On the subject of gay marriage, Kinky Friedman — a Texas musician and wannabe politician — said “I support gay marriage. I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us.”

For one lesbian couple in California, his prediction of misery was dead on.

Adelita Guajardo and Theresa Ramirez, residents of Fresno County, California, pledged their troth on June 27th of this year. Three days later they called it quits and are now going down in pseudo-history as the first same sex couple to file for divorce in the state of California.

Although their landmark achievement is noteworthy from a novelty standpoint, area legal experts suggest that their divorce will not hold legally significant consequences. It’s a simple divorce and, let’s face it, they didn’t exactly have a lot of time to rack up joint property or get pregnant.

While in other states a three-day lesbian marriage might turn heads, let’s be honest. California is home to both San Francisco and Hollywood. In a state where Britney Spears was married and subsequently unmarried in the time it takes the average person to change their underwear, I’m surprised it even made the news.

Click here for more.

Saudi men who divorce non-Saudi women are currently allowed to force their wives to leave the country and in many cases never see their children again.

Unlike in Western countries where marriage to a citizen grants automatic citizenship in and of itself, non-Saudi women who marry Saudi men do not get citizenship and can be asked to leave the country at any time. Since the children are the property of their father, the ex-wives can't take the kids with them.

One divorced mother of six who is originally from Syria told the Saudi Gazette that since she got divorced she has not been allowed to see her kids. She is terrified of being expelled from Saudi Arabia and never seeing them again. Her oldest child is only eight years old, and they "still need the care of their mother," she said.

The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry is in the process of examining possible solutions, including granting residence permits for women caring for their children.
While this is great in theory, I have a feeling that most Saudi ex-husbands will find a way to throw a monkey wrench into the best laid plans. The Foreign Ministry might let the women stay in the country, but the ex is under no obligation to let them anywhere near the kids.

While I sympathize with the plight of these women, there's an element of "What did you think was going to happen?" going on here. We've said it enough times before — Saudi Arabia is not exactly known for its women's rights movement, and the laws are barbaric at best. When it comes to Saudi marriage proposals, let the buyer beware.

Click here for more.

It looks like Jim and Dina McGreevey are back in court this morning dealing with alimony. Yes, again. Talks have broken down again and they have to go in and have the judge sort out their mess to figure out who owes what to whom. Raise your hand if you're surprised. It's OK, I'll wait.

Perhaps I am the only person on the planet who is infinitely sympathetic to Jim McGreevey. Britney Spears, too. Oh, and let's not forget the ever pleasant Heather Mills?

I love these fine, upstanding citizens because they keep being moronic and I keep getting paid to write about it. If they could get it together to act like civilized human beings I'd be looking for a job right now.

Last week they finally agreed on custody arrangements for their daughter. Lawyers are hanging out behind closed doors and the estranged couple meet this morning at 10 a.m. to try and hammer out the financial details of the divorce and generally make a spectacle of themselves.

I hope it takes a long time — my youngest needs new glasses and my oldest is looking into summer camps.

Click here for more.

Although it's only May of 2008, Mr. Kent Gramm is having a bad year. After 30 years of marriage and more than 20 years of teaching, Mr. Gramm is getting divorced and leaving his teaching post at the same time.

Mr. Gramm currently teaches at Wheaton College, a well known conservative Evangelical Christian school, which requires all of its employees to display behavior acceptable to the school's religious teaching.

All employees sign a "statement of faith and community covenant," which spells out exactly the kind of behavior the school will accept.

Drinking, smoking, and gambling are not on the list, and dancing was only allowed four years ago after being banned during the Civil War.

While the school acknowledges that divorce can happen, they need to know all of the details of the divorce to determine if the employee has broken his signed statement by exhibiting unacceptable behavior.

Mr. Gramm acknowledges that he signed the statement but does not believe he should have to disclose the details of his divorce. As he is aware that not disclosing the details will get him fired, he has agreed to resign and will stay only until the end of the school term.

"I think it's wrong to have to accuse your spouse and to discuss with your employer your personal life and marital situation," Gramm said. "But I don't feel badly treated. There has been an attitude of compassion here."

As the school is concerned about how the behavior of one of its teachers will affect the student body, Mr. Gramm decided to discuss his resignation and the reasons behind it with his students. "I want them to know that divorce happens," Gramm said. "That you aren't deserted by God because your life doesn't turn out the way you expect. I hope this helps them acquire a broader understanding of what Christianity is and what faithfulness means."

Women's rights activists are up in arms about a contentious divorce case in Tennessee that may result in the local marital property laws to be changed. According to an article in Tennessean.com, "a wage-earning husband gets to keep $1.7 million in stock. His homemaker wife gets nothing."

Okay, I admit, when we're talking about the rights of the stay-at-home spouse — and let's face it, while many husbands including my own are starting to stay home, it's generally the wife — and there are a few million dollars in play, I can see why people are getting concerned. Some are suggesting that if this settlement goes through as is, it could be precedent setting and go against state laws.

But, and there's a really big but, I don't think that this case has anything to do with the wife being a homemaker. The court says that the husband is being allowed to keep the stock and not share it because all he did was hold it after receiving it as a gift from his father. Her employment status is irrelevant.

In my opinion — and I know this is going to make me the bad guy — when you decide not to work, you take a risk. A gift given to one individual is just that — a gift with only one intended recipient. If Daddy had given him a cheese knife, is she entitled to half of that, too?

Click here for more.

It looks like, once again, people are in an uproar about the divorce process becoming more automated. We talked about this a while back when one Florida county made it possible for spouses to fill out their divorce applications online. Now Australia's in on it, and they're complaining too.

