With his presidential campaign seemingly going nowhere and rumors of its demise becoming louder every day, it almost seems irrelevant to spend much time discussing Rudy Giuliani's personal life. But Stacy Schneider offered up a nice take this week on Huffington Post. In fact, she pretty well nails it when she asks how Rudy can have the hubris to run for president and not expect his personal life to dog him every step of the way.

It's so interesting, the expectations we have of our leaders. We are an imperfect society. Our divorce rate is, what, about 50 percent? Nobody's life is perfect. But we go crazy the second a public figure or politician has an affair or splits up. People will never stop making Monica Lewinsky jokes at Bill Clinton's expense. And Rudy's missteps — his mistreatment of his ex-wife and his children — are just as fair game.

On one hand, it's unfortunate that we get bogged down in these things and pay more attention them than we do to a politician's ideas. But I think that what goes on in a politician's personal life can tell you a lot about what kind of person he or she is. It speaks to the question of integrity. How can you trust someone who would cheat on his own wife? Wouldn't it be great if, in one of the many debates there have been over these last months, somebody would have asked Rudy that?

Click here for more.

You have to love stories like this.

Jennifer Heath is an American citizen living in Fiji. She married a local man but after 12 years of marriage he decided to divorce her and move back to the US. This left her on her own with children to support.

Then, in 2004, she and her ex decided that since neither one was seeing anybody they would meet in California for Christmas. After the celebrations, instead of flying back to Fiji, Ms. Heath decided to fly to London and Asia to shop for pearls, which she had always loved.

A jewellery business was born.

She started by selling at her local market, but now works from her home in Lami, with nine other employees working for her. In 18 months, her business has taken her around the world six times. While her customers are mostly commercial, many individuals buy from her, especially for weddings.

The best part? While at the market, she met Richard Heath, originally from Napier, New Zealand. They are now married, and Mr. Heath has quit his job with the Hawkes Bay Chamber of Commerce to work for his wife.

From the death of a marriage comes a truly new life.

Click here for more.

Divorce is hard enough when it's just between two people. It's even more complicated when there are children involved. But what happens if you and your soon-to-be ex own a business together?

I saw that question posed in a tax advice column the other day, and the answer provided something valuable, beyond the simple X's and O's of how the assets are shared.

Sure, there was the standard discussion of the tax implications — the issues to consider if you or your ex wants to sell off your share of the business, or if both of you want to sell. But then there's the other possibility: Nobody sells anything and the two of you continue to operate the business together. And that's the part of this that I found most interesting.

No matter how much we talk about collaborative divorce and co-parenting through a divorce, it's easy to assume that two people who split up are so eager to be rid of one another that they're never going to talk again once the divorce is final. But increasingly that's not the case. For every acrimonious divorce, there are plenty of divorced couples who spend holidays together with their kids. And if your business is your child — or one of your children — there's no reason to believe you shouldn't co-parent it as well.

Is it easy? Of course not. But guess what? That's life. Or that's post-divorce life, I should say. None of it is going to be easy. But it's what you've got. You adapt, you learn to work with it and you continue to live your life.

Click here for more.

Divorce is not a simple process for anyone, but it can take a really long time if you're rich. That's pretty much the main point to pull out of the latest story on pro golfer Greg Norman's divorce.

Now, we've written about this before. But just in case you're new to the story, Greg and his ex-wife Laura Theresa Andrassy are scheduled for another hearing in early November. They're still haggling over who will end up with the tax liability for one of their jets. Yes, that's jets, plural.

And then Laura's attorneys are going to try to make Greg pay her more money because he's been dragging his feet on coughing up the cash he's supposed to give her. As if he's really going to notice it when he finally does pay her. Let's be honest, though. Laura hasn't exactly been destitute, unless you ignore the $725,000 Greg gave her that she and her attorneys burned as they worked out the details of the settlement.

One day I hope I have money problems like these.

Click here for more.

The women's already spent her career laying bare the breathtaking heights and crushing lows of love. More recently, the singer/poet's been on tour promoting her third album, "The Real Thing: Words and Sounds, Volume 3" — which she began just as her 13-year-marriage ended — along with her heart-wrenching role in Tyler Perry's new movie, "Why Did I Get Married."

"That's what I do," she tells the Associated Press. "I share the light and the dark and everything in between."

To pull off her role as an emotionally afflicted wife in Perry's new film, Scott referred to her own failed marriage. "That was her stuff coming out," Perry says of Scott's performance. "She brought everything that she had experienced in life to that role."

What position does this Nobel Prize winner take on her ex? "He's a good person," Scott says of Lyzell Williams." He's very kindhearted in a lot of ways, and he should never be vilified by anyone because they didn't live in our house."

But, in her work and her personal life, Scott says she's now free to grow and get back in touch with the real Jill Scott. "I've stepped more into my original me than I have been in a long time — just coming from underwater," she says. "I didn't even know I wasn't breathing, but I'm breathing again."

Click here to read more.

Imagine Macy's doing a fall ad campaign based on broken marriages. Never, you say?

