California Divorce and Family Law

Court Tells Man, Stop Blogging About Your Divorce

A Vermont divorce has turned into a free speech debate, reports The New York Times:

The husband, William Krasnansky, posted what he calls a fictionalized account of the marriage on his blog late last year. His wife, Maria Garrido, complained to the judge overseeing their divorce, who ordered Mr. Krasnansky to take down "any and all Internet postings" about his wife and their marriage pending a hearing next month.

Mr Krasansky claims that this amounts to censorship before publication, a rare violation of the First Amendment. The case is stirring up a major discussion about just what level of online disclosure is permissible under the law.

We believe he should have the right to say whatever he wants and his ex-wife should have the right to sue him for defamation if he says anything on there that is clearly damaging and clearly about her. The judge was out of order in demanding he take down the blog without a hearing.

But have you seen the blog? Omigod. First of all, it's called "LookAtMyPugs's Jurnull." That title should be illegal.

Here's a sample of the "fictional account" contained on the blog:

"What is love?", I hear you ask ... If ever there was a Question For The Ages, that surely is one ... And, since you did ask, Dear Reader, I'll tell you ... Love is that state of Grace in which the happiness of another person is essential to one's own. And love, Dear Reader, is realized and made manifest through acts. And yet there are those who, tragically, are incapable of happiness.

Then it becomes a swirling mass of legal claims, lost money, belittling remarks and photos of two (adorable!) pug dogs. We've witnessed some acrimonious divorces in our time, but this is one bitter divorced guy:

In summation, it can be fairly stated that I did everything both necessary and possible to effect both the pursuit and the furtherance of Ms. Incompetent's client's goals and "life-long dream," that I did so with same ardor as if I had been in pursuit of my own goals and my own "life-long dream," and that I whole-heartedly, selflessly and without reservation supported Ms. Incompetent's client in her pursuit of her goals and of her "life-long dream," regardless that she had already once filed for divorce and regardless that so doing, as noted previously, required I make egregious sacrifices, including but not limited to leaving the city where I had made my home for a quarter of century, this being, at the time, over half my life and, in so doing, that I leave a land where it literally never snows and where the climate is mild year-round for one where the climate may be fairly characterized as semi-arctic for four to five months out of twelve.

Yowza. We don't know why the ex-wife is complaining. This blog seems like a really valuable thing for her. If she ever wonders why they're not married anymore, she can just click the link for a refresher course.
Read it all at AOL.

'Tis the divorce season

Divorce attorneys say January is one of the busiest months for filings

For many couples, New Year's Day inspires the need to begin a new life -- by filing for divorce.

January, according to several divorce attorneys interviewed by the Advance, is the highest divorce-filing month.

"It's the month for people who deferred things over the holidays -- either because they don't want to spoil the family's celebrations, or because they feel they will be able to work things out over the holidays," said divorce attorney Jay S. Baum, based in New Dorp.

But after the new year, the same marital problems are still there -- and holiday bills become due, which also exacerbates existing tensions, Baum said.

Manhattan-based divorce attorney Andrea Vacca has found, "The most popular month for people to call a divorce lawyer to start the process of separating or divorcing is definitely the month of January.

"I think it's caused by a combination of people waiting to get through the holidays without causing too much upset for their families, as well as making New Year's resolutions for themselves that they will not spend another year in a bad marriage," Ms. Vacca said.

Divorce lawyer James Stewart, whose articles have appeared in The Times of London, noted that Christmas often highlights the flaws in a relationship.

"Extra time together can force problems that already exist in the relationship to come to a head," Stewart said. As a result, many people are driven to file a divorce in January, after the holiday season. In fact, yesterday marked "D-Day" -- "Divorce Day" -- in England, as more divorces are expected to be filed on Jan. 7 there than on any other day of the year.

However, according to DivorcesYourself.com, an Internet company based in Olympia, Wash., January ranks second as the month when most divorces are filed, while June is No. 1.

