Here's your pet's pet peeve. Your beloved animals suffer anxiety when you separate or divorce, just as you do. In fact, the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals in London has added divorce to the list of events that can lead to "acral lick dermatitis."

Other causes of ALD – a constant chewing, sucking, and licking of a part of the body – are dogs who are isolated or bored, punished continually, or who have nervous and stressed owners. Sean Wensley, a senior vet at the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, says, “As a result of such licking, the area can become raw and itchy, which in turn leads to further licking or chewing."

Pets mirror our emotions. If your parrot plucks his feathers feverishly, your poodle pouts with downcast eyes, your calico cat meows mournfully, vets translate these things as a form of depression because, folks, they are "furry" upset by the disruption in the house.

And why shouldn’t they be?

As Wensley says, “Cats and dogs, like young children, are sensitive to adult human emotions and, when these become tense or unpredictable, this can cause stress-related heath problems.”

What are more symptoms?

"Dogs that are stressed can show signs of compulsive disorder,” he says, including chasing their own tails. Cats, he says, “can be prone to 'wool sucking' which, as the term suggests, involves sucking or chewing on woolen items such as blankets.”

Parrots sometimes pull out their own feathers after losing a mate — which, in a way, includes a human live-in companion — or experiencing some other type of trauma.

And that’s not all. The hospital’s studies show that when their owners split, pets can develop serious long-term nervous symptoms, including chewing on and biting themselves.

In Florida, there is no such thing as “joint custody”; instead it is called “shared parental responsibility.” The person given custody is technically the “primary residential custodian” and the other parent is the “secondary residential custodian.”

Why? Because courts around the world are trying to remove inflammatory words from family law, in hopes that will make divorce less fractious. In 2005, France eliminated any gender bias in the language in its divorce laws. It treats mothers and fathers as exact equals, except in one area: a wife may take back her maiden name.

As long ago as 1991, the British courts changed the language for custody, in an attempt to remove the sense of ownership that went along with the word “custody.” Because of that, 17 years ago, “we heaved a collective sigh of relief,” said Jonathan Smith, a family lawyer in Great Britain.

The problem, he said, was that the courts were using the new terms “parental responsibility,” “residence,” and (for the parent who does not live with the child) “contact” time.

But, he said, regular people, and the press, continued to talk about "custody" and "access" to the child.

And yet, people keep trying. In 2001, the Minnesota legislature adopted new language for custody and visitation, ahem, “in an attempt to lessen the animosity in custody battles.” One parent is the “primary caregiver,” but both parents are apportioned “parenting time.”

Even in New York, where we and everyone else have endlessly referred to “custody” in celebrity cases, like the Christie Brinkley-Peter Cook divorce, the actual terms are “residential custody” to one parent, making the other parent the “non-residential parent.”

Without saying one word about why his wife, Jennifer Butler, might have asked for a divorce, the actor Bill Murray said that the divorce had left him “devastated.” He was speaking about it now because he has a movie to promote, City of Ember, opening on Friday. So as with many Hollywood stars with a “hook,” he suddenly finds the need to unburden himself.

His wife filed for divorce in May, after 10 years of marriage and four sons, citing “spousal abuse” and her husband’s problems with drugs, alcohol, and sex addiction. That can’t be any fun for their sons, who are age 7 to 15. The divorce was rushed through and the information was private. She kept the children; he is allowed visitation rights and has to pay child support.

But now Murray is telling AP that his divorce is “the worst thing that ever happened to me in my entire life."

After it happened, he said, he was “dead” and “broken.”

"When you're really in love with someone and this happens — I never had anything like this happen. It's like your faith in people is destroyed because the person you trusted the most you can no longer trust at all. ... The person you know isn't there anymore."

OK, that’s a lot of self pity. And get this. The people on the movie are now claiming that the divorce not only devastated him, it made him better.

"If I could get through this in a powerful way, I feel that I have even more potential to do something," he told AP.

"I think I'd be working on a higher level. It'd be great to achieve, to do the art that I thought I was always capable of -- something that really, really affects people and grabs them and makes them feel and become alive."

Love can be sweeter the second time around. At least that's what Nicole Kidman is saying about life with country crooner hubby Keith Urban. The Australian superstars just had a baby girl named Sunday Rose.

In an interview with Elle magazine she said, "I didn't foresee it, that you can meet somebody who you have a deep and more profound love with. I don't mean to take away anything with Tom [Cruise], but I would hope that he has the same thing — I know he has the same thing with Katie. You move into a stage where you're able to be a more fuller person in your relationship."

At FWW, we could have told her that.

You learn from the past and snatch those memories and migraines and turn it around. It's called reinvention and is a script worth noting.

In fact, Kidman also discussed what us girls talk about often. Navigating solo after heartbreak can be lonely at first. "I went through this long period of being alone," she concedes. "I was very, very damaged, and I did not want to jump into a relationship because I would have nothing to give, just shreds of what I was."

But time — and girlfriends who've been there, done that — help heal those wounds, and suddenly a cute singer serenades you out of your doldrums and becomes your dream guy. And then, Poof, the science of love, instead of Scientology, creates the magic.

It could be a script right out of her many movies, including the upcoming Australia. Yes, reel life pales in comparison to her real life now. Looking back, Kidman acknowledged that, at one time, "my screen life was far more exciting and beautiful than my real life."

Not anymore.