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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.

Man or women, rich or poor — once you hit 80, all bets are off. You've made it that far, so whatever you can get away with is fair game. That's our philosophy, and that's why it's impossible to cast a critical eye on Joe Hardy, an 84-year-old billionaire whose sex life is livelier than a most men a third his age.

"Usually men go through crises in mid-life," said Kristin Georgi, a 23-year-old manicurist who recently ended a three-month marriage with Hardy. "Not Joe," she tells the Mirror. "In his 80s, you think he would be settling down, but no..."

Once Georgi walked, Hardy filed for divorce at Fayette County Common Pleas Court in Pennsylvania citing, of all things, "irreconcilable differences."

"You think there are some differences there?" joked Georgi. "You think? There is only a 61-year gap."

The divorce has yet to be finalized, but word is that Hardy isn't wasting any of his precious time, having already found a new mate in a 22-year-old named Danielle.

Georgi, for her part, doesn't seem overly distraught by the loss. Along with her youth, she managed to get a number of expensive gifts out of the relationship, not least of which was a Porsche.

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Samantha Louis's picture

World's Shortest Marriage?

Posted by Samantha Louis on Fri, 11/23/2007 - 4:00pm
When spanning the world for divorce sagas, you're bound to come across the very best and the worst in human judgment.

Take the case of an Israeli couple who, according to The Times of India, have set the record for the world's shortest marriage.

After a grand total of four days, the two landed in Rabbinical court with the husband complaining about the wife's refusal to live in his parents house, while the wife said she had been promised an apartment of their own. Also, not only was the wife upset about the share of wedding gifts she received, but with the husband's family's taste in gifts.

Still, it can be useful to see how goes the state of marriage in other cultures around the globe.

According to new data from the Rabbinical courts, 5 percent of the marriages last only a year in Israel. Last year, 10,000 couples filed for divorce there, which amounted to an rise of 4 percent over 2005 statistics. Even more striking, Jerusalem, which boasts a large religious population, witnessed a 10.4 percent increase in its divorce rate.

With our eyes wide open to the realities of marriage, we can safely say no culture has a monopoly on healthy relationships.

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For the past twenty years, a French Jewish woman has been "agunah" — the ancient Hebrew term for a women chained to her marriage after her husband goes missing — after her husband disappeared.

Now, according to Israel's YNetNews, the husband has resurfaced in an Israeli jail and says he's willing to free his wife from her nightmarish situation.

The wife and her family say they made every effort to find the husband over years. To everyone's surprise, it appears as if the husband spent the whole time living right under their nose, traveling between Israel and Europe.

For her newfound freedom, the woman has to thank Israel Prison Service's chief rabbi, Yehuda Yekutiel Vizner, who both managed to locate the husband and then eventually convinced him to give his estranged wife a divorce.

After the man finally saw the light, rabbinical judges had him sign divorce papers in prison, thus freeing his wife from what was looking like a lifetime of official bondage.

Really, though, we think the woman was asking for trouble when she married this guy. Not only did he initially leave over financial woes, but in Israel, he's served six complete jail terms, and is now serving his seventh related to property and violent offenses.

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Samantha Louis's picture

Dial D For Divorce

Posted by Samantha Louis on Fri, 11/16/2007 - 11:15am
The need for a divorce can stem from something as benign as incompatibility or as serious as murder. Sadly, it looks like the case of Drew and Stacy Peterson fits the latter category.

Drew, 53 and a police sergeant in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, just resigned after being named a suspect in the disappearance of Stacy, his fourth wife. Stacy, 23, was last seen October 28, and authorities are now calling the case a potential homicide.

Peterson says he believes his wife has left him for another man, and so has no plans to look for her. "Why would I look for somebody who I don't believe is missing?" he told NBC's "Today" this week. "She's just gone. She's where she wants to be."

Also, Drew said Stacy had asked him for a divorce, but he wrote it off as a case of female hormones in overdrive. "I'm not trying to be funny, but Stacy would ask me for divorce after her sister died [of cancer] on a regular basis," Peterson said. "It was based on her menstrual cycle."

Speaking of asking for a divorce, the interview aired a day after the body of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, was exhumed in Illinois as authorities look for clues about how she died.

Savio was found dead of a head wound in her bathtub in 2004, just before the couple's divorce settlement was finalized. The death was ruled an accidental drowning, but investigators now say evidence suggests foul play was involved.

On "Today," Drew had a message for Stacy: "Come home," he said. "Tell people where you are." We've got a message for Drew: Good luck.

Samantha Louis's picture

World's First Text Message Divorce

Posted by Samantha Louis on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 10:15am
We're sure more than one couple has gotten divorced over the contents of a spouse's text message. It was only a matter of time before two people actually got divorced by text message. But we assumed they'd be from a big city like L.A. or Tokyo — not the northern Chinese city of Tianjin.

