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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. Being in "d" know is just clicks away.

Samantha Louis's picture

Divorce Camp For Dads

Posted by Samantha Louis on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 11:15am
You've heard of Daddy Daycare. Now get ready for Daddy Divorce Camp — a three day retreat where guys can go to reaffirm their worth not has husbands, but as men. The "Release Me" campfire session, where the group bonds over "hot dogs, beer, smores, and drums," sounds particularly fascinating.

But why are we telling you about it? Firstly, because the same people who host Daddy Divorce Camps are in the process of putting together a Mommy Divorce Camp. And second, because while these getaways are intended specifically to help daddies, mommies and the rest of the family are supposed to benefit as well.

For about $600, attendees receive crash courses in a range of divorce-related issues — from legal and financial, to family and child matters — along with anger management and stress reduction techniques. Workshops take place to rebuild confidence and assist in the healing and closure process. Campers can also indulge in some extracurricular activities like sports, a comedy show, and poker.

The poker skills aside, it would seem enormously beneficial for at least one member of a splitting couple, if not both, to get better acquainted with the above issues — and take an anger management course or three. Also, as long as Daddy's new confidence doesn't turn into bullying, we'd much rather be dealing with a man in the process of finding himself, than one lost in a sea of fear, anger, and self-pity.

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Samantha Louis's picture

All's Fair In Love And Divorce

Posted by Samantha Louis on Wed, 11/07/2007 - 11:15am
How does that old proverb go? All's fair in love and divorce? At least that's the main take-away from The Divorced Girls' Society, a new divorce how-to manual by best friends Vicki King and Jennifer O'Connell, both 39.

"In military-speak it's about surveillance and reconnaissance," King says of keeping track of documents, old check statements, and credit card account balances. "It is war. Do not share lawyers. Remember it's war and that's the way to address it."

Thinking strategically like a general leading troops is essential. Discussing impulsive retribution, King explains: "Whatever pops into your head, don't act on it. It could end up hurting you later in court with your settlement, with custody issues."

In King's army, however, emotions are standard issue. "There was nothing out there that says it's OK if you're feeling terrible — only dry lecture books," King says of her experience when she went through her own divorce. "You need a friend to hold your hand through the painful moments. There's so much you don't know."

But like any general, King had to make her share of tough decisions. Her first order of business was to put her ex's family off-limits. As for friends, there were three camps: hers, his and theirs.

"Oh, let him have them," said O'Connell. "She had plenty of players in her army."

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Leave it to the China news wires to dig up the most bizarre, far-fetched, thoroughly unconfirmable story imaginable, but which manages to pack more truth, wisdom and sentiment than 20 of your typical wire stories combined.

Take the story of Xiao Li, a pint-sized 12-year-old girl from Shenyang, Liaoning Province. According to China Daily, Xiao hasn't grown an inch since her parents divorced four years ago. Poor Xiao now stands a wee 3.9 feet tall and is towered over by her larger classmates.

Apparently, Xiao has suffered from depression ever since her parents split, an ailment doctors say can affect the production of growth hormone even to the point of slowing a person's physical growth.

Now we can't confirm the accuracy or science behind any of this. But that doesn't take away from the power of Xiao's heartbreaking story. The awful truth is that divorce does tend to damage the kids, or at least affect their emotional and, it seems, physical development.

Yours truly had front row seats to a painful separation and divorce as a child which left emotional scars that may never completely heal. It's important to remember, however, that bearing witness to divorce will likely do less harm to a child than witnessing a lifetime of family dysfunction.

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In New York, the gossip mill is working overtime to expose Paula Zahn's steamy sex diary that allegedly details her trysts with married lover Paul Fribourg. Both Zahn's marriage to real estate tycoon Richard Cohen and her lover's marriage are over. Kaput.

The latest jab in the high-profile split comes from a so-called pal of the anchorwoman who says it was Cohen's cold sexless ways that alienated Zahn. "She and Richard weren't having sex for some time," the friend "confided" to the [New York] Daily News.

Friends of the real estate developer, meanwhile, are pointing to Zahn's sex diary, which Cohen himself discovered, that paints in "lurid" detail his wife's affair with Fribourg, who's been a friend of the couple. Reportedly, the Fribourgs, Zahn and Cohen vacationed and socialized together. "Richard felt like he'd been stabbed in the heart twice when he found out his wife had been cheating with one of his best friends," one of Cohen's buddies tells the News.

According to Cohen's friend, Zahn's claims of a sexless marriage are designed to "undermine their prenup." Last week, Zahn filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court alleging Cohen mismanaged the $25 million she invested with him. Zahn also claims Cohen is trying to gain "some sort of tactical advantage" by withholding financial information from her.

Neither Cohen, 59, nor Zahn, 51, has filed for divorce, but Zahn has already left the Fifth Ave. co-op the two once shared with their three children--daughter Haley, 17, and sons Jared, 13, and Austin, 10. Fribourg and his estranged wife Josabeth are in the middle of a divorce. Zahn and Fribourg's affair allegedly began a year ago.

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For Paula Zahn, a graceful exit from her 20-year marriage looks lost now that her husband, real estate developer Richard Cohen, has found her tryst-filled diary. "Paula's love book," as sources describe it to the New York Daily News, documents in "quite lurid" detail, her affair with married ContiGroup CEO Paul Fribourg.

And to make matters worse, since the ex-CNN anchor's husband discovered the journal with their 17-year-old daughter, he's been sharing some of its spicier bits with people around town, sources tell the News. Zahn announced she was divorcing Cohen, a multi-millionaire, in April. The couple have two minor kids.

Last Friday, Zahn filed a 60-page suit in Manhattan Supreme Court requesting a forensic accounting of some $25 million that she had entrusted to Cohen. He has reportedly refused to address issues of child custody and visitation "unless she signs away her right to an accounting," source tell the News. "He won't budge. He's so bitter."

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