"In our experience, people seem to decide to act upon a decision to divorce more frequently in June, after school lets out," said a spokesman for the company. "We believe that many couples with children want to get through the current school year before undertaking the major life changes associated with divorce. Acting in June affords parents and children the summer months to adjust to new life circumstances."

Dongan Hills-based divorce attorney Anne-Louise DePalo noted that research she did at the Richmond County Clerk's office last year tied a higher-than-average surge in divorce filings to New Year's resolutions.

While January has a higher than average number of filings, "the highest number occurs in the summer months, especially in July, perhaps because children are out of school and summer is a time people usually slow down and have a chance to think, as well as having more time to follow through," Ms. DePalo said.

Read more in the Staten Island Advance.

Unhappy holidays: Start of divorce season

Maybe it's the most wonderful time of the year.The day after Thanksgiving, the first prayer I say is, 'I wish it were January 2nd,'" sighs John Mayoue.

The new Grinch? Nah. Just a lawyer (no, they're not the same thing) who's famously discreet about his famous clientele. So don't expect juicy tidbits about the high-stakes unhitchings of Jane Fonda, David Justice or Marianne Gingrich (ex-Mrs. Newt No. 2) to surface in the Atlanta attorney's new book.

Instead, "Protecting Your Assets From A Georgia Divorce" (PSG Books, $19.95) is aimed squarely at the local Everyman and woman. From choosing the right lawyer to understanding how a "fair" settlement isn't necessarily an "equal" one, the book is a comprehensive, somewhat cautionary primer for Georgians considering or already in the process of divorcing.

Unfortunately, its arrival may be a case of perfect timing. An eyepopping number of marriages find the proverbial lump of coal in their stockings in December, says Mayoue, who evinces little cheer in making that statement. During a conversation in his Vinings office recently, Mayoue — who is donating all author royalties to Camp Sunshine, an Atlanta-based facility for children with cancer and their families — discussed divorce at the holidays and beyond in Georgia.

Q: If everyone reads your book, couldn't you possibly put yourself out of business here? Why take that risk?

A: I really do think that we lawyers have an obligation to educate the public. And it seems to me to be not very good consumerism to walk into a lawyer's office knowing absolutely nothing, before paying someone several hundred dollars. I've always found it peculiar that people do not get educated in a legal matter that affects 50-plus percent of all people who get married. Yet if you had an illness, you would certainly read up about it, if you had a business you were interested in getting involved in, you would certainly read about it.

Q: Still, most divorcing people will need a lawyer's services whether they end up going to trial or not. Is settlement what you're always working towards?

A: Always. Every lawyer I know is going to make every reasonable effort to get a case settled first. Because settlement is something that the parties can control — they can basically control things such as custody, visitation and the allocation of assets and debts. And the courtroom is a risky environment for anyone. What's different in particular about Georgia is that we are the only state that continues to have jury trials in divorce cases.

Q: What are the pluses and minuses of that?

A: To me, jury trials are the great equalizers. Judges, just like any person, tend to have tendencies or biases. My experience with juries is they tend to be enormously fair, and that's all you can ask for. [But] it can be a bad thing for people who watch too much television, because they believe the jury is going to stand up and say, "You were the wonderful spouse and the other spouse was the lousy one!" They may say that indirectly in how they allocate assets, but they don't ever say it explicitly.

Q: What else distinguishes Georgia when it comes to divorce?

A: You can get divorced [here] in 30 days. In some states like New York, they have a 1-year waiting period. ... Georgia ranks in the Top 5 states in terms of our divorce rates. Nevada, of course, is the leader, but the next four states are all Southern states. We're the church-going region, according to what polls show, yet our divorce rates are higher than the rest of the country by far. In fact, the great irony is that the state that brought us Teddy Kennedy and legalized gay marriage has the lowest divorce rate in this country. And so we Georgians need to be careful about throwing stones at the rest of the country.

Q: Doesn't divorce at least take a holiday this month along with the rest of us?

A: It's actually the start of the season. People have these pent-up thoughts about relationships and careers and where they are with life. It's just a very difficult time for people.

Q: Is it something in the eggnog?

