The splits. The fits. The emotional pits. And all the couples who called it quits.

This past year had it all. Some stories touched us, others moved us, many angered us, and a few even tickled us.

After much culling and sifting, we narrowed it down to 20 of our top picks from 2008. We hope you enjoy this little look back as we prepare to move forward.

The Let’s-Just-Be-Friends Award
(Most Amicable Divorce)

Robin Williams and Marsha Garces Williams

Talk about civil unions. No sooner had the couple announced their split after 19 years of marriage than they signed an official agreement stating "we commit ourselves to the collaborative divorce process and agree to seek a positive way to resolve our differences justly and equitably” — all for the sake of their two children. For those of you playing along at home, this is the way to go.

Runner Up: Dixie Chick Emily Robison and singer Chris Robison. How do we know they were both “ready to make nice”? Their divorce took a mere six months, and the filing was a scant two and a half pages.

The ‘Til-Death-Do-Us-Part Award
(Most Devoted Husband)

Mohammed Bello Abubakar

When Nigerian cleric Abubakar, 84, was told he had to divorce all but four of his 86 wives, he refused – even though doing so might lead to the death penalty. He is currently behind bars, fighting for his love. And you thought “Titanic” was the greatest love story ever told.

The Golden Goose Award
(Biggest Settlement)

Madonna & Guy Ritchie

Call him Guy Rich-hee-hee.

Madonna’s ex-husband, director Guy Ritchie, must be smiling now that he is $76 million richer as part of his final settlement with the Material Girl.

Well, it seems that what was material to both of them was an amicable divorce — which they have accomplished.

Madonna married Guy Ritchie in 2000 and together they had Rocco 7, adopted David, 3, and took care of Madonna’s daughter Lourdes, 12, from her previous boyfriend Carlos Leon. The couple also worked out a visitation agreement.

Don’t cry for Madonna since she is still worth hundreds of millions of dollars — a reported $600 million, in fact. Paying manimony won’t make a dent in her overall assets and she will have plenty of time now to increase her financial muscles by performing on stage instead of in court.

Ritchie can celebrate his victory at his British pub which he still will own and then sleep it off at their $30 million Ashcombe House country estate in Wiltshire.

Madonna gets to keep their marital home in Marylebone, London. And natch, her New York apartment where she reportedly has been hitting some homeruns with Yankee slugger, Alex Rodriguez (though he claims they are just friends).

According to a London source, Ritchie wanted to stay in their London home and split it in two but Madonna wanted her space and independence. She then gave him $18 million as compensation.

A friend of Madonna said last night: “She is fed up at reports that Guy is walking away with no money — she has sorted his finances for life.”

In the movie “First Wives Club,” Ivana Trump immortalized the words, “Don’t get mad, get everything.” In her indomitable way, she has done just that by shedding her latest husband, Rossano Rubicondi after seven months of marriage.

In the announcement, Trump said, “Rossano wants to live in Miami and work in Milan. But I am a New Yorker and my family, friends and businesses are here.”

It was no surprise that the marriage disintegrated. After Rubicondi, 35, was photographed snuggling with a blonde and licking a brunette named Sara Varone over the weekend, Trump, 59, trumped him by announcing that she had filed a legal separation three months ago and already said “Ciao.”

As she has often advised others, Ivana Trump had a pre-nup before walking down the aisle in the gardens of Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach estate belonging to her ex-husband, Donald.

Donald Trump told The New York Post that the family is happy.

"You can't be overly surprised by this, it's unfortunate it [the marriage] ever took place," The Donald told The Post. "The marriage was unfortunate and now it has to be unwound."

The Donald and Ivana had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric.

Leave it to Moms to give researchers a spoonful of reality. A poll of online mothers conducted by Allen & Gerritsen on the economic challenges facing the US found that 80 percent thought Americans had been encouraged by the culture to overextend themselves and that 58 percent believed the average American is too greedy.

The researchers recognized that moms “teach and enforce family values” – and manage family pocketbooks – and believe that these findings may predict more saving and less spending. That seems confirmed by figures for retail sales for October, released this morning, which showed a 2.8 percent decline from the previous month. That’s the biggest drop the Commerce Department has recorded since measures began in 1993.

Maybe that isn’t so good for Coach and Gucci but it certainly will be for the culture at large. And this way Mom won’t have to ask Junior to support her down the road.

A&G surveyed moms to get a pulse on how the economy will affect their purchasing behavior. The report didn't make distinctions between divorced or married moms but I would bet the single moms have already been on a fiscal diet for some time and are quite good at it.

According to the report, 65 percent of the mothers said they were eliminating purchases that are not absolutely necessary, and 52 percent were cutting back in general. Some 71 percent say they have made more sacrifices this year than last. Only 49 percent say that the economic situation may improve within the next year, but perhaps President Obama can alter that view.

Take this as a lesson in how not to manage your money (should you ever acquire millions)...According to The Denver Post, Heather Mills has spent roughly one-third of her divorce settlement from Paul McCartney. Yes, one-third of the $48 million she was awarded in March.

Granted some of this covered a $300,000 public relations bill and a hefty lawyer tab, a New York City apartment, and renovations on her Sussex, England, home. Additional funds covered her pledge of $6 million to charitable organizations. Throw in a few vacations, a lavish divorce party, and a $1 million staff bill, and...hey, where'd all that money go?

