq.

The group, in response, held several fund raisers for her and actually had a memorial service for her son.

But it turned out that none of that was true.

An arrest warrant was issued in June, charging her with obtaining property by false pretenses. The warrant said that the claims of her illness and a dead son were offered only as a way to get money from the group. It took authorities more than two months to find her.

Haithcock, who is also known as Margaret H. Cooke, was arrested last month. According to records at the North Carolina Department of Corrections, she has a history of arrests and convictions dating from 1984 to 1990. She was imprisoned, most recently, for six months in 1990 on forgery charges. Other charges included credit card fraud, credit card theft, attempted forgery, and cheating on property services.

Haithcock/Cooke pleaded guilty on Thursday (October 9) to the charges, and has been ordered to repay the divorce support group. She was given three years of probation, fined $200, and ordered to undergo a mental health assessment.

Finally, she was told not to be in touch with the support group ever again.

What no one has made clear, however, is whether or not Haithcock/Cooke lied about another thing: Was she ever divorced?

Guys use sex to reduce the increased pressure in their lives. With the Dow dipping, no prob if they were turning to wives and girlfriends. But according to a New York Daily News story, they’re down and getting down with sources of gratification that are potential trouble — with a capital T.

On lunch hours they are visiting massage parlors. They are hiring prostitutes. They are going to strip clubs after work. And they are indulging in Internet porn, sometimes at their office computers… and getting caught. They are becoming addicted to sex to relieve their stress.

In a tight job market, this is not an appealing thing to have in one’s file. Most of the men, by the way, are married.

In the Daily News story, psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert reports a jump in sex-addicted men at his Manhattan practice in the past six months.

"Since early spring, maybe late winter, there's just been an increase, and I believe it might have something to do with the economy," he says. "A lot of the Wall Streeters use sex as a way to cope with stress. Bankers do tend to rely on pretty unhealthy ways of coping with stress — drugs, sex.

"A lot of them will use adult services," Alpert adds. "Some of them come right out and say, 'I'm stressed. This is how I deal with it. It's not the worst thing in the world. I'm not using drugs.' But when it starts to increase, then it's a problem."

How do these testosterone titans practice safe sex? According to Alpert, they consider going to an Asian massage parlor to be permissible. To some, as long as they don’t go all the way, being masturbated doesn’t count as cheating.

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Maureen Dempsey's picture

McDermott's Ex Sells House to Afford Divorce

Posted by Maureen Dempsey on Tue, 10/07/2008 - 2:12am

Actress Shiva Rose's divorce from fellow actor Dylan McDermott is taking a toll on the family home, reports contactmusic.com. Rose is unable to buy out McDermott's share of their Brentwood residence; consequently, they are selling the house.

Actually, that's one side of the story. A source told the New York Post that Rose is being forced to sell the home, while a statement released from Rose's camp said the two have agreed as a couple to sell the house they shared for nine years.

Regardless, divorce is expensive. If you remember, McDermott filed after 11 years of marriage, stating he would represent himself in the divorce process. Perhaps he was attempting to save a few bucks?