Well, that's exactly what Debenhams, the British department store chain, is doing with the "Separated and Successful" Club — a 21st Century First Wives Club of well-known women, carrying the message that any hardship can be overcome with confidence, a steadfast support system, and a spankin' new wardrobe.

The SAS Club is made up of some famous British ladies who've
conquered divorce — and looked fabulous doing it — like TV personalities Coleen Nolan and Trisha Goddard, along with author and journalist Bel Mooney, and divorce coach Kirsten Gronning.

It wasn't until her break from actor Shane Ritchie — and an endorsement deal with Debenhams — that Nolan truly discovered the rejuvenating power of shopping.

"It's really hard getting over divorce, especially when a partner has been unfaithful, as this can really knock your confidence — you think that other men won't fancy you," she says. "A new hair cut and a couple of glam outfits is a real confidence booster that will set you on the right
track."

So, on one hand you have a retailer trying to sell some "glam outfits." But, on the other you have a big name brand — in the U.K., at least — using the issue of divorce to convey a message of strength and the potential for positive change. Pretty impressive.

Maybe not as impressive as the Dove brand spending tens of millions of dollars stateside to promote a broader definition of beauty for women of all shapes, sizes, and generations. But, we'd say it's just as groundbreaking and just as ballsy.

Click here to read more.

USFSPA, enacted in 1982, allows state courts to divide military retirement as property in divorce settlements. For example, ex-spouses married for 20 years or more can be awarded up to 50% of the former spouses pension for life, or until they remarry. If there were child support or alimony court orders, the ex could enjoy as much as 65% of the military pension.

Congress intended to protect former spouses — chiefly women — from being "dumped." It was thought military wives could not easily establish careers and work on their own retirement, since they moved frequently due to thier husband's military career. Times have changed now, and military wives can work and earn pensions.

USFSPA gives state courts authority to distribute retirement pay, classified as both property and income. Spouses often end up with a substantial share of the ex's retirement. This is especially true in the case of short-term marriages.

Some of the proposed reforms include:

Yep, Britney Spears — America's candy-coated sweetheart — has hit an (old) Elvis low at the tender age of 26. And to that we say? Super!

The girl was clearly engaged in a dogged day-to-day media campaign to ruin any credibility she had left with fans, family, friends, and, most important of all, her destiny-deciding judge. Her part conscious/part unconscious young woman on-the-verge display was a painfully off-key, glaringly obvious cry for help.

Any why not? The marriage is toast, the career is in the later stages of decomposition, Britney's brain — judging by all outward appearances — is cooked. And now, Commissioner Scott Gordon has ordered Britney to surrender her two sons, ages one and two, to ex-husband and consummate father-figure, Kevin "Pass that Shit" Federline.

With this latest development, we are now firmly encamped with that kid under the yellow bed sheets on YouTube. Enough! Leave Britney alone!

Get the girl some help and let this be the end of her nightmare, because the next stage in this highly-illogical man-made disaster follows far too closely on the red stiletto heels of Marilyn Monroe.

It’s not often that you see stories of flat-out, honest-to-goodness deception. But here’s one of them. A woman in England got swindled out of her divorce settlement by nothing more than a few very transparent lies, and now the guy responsible is headed to jail.

Britain’s Plymouth Herald reports that Pervez Alvi, a bankrupt businessman, convinced Anne Gale to give him nearly half of her divorce settlement (about $200,000) so he could lease three pubs that the two of them and their significant others would run. Gale, who eventually remarried, didn't figure out that Alvi was stringing her along until it was too late. Alvi asked her for a check and told her to leave the payee line blank. And she actually complied. So Alvi just dumped the funds into an account in his wife’s name. And by the time Gale realized what was happening, most of the money was gone.

I’m not sure which one of them deserves more of my disdain. The guy is obviously a creep. And she did something extremely foolish. Here are words to live by: When you’re writing a check for a large sum of money (I do that every day, don’t you?) you probably want to fill the whole thing in yourself. Fortunately, the court is going to make Alvi pay it all back. And he’s going to spend 18 months in jail. It’s nice to see justice served.

Click here for more.

There’s more news out of Pittsburgh in the saga of billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife’s divorce and his battle with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

A judge this week refused to order the Post-Gazette to return previously sealed documents related to Scaife’s messy divorce from his wife, Margaret Ritchie Battle Scaife. It’s a fun story from the standpoint of the First Amendment implications, but also because Scaife owns the rival newspaper in Pittsburgh, the Tribune-Review.

Scaife’s attorneys argued that the only reason the Post-Gazette obtained the documents was due to an error that made them publicly available on the Web for a few days in August. Prior to that, the papers had been sealed by the court. But the judge declined to hold the Post-Gazette responsible for a computer mistake made by Allegheny County prothonotary's office.

Indeed, the documents were available to anyone who might have gone looking for them during that time. As luck would have it, the Post-Gazette had a reporter doing what all good reporters do: poking around.

So it’s a win for the Post-Gazette and the First Amendment. Scaife is well known as a supporter of conservative causes, so he’s squarely in public figure territory. But there’s still no word on how the divorce is shaking out. According to the documents, there’s custody of a dog hanging in the balance. Obviously we can count on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to keep us informed.

Click here for more.