An Atlanta area "marriage for life" essay contest is offering $10,000 toward a wedding, which includes free flowers, photography, invitations, and honeymoon airline tickets. Why aren't droves of engaged couples entering?

It's sponsored by an abstinence group, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and we'll give you one guess what that means…keep your hands to yourself!

The contest is sponsored by Marriage Appreciation Training Uplifting Relationship Education, which aims to eliminate marriage conflict and divorce. Director of the non-profit organization Phillippia Faust stated the contest stipulations "are designed to promote a marriage that will 'really last a lifetime.'"

And how would one go about creating a marriage that lasts a lifetime? From Faust's perspective, no premarital sex. Additional stipulations are as follows:

Bride and groom must agree to undergo premarital education. Must agree not to serve alcohol at reception. Couple either agrees not to have premarital sex or at least acknowledge it’s preferable not to. At least one of the couple must live in DeKalb, Newton or Rockdale [Atlanta] counties.

Hmmmm…no takers? Really?

Perhaps their slogan should be "Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder."

In a 1997 divorce in New York, Linda Graev was awarded a $2.5 million settlement, with her husband, Lawrence, paying her maintenance of $120,000 a year. The payments would continue for 12 years — as long as she did not remarry, or cohabit with someone for “60 substantially consecutive days.”

That larger number ($120,000 a year) should have made it easy to keep the smaller number (60 days) firmly in mind. But her husband, Lawrence Graev, a lawyer and, since 2000, the head of a private equity fund, claimed that in 2004 she and a boyfriend lived together for more than 60 days.

He argued that he, therefore, should no longer have to pay her maintenance.

The New York State Supreme Court cited New York case law, or precedent, saying that cohabiting involves not just living with someone but “sharing finances,” thus melding a couple’s lives together. The court decided, therefore, that Linda Graev did not cohabit.

Her husband appealed.

Earlier this week the New York Court of Appeals ruled 4 to 3 that the term “cohabiting” means many “physical, emotional, and material factors ... depending on the parties' intent.” Because the term was “ambiguous,” they said, the case should go back to state supreme court to determine what the couple’s divorce agreement meant by “cohabitation.”

The dissenting opinion was even tougher for the wife. The three dissenting judges said that she and her partner, who lived nearby, may have not commingled their finances, but they had “spent virtually every day and night together for over 60 days from June through August 2004” in her summer home. The dissenting judges held that her husband, therefore, should stop paying spousal support.

A homemaker from Ahmedabad, India, is facing grim prospects — both financially and matrimonially. According to The Times of India, the woman lost more than $60,000 in the plummeting stock market last week, and her husband is threatening divorce.

The 34-year-old wife and mother trades stocks in her free time and says her husband encouraged her hobby, even benefiting from her profits. But when the market took a nosedive, her husband said he'd rather leave than help shoulder the financial burden.

Now that doesn't sound like a case of "for richer or poorer," does it?

Just last week, we reported on the stress that money places on relationships — but it sounds like more is at play than financial burden. If a partner so quickly threatens to dissolve a marriage, perhaps this was the easy "out" he was hoping would come along?

According to the American Psychological Association's new "Stress in America" study, "the declining state of the Nation's economy is taking a physical and emotional toll on people nationwide, and it is women who are bearing the brunt of financial stress."

The study confirms that women are more stressed about money (83 percent of women versus 78 percent of men) and the economy (84 percent versus 75 percent).

Financial stress is clearly a global issue and is, in fact, the main cause of divorce for Australian women, reports The Brisbane Times. More than one-third of women cite money as the reason for break-ups, divorce, and relationship stress.

Why more women than men? Researchers suggest that in times of economic crisis, women are more aware of mounting bills and expenses, particularly with regard to children. Consequently, they feel stress, and that stress carries into the relationship.

And economic crisis it is. The number of Australians citing financial insecurity as a relationship stressor has doubled since 2006.

By all accounts the Divorce, Separation Support Group of Raleigh, North Carolina, is a terrific bunch of people, both men and women, at least 600 members, who meet once a week to give advice and help each other. The group was betrayed last January by a Fayetteville woman, Margaret Irene Haithcock, 51, who got $6,241 out of them by lying.

She came to the group and announced that she had a triple tragedy that had put her in debt. Her son had been killed in Iraq, she said, and she had cancer, and needed further treatments at Duke. Also, a fire had burned down her house and her letters from her son who was killed in Iraq.

The group, in response, held several fund raisers for her and actually had a memorial service for her son.

But it turned out that none of that was true.

An arrest warrant was issued in June, charging her with obtaining property by false pretenses. The warrant said that the claims of her illness and a dead son were offered only as a way to get money from the group. It took authorities more than two months to find her.

Haithcock, who is also known as Margaret H. Cooke, was arrested last month. According to records at the North Carolina Department of Corrections, she has a history of arrests and convictions dating from 1984 to 1990. She was imprisoned, most recently, for six months in 1990 on forgery charges. Other charges included credit card fraud, credit card theft, attempted forgery, and cheating on property services.

Haithcock/Cooke pleaded guilty on Thursday (October 9) to the charges, and has been ordered to repay the divorce support group. She was given three years of probation, fined $200, and ordered to undergo a mental health assessment.

Finally, she was told not to be in touch with the support group ever again.

What no one has made clear, however, is whether or not Haithcock/Cooke lied about another thing: Was she ever divorced?