"It's an unfortunate reflection of the times in which we live that these things could be so extraordinarily convenient as to perhaps make people rush to that kind of action," says Mark Holzworth of the Australian Family Association Queensland. "I think sometimes the cold hard document in front of us...causes us to reflect a little more, think a little deeper."

Sorry, Mark, but I'm going to have to disagree on this one. Divorce is never easy, and making the red-tape a little simpler to navigate doesn't make it so.

This kind of thing makes me crazy. The "family association" types act like we're all waltzing around in perfectly happy marriages until we read in the paper that we can break up our entire family online. Then we're tripping over our index fingers to click, "divorce."

No. That's not how it goes and it's not how it ever has gone and it's not how it ever will go. Normal people do not get divorced this way. If someone wants to get divorced because of this, nobody wanted to be married to them anyway.

Click here for more.

When you have a Google News alert for the term "divorce," you get some crazy stuff in your inbox. Most of it gets immediately thrown into the virtual round file, but this recent piece in the Korean Times stopped me in my tracks.

"There may be many factors driving couples to a divorce, but what makes them run out of patience the quickest?" Hmm. Good question.

According to a statistics from the Korea Wedding Culture Research Center, when there's cheating involved, couples tend to hit the courts between seven and eight years post "I do." Family troubles bring the split after 3.7 years and money drama comes in at around 5.9. Drug addiction — drug addiction! Did that really make the list? — causes a split after around 6.6 years, and physical illness comes in at 5.3 years.

Interesting stuff, but what does it mean?

What I took away from it is the fact that people will stay with a crack addict or an adulterer longer than they will stay with someone who has a pain in the ass mother. Crazy stuff, and it makes me realize my mother wasn't so archaic when she told me I wasn't marrying the man, I was marrying his family.

Also noteworthy are the answers from the couples who didn't necessarily get divorced. Apparently, Korean couples lose sexual chemistry with their spouses after three or four years, causing researchers to suggest that Koreans get a three-year-itch to coincide with our seven-year-itch. Who knew?

Click here for more.

It seems like judges outside of the West are starting to understand the value of joint custody, in India at least. I read an article over the weekend stating joint custody rulings are becoming a growing trend in India, and I have to say, I'm impressed.

I wrote a few weeks ago about the rising divorce rate in India. With a rising divorce rate comes the need for more enlightened views on divorce rulings — when it's the rule, rather than the exception, better standards need to be put in place. Thankfully, it looks like judges are starting to pay attention to that in their custody decisions. While there is no law in place demanding joint custody in cases where there is no history of problematic parenting, lawyers are calling for one.

"Most of the couples who come to seek divorce are good people but the problem is that they may not be compatible and hence unable to live with each other. But the child needs to grow in a healthy environment with the involvement of both the parents," says Mrunalini Deshmukh, a family law attorney.

Finally, people are starting to understand that just because Mom and Dad can't get along does not mean one of them is a crappy parent. It's not the kids' fault they can't work it out.

Click here to read more.

It turns out flirting on Facebook can not only lead to a divorce, but be used as evidence in one.

I've talked before about the rising statistics of people using electronic evidence in divorce proceedings as proof of adultery, but according to divorce attorneys, it's also being used as evidence of unreasonable behaviour.

So even if you're just flirting and not cheating, your spouse can use it against you in a court of law.

Really, this shouldn't be too surprising. Flirting with friends, strangers, and old flames is pretty unreasonable within the context of marriage. It's a whole lot more unreasonable when you do it in a way that they can not only see, but print out and prove.

According to Antonia Love, head of family law at a British law firm, "People who use social networking websites to send flirtatious emails to people who are not their partners are often lulled into a false sense of security that they are doing nothing wrong because correspondence is electronic and therefore isn't real life."

Here's an idea. Take what you're doing, and then pretend your spouse is doing the same thing. You're staying up late, sending Facebook messages full of winking smileys to your ex.

Would you high-five your spouse for doing it? Would you give them your blessing? Would you deem it to be reasonable married behavior? If not, cease and desist, or they'll see you in court.

Click here for more.

I think we can all say with relative certainty that divorce sucks. Unfortunately, the fact that it sucks discounts neither its reality nor its necessity. Holland's first divorce fair is a good indicator of that.

Following in the footsteps of the Austrian divorce fair last year, mediators, lawyers, financial planners and others convened in the Netherlands to create a one-stop shop for divorcing couples. In addition to the usual suspects, there were booths for dating services, paternity testing, and "divorce planners," who are less like wedding planners and more like financial advisors.

That the world needs another divorce fair does not surprise me. When it comes to divorce, little surprises me anymore. What surprises me is the attitude of those getting divorced. Elsbeth van den Berg, founder of a Dutch divorce Web site, says that couples treat each other horribly during the divorce process. "People feel rejected, neglected, and the only thing they want to do is not to say ‘I feel sad'. No, they want to say ‘I'm going to hurt you, like you hurt me.'"

Seriously, why does this happen? Across the world, 50 percent of married couples get divorced. We have to know that there's at least a chance it will happen to us. Why do we spend so much time raging? Why are we so hell-bent on revenge? Why do we spend so much more time hating him than we do loving ourselves? Why is spiritual divorce the exception, rather than the rule?

One of the attendees, an unmarried man there to get information for a divorcing friend, said "As far as I'm concerned, I think marriage is a failed institution. I think joining this failed institution is a waste of time. You don't need a piece of paper to say that you're in a relationship."