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

Demi Moore recently starred in the film Flawless, an adjective that can also apply to her divorce. The actress, who is married to Ashton Kutcher, 30, says that she plans on having her ex-husband Bruce Willis, his girlfriend Emma Heming, 30, her husband, and three daughters for Christmas, as she had for Thanksgiving.

“I think the key with any past is that you recognize and hold on to what you loved and what you gained and you don't attach yourself to what you've lost," says Moore.

Don’t you wish more people would act like Moore? Both she and Bruce Willis have shown their daughters the endurance of love in how they broke up but simultaneously rebuilt a different family structure that still continues and thrives.

The good news is that more and more couples are recognizing the benefits of amicable divorces vs. nasty ones, and mediation is on the rise. Divorcing well is no longer an "indecent proposal."

Let’s cast the movie in our minds. Shirley MacLaine could play Rebecca Willis, the dirty dancing granny. No, MacLaine is too old. Meryl Streep?

Rebecca Willis was back in the news last week after being awarded $275,000 in a settlement with the town of Marshall, North Carolina. That comes some seven years after being banned from the town community center for dancing in a "sexually provocative manner — gyrating and simulating sexual intercourse with her partner.”

She was suggestive. She was lewd.

She wore short skirts.

She exposed her panties, or worse!

The townspeople (the population is 831) said their children would be scarred for life. They didn’t just ban Mrs. Willis, they banned her “for life.”

Why? Because Rebecca Willis was a 56 year old divorced woman. And when the townsfolk asked her to tone it down, she just danced some more.

For her, it was a matter of freedom of speech. At least that’s what her lawyer, Jon Sasser, argued, after she found him through the ACLU. So the case was argued, appealed, argued, appealed. Up and down the courts for five years, during which time the dancing divorcee got married again.

Now 64, she gave a little dance of joy after the settlement (out of which she will have to pay her lawyer). She considers it a victory, even though she had to promise not to dance in the town center again. “It just tickles me to death,” she said.

The most recent decision came after her lawyer asked the town to prove she wasn’t being singled out. Jon Sasser told First Wives World that much of the town’s attention seemed focused on the fact that Mrs. Willis was divorced.

“Some witnesses testified that she was fine when she was married, but became wilder after her divorce,” he said. “There was definitely an undertone of jealousy.”

CBS has crossed The Ex List off its schedule.

The series stared Elizabeth Reaser as a 30-something woman who’s told by a psychic that if she doesn’t wed within a year, she’ll never walk down the aisle. Oh, and to complicate things, and give you the raison d’etre of the series, the psychic also says that the guy she’s going to marry is someone she dated before.

The plot sounded like a romantic twist on classmates.com, where you can reconnect with high school flings and find out if true love lurks in your past. “The Ex List” only aired four times and then — poof — was gone, as were many viewers after the first three outings.

But while CBS has decided it doesn’t want any more dates with this “Ex,” that doesn’t mean the network isn’t committed to topics about dating and dealing with Ex’s. Whether you’re divorced or single, dealing with an ex is rarely a piece of cake and offers plenty of comedic fodder.

Still on CBS’ schedule is The New Advenures of Old Christine with Julia Louis Dreyfus as a divorced mom on Wednesdays, followed by the new series Gary Unmarried, staring Jay Mohr as a newly divorced painting contractor who strives to balance work, shared custody of his two children, a controlling ex-wife, and his foxy new girlfriend.

Getting divorced is an emotional experience – even if it happens in a virtual, online world. A Japanese woman got so angry when her virtual husband ditched her that she hacked the system to whack him.
 
According to Japanese police, the woman, who was jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used the man’s identification and password in mid-May to log onto the Korean interactive game Maple Story (right) to carry out the virtual hara kiri.

The woman was a 43-year-old piano teacher in Miyazaki, the man was a 33-year-old office worker in Sapporo. "I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the virtual cougar told investigators.

Reality check. This did not happen in the real world. Her online avatar had met and “married” his online avatar, who then dumped her without warning. Any woman can understand the hurt. While the couple was happily “married,” he had told her his login and password, perhaps as a way of showing trust. Mistake!

She did not, officials said, plot any revenge in the real world. Still, if convicted, she could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.

As AP noted, players in Maple Story operate in a two-dimensional virtual world where they engage “in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles."

Instead of remaining in the virtual world, and perhaps sending a monster after her avatar, the man went to the police when he discovered that his avatar was kaput.

Is one woman's trash truly another's treasure? Participants in the "Take My Ex, Please" event on October 23rd will find out.

According to The Chicago Sun-Times, women are invited to Chicago bar Sheffield's to find a new date or potential long-term partner-as long as they bring an ex along with them to offer up to the crowd.

No jealous lovers need apply to this bar. You've got to be A-okay with seeing other women flirt with your ex, and vice versa, although — according to the details, it may not quite that agonizing:

People will be given a number and a bar mailbox to pass notes conveying their interest without having to engage in an actual conversation. "It's like a masquerade ball without the masks," [bar owner Poulo] said.

What do you think? Ingenious idea or in poor taste? Would you attend such an event? Tell us below.

