

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.

Kate Hudson is no fool, nor does she have stardust in her eyes when she says that her divorce was "the best thing that happened to her."
The "Fools Gold" star and Black Crowes musician Chris Robinson divorced in 2007 but are devoted parents to their young son, Ryder.
Hudson told Cosmopolitan magazine that since separating, the two have found a rhythm that is quite harmonious and certainly not as out of tune as their relationship was when they lived together as man and wife.
“Look — Chris and I are still basically living together! We’ve figured it out. I mean, obviously, nothing’s perfect, but I could never look at our divorce as a mistake. If anything, it’s the best thing that ever happened to us," she said.
When a divorce is amicable, as many today strive it to be, the parents are in and out of each other's houses and some share the same domicle, but the parents leave while the child has the consistant home.
The secret, as she reveals, is to "figure it out." And with the help of places like firstwivesworld.com and more information on mediation and co-parenting courses, couples may break-up but simultaneously build a new family structure that can be quite strong.

Japanese husbands may want to cry “entrapment” over the practices of a company that hires professional seducers to help unhappy wives get rid of their husbands.
In most U.S. states, you can just say sayonara to husbands who are belligerent, boorish or belching bores. But In Japan, where women’s rights are not highly valued, wives now see the value in fetching divorces by using fetching women to lure their husbands, thus giving them the necessary grounds for divorce.
The Times of London ran an excerpt from Lesley Downer’s new book, The Last Concubine, which reports the blow by blow — pardon the expression — of several of these stings. Here’s one:
“3.30 pm. Mr. A is outside a bank in a busy part of Ikebukuro, a faintly seedy area of Tokyo, waiting for his date. He beams as she teeters across the road on high heels. Kyoko, 20, is half his age. She has a mane of black hair, sloe eyes, a fetching smile and a cute giggle. Her blouse is open to reveal her cleavage and she has on a short skirt and sheer black tights. Mr. A is a bald 40-year-old salesman in a crumpled gray suit and glasses.
“Mr. A doesn’t know that a team of private investigators is recording his every move. The boss, the ebullient Mr. Tomiya, lurks behind a lamppost on the other side of the road and takes photographs as Kyoko meets Mr. A. Tomiya’s equipment includes a packet of cigarettes and a pen, both of which are actually cameras. Shimizu, a heavy-set man with a bullet head and cropped hair, carries a black bag. It contains a camera with which he films continuously through a tiny hole in the bag. A third man acts as a lookout. …
“When presented with the evidence, the embarrassed husband not only agrees to the divorce but agrees to favorable terms for the wife.”
read more »
Along with qualities like “devoted,” “adventurous,” “successful,” and “cute,” the checklist of women deciding what they want in a man may now include “the fidelity gene.”
A study by a behavioral geneticist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockhom confirmed what we already knew — when it comes to monogamy, it’s not about us, it’s about them.
Some guys, well, can't help themselves. You can blame the genes when he can't keep it in his jeans.
The gene in question controls the number and location of vasopressin receptors in the brain. Vasopressin is a hormone secreted during sexual activity that increases the likelihood of pair bonding.
One allele, or alternate form of a gene, and there are fewer vasopressin receptors. Two alleles and there are way fewer vasopressin receptors.
As The Washington Post reported, the finding is striking because it not only links the gene variant — present in two out of five men — with the risk of marital discord and divorce, but also appears to predict whether women involved with these men say their partners are emotionally close and available, or distant and disagreeable.
The presence of the allele also seems predictive of whether men get married or live with women without getting married.
"Men with two copies of the allele had twice the risk of experiencing marital dysfunction, with a threat of divorce during the last year, compared to men carrying one or no copies," said Hasse Walum, a behavioral geneticist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who led the study. "Women married to men with one or two copies of the allele scored lower on average on how satisfied they were with the relationship compared to women married to men with no copies."
read more »
"Sex is the leading cause of divorce," says the headline of a new survey released in small town England.
Considering the cultural stereotype attached to the English and their sex lives, this will probably bring relief to millions of British women who, as popular opinion would have it, would gladly never have sex again. Don't have sex, don't get divorced, and live happily ever after in a G-rated utopia.
Tragically, though, it's not the sex itself that's leading to all the divorce say the people behind the study. It's sex-related causes. You know, porn surfing, infidelity, cross-dressing. Yup, cross-dressing.