That's the home of Wang Hong and Zhang Hai, a couple who were having trouble ending a four-year marriage because of their difficulty communicating with each other and the local judge. Both Hong and Hai are deaf and mute, making communication understandably difficult.

"In the end we found using mobile phone text messages was an effective way of communicating," said Judge Xue Lixin, who made an earnest effort save the marriage herself.

"I made some phone calls and met with Wang's relatives and friends and asked them to change her mind, but they failed. She came to court four times and confirmed in writing she was determined to divorce."

Turns out it took 200 texts to finally bring an end to the marriage. So that means the first recorded divorce by text wasn't impractical, impulsive or without effort — three things we're pretty sure will factor into the first big city text divorce. Any day now.

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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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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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Samantha Louis's picture

What's Next? Pet Support Payments?

Posted by Samantha Louis on Fri, 11/02/2007 - 10:15am
Losing one companion in a breakup stinks. Losing two is just the pits.

For couples with pets, a split usually means just that. Steve and Lynelle, the advice team over at The Herald Bulletin, recently responded to one Madison County, Indiana man facing this issue.

After settling the standard business of finances and property, he and his ex-wife were left fighting over custody of their dog. It was his to begin with, but she was now threatening to sue over custody of the pooch. She had apparently become really attached to the dog and demanded they share custody of it as if it were a child.

"I told her that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard."

In fact, as advice man Steve tells it, a number of states are actually in the process of reconsidering the status of pets as mere property. Some courts have even gone so far as to set up parenting plans for pets, including custody visits!

Both Steve and Lynelle agree the man will most likely win full custody of his dog if his ex-wife takes him to court. "Despite your wife's attachment to the animal, your attachment goes back before you met her so she would need an extreme argument (such as documented pet abuse) to take the dog from you," Steve explained.

We're pet lovers, and dog lovers all the more, but joint custody for something that drinks out of the toilet seems a little nuts. Don't these people have lives? And the idea that a court would even waste its time with something so silly says more about the litigious nature of our culture than anything else.

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Sarkozy Walks Out Of CBS Interview

Posted by Samantha Louis on Wed, 10/31/2007 - 10:15am
With Teflon for skin, politicians are preternaturally disposed to deflecting the toughest questions, criticisms, and accusations. But it seems even these rare birds can get their feathers in a bunch over soured relationships and faltering marriages.

Those of you who caught CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday were witness to just such a demonstration from French President Nicolas Sarkozy when he abruptly excused himself from an interview with (the fabulous) Lesley Stahl after she broached the issue of his wife and her recent departure from the world stage.

At the time of the interview, wife Cécilia Sarkozy hadn't been seen since July and rumors abounded over the fate of the presidential marriage. Two weeks later, Sarkozy's office announced it was over.

"If I had to say something about Cécilia, I would certainly not do so here," Sarkozy coldly informed Stahl before stripping off his microphone.

"What was unfair?" Stahl pleaded.

"Au revoir, merci et bon courage (Good-bye, thank-you and good luck)," Sarkozy said on his way out.

This isn't the first time Sarkozy's lost his cool over Cécilia. A French journalist who asked about the marriage at a press conference was denounced straight away for the media's "inelegance" in pursuing the matter.

Still, other than the occasional outburst, there is "no evidence that the end of Cécilia is affecting [Sarkozy's] passion and drive in his work," says Stahl. So, while politicians may not be immune to the stress of divorce, it doesn't seem to be any match for their personal ambition and acute narcissism.

Samantha Louis's picture

Marriage As Image-Enhancer

Posted by Samantha Louis on Fri, 10/26/2007 - 11:30am

In all the analysis over French President Nicolas Sarkozy's failed marriage, I've come to the realization that a public, high-profile separation is actually a lot like your average breakup.

Sure, for politicians and otherwise famous figures, there's the uniqueness of a national, and sometimes international audience, plus the fact that elections and multimillion dollar movie contracts could be impacted by the split.

But, listen to how Canada's Globe and Mail describes political marriage in the context of Sarkozy's situation: "Marriage is an extension of the leader's image. It speaks volumes about character traits that are otherwise inscrutable or absent."

To a slightly lesser degree, I'm sure this applies to anyone. We all have images to uphold, both in our professional and private lives. When separation and divorce rear their ugly heads, it forces a person to question not only how their image could be affected, but their true identities as well.

The paper goes on to say, "A strained and unhappy marriage is better than divorce for a political career. The optics of divorce are damning: The one person who knows the leader of the country more intimately than anyone else has lost faith in him."

Again, such an occasion could just as easily inflict serious emotional and psychological damage on any of us. And, again, it's not only others' perceptions that can cause harm. When faced with divorce, we all have to ask ourselves a difficult question: How could the one person who knows me better than anyone else have lost faith in me?

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