Breaking-ups cause heartaches, headaches and, yes, sometimes creative inspiration. In his new album Lucky Old Sun, which will be released tomorrow, country singer Kenny Chesney reflects on the aftereffects of the annulment of his marriage to the actress Renée Zellweger.

Zellweger, clad in a beautiful Carolina Herrera gown, married the crooner with the cowboy hat in a 15-minute ceremony on a beach in St. John in 2005. Four months later the marriage was kaput — one of the quicker break-ups even for Hollywood, although not beating Chris Kattan’s record split after two months.

Zellweger cited fraud of all things as the cause for the annulment. But who knows what that means? Perhaps he cheated her of her dreams for a lifelong marriage.

For a while, both were silent about why they parted ways. Chesney now is not talking, but he is singing.

As he told Newsweek the songs on his album were written in a burst of inspiration. “I got in a plane and went down to the Virgin Islands,” he says. “I was completely by myself. I didn't want to be around anybody. So the next thing you know, it's me and a pen and I sat down and wrote a lot of lines of this song.”

Three songs on the album seem especially intimate, Spirit of a Storm, I’m Alive, and Way Down Here, whose lyrics say he is "where no one will ask, 'cause nobody knows you're not in my life anymore/And no one can tell the saltwater from my tears."

Was he concerned that his ex would be upset by the music about the end of their relationship? “It's the truth. It's my life,” he told Newsweek. “I've been in a lot of states of mind in the last three years. In that way, it's a pretty honest record. I've let myself be more emotionally vulnerable in some of the lyrics. I think that was good therapy."

Guys use sex to reduce the increased pressure in their lives. With the Dow dipping, no prob if they were turning to wives and girlfriends. But according to a New York Daily News story, they’re down and getting down with sources of gratification that are potential trouble — with a capital T.

On lunch hours they are visiting massage parlors. They are hiring prostitutes. They are going to strip clubs after work. And they are indulging in Internet porn, sometimes at their office computers… and getting caught. They are becoming addicted to sex to relieve their stress.

In a tight job market, this is not an appealing thing to have in one’s file. Most of the men, by the way, are married.

In the Daily News story, psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert reports a jump in sex-addicted men at his Manhattan practice in the past six months.

"Since early spring, maybe late winter, there's just been an increase, and I believe it might have something to do with the economy," he says. "A lot of the Wall Streeters use sex as a way to cope with stress. Bankers do tend to rely on pretty unhealthy ways of coping with stress — drugs, sex.

"A lot of them will use adult services," Alpert adds. "Some of them come right out and say, 'I'm stressed. This is how I deal with it. It's not the worst thing in the world. I'm not using drugs.' But when it starts to increase, then it's a problem."

How do these testosterone titans practice safe sex? According to Alpert, they consider going to an Asian massage parlor to be permissible. To some, as long as they don’t go all the way, being masturbated doesn’t count as cheating.

Is being single such a bad thing? Especially after divorce? A few celebs' friends think so. Pink's buddies are pushing the recently divorced pop singer to start dating again, says The Metro, despite her distaste for the singles scene. She admits that she "never goes on dates," and prefers less obvious hookup scenarios.

Pink better watch out, or before she knows it, matchmakers will start popping up — which happens to be the case for Tom Arnold, says contactmusic.com. Maria Shriver, of all people, is playing Arnold's cupid. (The connection? Arnold is a good friend of Shriver's husband, Arnold Schwarznegger.) In fact, Shriver has been labeled Arnold's dating coach, matching him up with friends after his third divorce earlier this year. The results? Mixed:

He explains, "When your friends set you up, you really know what they think of you — and evidently my friends think I'm old and fat."

Regardless of the outcome, why must everyone have someone? What do you think? Tell us below.

On Sunday, October 5, there’s a marathon rebroadcast of the miniseries The Starter Wife, and for any woman going through divorce, this is a delicious way to spend a Sunday morning. The two-hour premier is at 9 am on the USA channel.

The premise: a stay-at-home Hollywood wife gets dumped by her weasely movie-producer husband. Then there are four more episodes, taking you right up to 2 pm and through shock, denial, tears, anger, resignation, and oh yes, having two men fighting over you while you live in a gorgeous Malibu beach house. The actual series begins at 9 pm and midnight (East Coast) on October 10, and you can get up to speed earlier that day asso you need to get up to speed. (And there go Friday nights.)

Debra Messing plays the wife, so you can kind of understand two men fighting over her. But what is it with fictional romances that feature a woman caught between two men? I mean, how often does a divorced woman have two men to choose between? Ok, Nancy Lee seems to have all the men she wants.

But the rest of us?

We can see it on screen, from Philadelphia Story, to Pillow Talk, to Jules and Jim, to Sleepless in Seattle, to Moulin Rouge, and The Notebook. Just this year, in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it was a woman choosing between two guys; in Mamma Mia! it was a woman choosing between three men.

This must be the ultimate female fantasy, a wealth in choice of mates, like superheroes are for men.

Debra Messing as Molly has to choose between a wealthy powerful studio head, and a penniless (but hunky and soulful) beach bum. And this is before she and her husband have even negotiated the terms of the divorce!