According to the study done by Bedfordshire lawyers, cross-dressing by married people in the area happens often enough that it made the list of causes for divorce.
Bedfordshire, as it happens, is 10 minutes from where my mother lives. She tells me she's surrounded only by horses, but it would appear that she left out the hundreds of men in sequined palazzo pants and size 12 patent leather pumps.
The details of the study indicated that 43 percent of divorces in the area cited sex as the primary cause, although "lifestyle" issues came in at number two with 37 percent. (And secret cross-dressing isn't a lifestyle issue?)
Money came in at 11 percent, but lawyers are predicting this number is on the increase since people are losing money hand over fist and that's bound to cause some strain. Again, cross-dressing can be implicated here, as a good Coach bag for each spouse certainly makes a dent in the Disney World fund, and the wife is likely to get tetchy.
read more »
The divorce news from London is confusing.
First we were told that divorces were increasing because of bad economic times. The men who were out of work were rushing to get divorced, it was said, while their incomes were nonexistent. And the women who were married to still-employed husbands were rushing to get divorced while their husbands were still making big bucks.
As a rationale, those don’t really wash, since either spouse can apply to have maintenance and support adjusted as circumstances change.
And now there’s been a national study in the UK, and it turns out the divorce rate in England and Wales last year was the lowest it has been in 26 years, despite the travails of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills.
The rate fell to 11.9 divorces per thousand married people in 2007 — the lowest since 1981 — compared to 12.2 per thousand married people in 2006, according to the British Office for National Statistics.
“Since 1997 the average age at divorce in England and Wales has risen from 40.2 to 43.7 years for men and from 37.7 to 41.2 years for women, partly reflecting the rise in age at marriage,” the report said.
Divorces in the United States reached their peak in 1981 (blame the 70s) as well, with 5.3 per thousand of the total population. (In an apples to apples comparison, the United States has a higher divorce rate than Great Britain.)
The American divorce rate has been sinking ever since, hitting around 3.6 per thousand of the total population in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available. U.S. figures are gathered from 46 states and the District of Columbia. Four states (California, Colorado, Indiana, and Louisiana) do not report divorce statistics.
read more »
The Washington Post recently reported on Japan's declining marriage rate. Short story: Men are looking to wives to take over maternal roles, and that scenario isn't very appealing to most single Japanese women:
"There is the rarely stated but almost universal expectation of Japanese men to be fed, clothed and picked up after. 'I am willing to take care of and give comfort to a man whom I care about, but that does not mean I want to be his mother,' she said."
In fact, WaPost found that women who had married were less likely than their male counterparts to remarry after divorce. The article states that post-divorce, men are unhappy and remarry quickly, while "the women are relatively happy and often delay remarriage." Perhaps it's the "burn me once" theory?
In addition to the lack of women looking to take on the mommy role, a stalled economy and a posh home life are keeping adult children in their parents' homes. A Calgary Herald piece from early August reported that Japanese parents — fed up with housing, feeding, and taking care of their single adult children — were taking matters into their own hands and organizing events exclusively for parents to find mates for their children.
"A government report from 2005 showed 71.5 percent of men aged 25 to 29 were unmarried, compared with 47.1 percent in 1990. For women, 32 percent from 30 to 34 years of age were single, compared with half that number in 1990."
read more »
We mentioned earlier this month that former James Bond George Lazenby and his most recent wife, Pam Shriver, were getting divorced.
As we all know, it's part of the United States Constitution that all celebrity divorces need drama, intrigue, and gross accusations in order to be granted in a court of law. This one, however, is particularly interesting.
Lazenby's ex-wife is making accusations as well.
The Bond star and his first wife, Christina Mather, have been divorced for years. Now she's claiming that he broke her nose when she was five months pregnant, more than 30 years ago. Their daughter, now 34, claims he shoved her head into a toilet and held a gun to her head when she arrived home after her curfew. On this front, Lazenby admits to nothing more than totally ignoring his daughter from the time she was 12 because his younger son was dying of cancer.
Shriver, meanwhile, is claiming that he's drunk around their preschool children and tries to force-feed them alcohol. Lazenby, on the other hand, claims that Shriver is constantly high and drunk and drives the kids around while in a total stupor. Naturally, she says he's lying.
