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?

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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.

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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.

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He's come a long way since his days as Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" and his first marriage to Madonna. But Sean Penn is back in the tabloids.

The actor and his actress wife Robin Wright Penn are getting a divorce. As celebrity marriages go, this one lasted quite a long time — 11 years. There aren't any details of the split circulating yet, but you can bet there will be eventually. Will this one become the first celebrity mess of 2008, or will it be handled gracefully? Who gets what? What was in their prenup?

New year on the way in a few days, but same old celebrity divorce questions to ponder.

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Because I’ve been known to have a one-track mind, I’m still thinking about what I wrote about last week: Should some people just stay single?

My partner and I have been talking about this a lot lately. We are two of the most compatible people I’ve ever known. We live together. We run a business together. We work in our home office together.

And we are completely and utterly sick of each other. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We’re not sick of each other, we’re sick of not being alone.

Here’s the thing: We’re both very independent people. We’re both people pleasers. We both go out of our way to make the other person desperately, completely, ragingly happy. It’s exhausting, and I don’t think we want to do it any more.

We want to eat what we want for dinner. We want to stop discussing the color of paint on the walls. We want to stop planning and talking and communicating. We both just want to be left alone.

I was reading one of my favorite columnists, Lisa Kogan from Oprah’s O Magazine. She and her — what? Husband? Fiance? Boyfriend? Non-domestic partner? — live in two different countries and have no plans to change that situation. They’re in love. They’re monogamous. They’re happy. They see each other once a month.

I wonder if that would work for us. I mean, separate continents might be a bit much. I’m not in love with the idea of schlepping the baby across the ocean on a monthly basis. But maybe separate places in the same city might work.

Now, on the surface, it doesn't sound like she's really doling out any earth-shattering revelations. But she has a lot of common sense tips she can offer about everything from financial management and the legal process to post-divorce privacy issues. In fact, she even goes by an alias — Samantha Woods.

Apparently her divorce was messy and expensive, so she's got a pretty good idea of the worst of what you might encounter. She doesn't want her ex knowing what she's doing now with her consulting business, hence the pseudonym. In the digital age, that's actually something a lot of people might be interested in. If you don't want your ex finding you or tracking your activities, there are steps you can take.

But to me, the most encouraging thing about Woods is the example she sets for what your life can be like after your divorce. We talk a lot here at FWW about the various phases of divorce, and you get a pretty clear picture of that when you look at Woods. She had a phase of her life when she was married at a young age and raised kids. Then she had a phase where she navigated the breakup of her marriage. And now her marriage is over and she's become an entrepreneur.

It's nice to see an example proving things can change for the better during and after a divorce, even if it's tough to see the forest through the trees at the time.

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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.

Larry David saw opportunity to turn his divorce into comedy gold.

In June, Larry and his wife Laurie separated, citing irreconcilable differences after 14 years of marriage.

The Davids' spokesman has stated that their split was "very amicable".

Sunday night, on Larry's hit show Curb Your Enthusiasm, his on-screen wife announced she was going to leave him.

The show split was slightly less friendly, with his fictitious wife calling her husband in fear for her life due to a potential plane crash, only to be told to call back in ten minutes while the cable man fixes the Tivo.

When David's on screen wife returns safely, she announces she'll be leaving him. The rest of the show dealt with friends of the couple choosing sides, some of them being Larry and Laurie's real friends.

Larry David has always stated that his show persona is something like a funhouse-mirror version of himself, the person he might be if he had "no manners or restraint."

Lucky for Laurie — in that case — that her former husband isn't as insensitive as he appears onscreen.

It's a difficult thing to find the humor in divorce, but I would say anyone could watch that show and find something to laugh about, including Mr. David.

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The office of France's new President, Nicolas Sarkozy, yesterday announced his separation from wife Cecilia. The Associated Press took the opportunity to note some other break ups in the history of great men:

In 1996, a judge granted Nelson Mandela a divorce because his wife, Winnie, had been unfaithful. The South African president had separated from her in 1992 after she was convicted and fined in her bodyguards' kidnapping of four kids.

Andreas Papandreou, Greece's late prime minister, left his wife in the late 80s, when he was about 70, after having an affair with a 35-year-old flight attendant. He later divorced his wife and married the flight attendant, Dimitra Liani.

Argentinian president Carlos Menem locked his wife, Zulema Yoma de Menem, out of the presidential residence in 1990 after she knocked his policies one too many times. On one occasion while he was out, she invited journalists over for a barbecue to roast him and his leadership. She later filed for divorce, accusing Menem of adultery. Menem married former Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco of Chile in 2001, but announced this May that they had separated — after photographs were published of her sunbathing topless with an Italian friend in Miami.

Our favorite, though, is the story of Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who cut off water and power to the quarters of his wife, Susana Higuchi, and stripped her of the title of first lady in 1994 after she accused him of tolerating widespread corruption in his administration. He said she was disloyal, as well as "unstable and easily influenced" by his political foes.

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Apparently French President Nicholas Sarkozy needs to be asking that very question. Rumors of his impending divorce are flying once again in the wake of news that Cecelia will not be accompanying her husband on his state visit to Morocco next week.

Traditionally, French president's wives have accompanied their husbands on state visits such as this, but Mrs. Sarkozy has not attended a single official function since Bastille Day celebrations on July 14.

Now, is it time for Sarkozy to place a call to Bill Clinton for tips on how to keep his woman around? Perhaps not just yet. Cecelia does appear to be his little Hillary, though, supporting her husband and serving as an advisor when he was an interior and finance minister.

The couple separated in 2005 for a few months, but were very publicly reconciled in 2006, amidst heavy declarations of love on Nicholas' part. Since then, she remained under the radar for his campaign, and since his rise to power she's attended only three official events, even wiggling out of an informal meeting with President Bush and his family.

Silly me, I thought that's what being a politico's wife was all about. Smiling, shaking hands and gushing about how wonderful the man in charge is while pushing a few safe political ideas of your own in your free time.

It does amuse me that this is what it takes to get the French press as detail and tabloid hungry as the American press. Oh the times, they are a 'changin.

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