Some day I'd like to write about a celebrity divorce trial where one party completely and fully admits to the wrong-doing. "Yes, Your Honor, I did in fact sleep with the labor and delivery nurse while my wife was giving birth to the twins."
read more »
If your new man was going to be working with the home wrecker who took away your husband, what would do? That dilemma may now be facing the lovely Reese Witherspoon, who, post-divorce from Ryan Phillippe, is seeing Jake Gyllenhaal.
In Touch Weekly says that Abbie Cornish — the actress whose affair with Ryan Philippe caused the end of his marriage to Reese — may be cast as Jake Gyllenhaal's love interest in an upcoming film.
Of course the natural instinct would be to say to Jake, "No way do I want you to act in that movie with her." But getting roles in Hollywood is not as easy as finding the latest Fendi bag, and directors make casting choices, unless the actor is a major A-lister. Witherspoon is in that league; Gyllenhaal is not.
And in that line of work, many relationships are created by on-set romances. Angelina Jolie met two husbands and her current amour — Johnny Lee Miller, Billy Bob Thornton, and now Brad Pitt — while working on films.
Robert Rodriguez left his wife after meeting Rose McGowan; Russell Crowe had an affair with Meg Ryan, causing her to break-up with Dennis Quaid; and Reese met Gyllenhaal while doing the movie Rendition.
That, of course, is one of the perils of that business. Few other places have you kissing strangers passionately as part of the job requirement, or going off to an exotic location for months, away from family and spouse.
But many people meet their future spouses at work. In an Elle/MSNBC poll, two-thirds of the 31,000 people polled reportedly flirt at the office.
But take heart, that your heart may not be permanently broken. Flirting is flirting.
Only 55 percent of office relationships turn into marriage, according to the Society of Human Resources Management.
read more »
Imagine being a refugee from a war-torn country and being told that in order to stay in safety, you had to get divorced. I’m pretty sure we can all say that would be tragic and a travesty of justice.
Now imagine you had two spouses, and the country you were living in said you had to obey the law and pick one. Not such a travesty of justice anymore, is it?
An unidentified Iraqi man has recently decided that he would rather go back to Iraq than stay in Denmark and give up one of his wives. Man, even writing the words “one of his wives” freaks me out. It seems like many of the men I know have a hard enough time being married to one woman, let alone two.
The lawyer handling his case explains the situation like this: “Most of all his wives are saddened by this affair; they don't feel welcome in Denmark.” When I read that the first time, it sounded like they were saying most of his wives were saddened. As in, most of them are saddened, but the rest are handling it like troopers. How many wives does this guy have? But no, he’s only got two — and they’re both bummed.
The crazy thing about this whole situation is that if he did divorce one of his wives, no one in the family would face deportation. They’d all get to stay. The wife who got the axe could still stay in the same house. Let’s face it, they’re in Denmark — nobody’s going to stone him for having two baby mamas. But he likes his family the way it is, so he’s packing up the wives and kids and heading back home. “Now they have left to see how things are in Basra,” says his lawyer.
Well, I think we all know how things are in Basra, but the best of luck to him. I hope to God nothing happens to his children when he gets there or he will be regretting his decision for the rest of his days.
Click here for more.

This is no laughing matter. After just eight weeks of marriage, "Saturday Night Live" alum Chris Kattan and his wife, model Sunshine Tutt, have split.
"Separated for the moment. No plans for divorce at this time," his rep told Us Magazine.
Kattan, 37, and Tutt, 31 — who began dating in 2005 after meeting at a birthday party — tied the knot this past June 28th in Yosemite Valley, Calif. Kattan popped the question at Tutt's grandmother's home in Gainesville, Texas, on Christmas Eve, 2006. He gift wrapped the ring in a present, added Usmagazine.
"She is so kind, sweet and very beautiful. She's also very funny which always is a great thing. She's also very much like me," Kattan blogged on his Website in August 2005.
"She makes me very happy," he went on. "It feels real and honest and I have more of a continuous smile than I have ever had before."
Apparently the smile quickly turned upside down, as often happens to celebrities soon after the wedding.
Any therapist or religious leader will say that the first year is the toughest as people adjust to each other’s habits and routines. But that hasn’t stopped many celebrity couples from divorcing each other after less than a year.
Jennifer Lopez and dancer Chris Judd were married and divorced in less than 10 months, Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney in less than four months, Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage in less than three months.
However, there is hope for lasting unions. Jennifer Lopez subsequently married Marc Antony on June 5, 2004, and they have now been married four years... almost a lifetime for a Hollywood marriage.