A: Thanksgiving, Hannukah and Christmas, I believe, bring out the worst in many people — particularly people that are in troubled relationships. For some reason at this time of year, we use the holidays as a benchmark, and I think it's extraordinarily unhealthy to do so. In December, for example, we have the highest number of suicides, divorce filings and bankruptcies of any month.

Q: Can the holiday season push some people to think about divorce when they might not have otherwise?

A: Absolutely. One of the biggest things that aggravates people during the holidays is the expenditure of family resources: Do we have to have a Christmas where little Johnny and Mary get every new electronic device out there? Are we going to borrow against our home in order to spend lavishly on our friends and relatives? What kind of holiday we're going to have is sort of analogous to what kind of marriage we're going to have. Christmas is becoming incredibly lavish for people, and social scientists will tell you that 90 percent of the root of marital trouble is money.

Q: What about people who wait to file for divorce so as "not to ruin the holidays?"

A: I think it is a good philosophy when it involves children. When you have children who are the victims of these cases and they're thinking the wonderful thoughts we all thought of Christmas, Hannukah and New Year's when we were young — it's absolutely devastating to explain to a child during this time of year that not only is Santa not coming, but that Mommy and Daddy are divorcing. Yet there are some people that feel very justified in doing so. I'm not trying to be self-righteous or to criticize them. If they come in and say, 'Look, I'm determined,' what we say is at least go see a child psychologist and discuss how you will tell your children. And oftentimes that will persuade them that at least they should wait, or perhaps they shouldn't do it at all.

Q: So if someone walks into your office in December talking divorce, one of your questions is "Why now?"

A: Always. Many people cannot be talked out of doing it now and that's certainly their choice. But we do try to tell people that it probably is not the best time to add another level of stress to their lives. Often they will have very firm convictions as to "why now."

Q: Which is?

A: It's almost a prelude to the New Year's resolution.

This Q&A from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Divorce Squanders Earth's Resources

Divorce leaves more than a trail of legal documents, stinging egos and uprooted kids. The split-ups wreak havoc on the environment.

A global trend of soaring divorce rates has led to a surge in the number of households with fewer people. The result: We collectively devour more space and gobble up more energy and water, say the authors of a new study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.            

"Not only the United States, but also other countries, including developing countries such as China and places with strict religious policies regarding divorce, are having more divorced households," said co-author Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University. "The consequent increases in consumption of water and energy and using more space are being seen everywhere."

The study gives the down and dirty truths on exactly how much of Mother's Nature's resources go down the tubes when unions are severed. But the remedy for such "squander" is made for TV: Fall back in love, or at least cohabitate.

Dirty divorce

Past research by Liu and his colleagues, published in 2003 in the journal Nature, revealed globally the number of households increased more rapidly than actual population growth between 1985 and 2000. "Even in areas with declining population size, we still see a dramatic increase in the number of households," Liu told LiveScience.

Liu and Michigan State colleague Eunice Yu thought divorces could perhaps reconcile the anomaly. They analyzed global household data for both divorced and married homes in 12 countries between 1998 and 2002. The countries included the United States, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, South Africa, Greece and Cambodia, among others.

Though China wasn't included due to lack of relevant data, the authors suggest the same trend occurs there. "Even in China, where divorce was traditionally uncommon, divorce rates have recently surged," they write. They add that 1.9 million Chinese couples divorced in 2006, compared with 1.6 million in 2004.

Results showed on average there were 27 percent to 41 percent fewer individuals living in divorced households compared with married ones. Between 1998 and 2002, divorces in the 12 countries studied accounted for 7.4 million extra households.

In 2000, divorced households ranged from 16 million (15 percent of the total households) in the U.S. to 40,000 divorced households in Costa Rica, or about 4 percent of the total.

Environmental footprint

No matter how many people live in a home, the extra house itself requires resources to construct it and takes up space. It requires fuel to heat and cool. A refrigerator uses roughly the same amount of energy whether it belongs to a family of four or two, as an example.

Analysis of U.S. data for 2005 showed that divorced households used an extra 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water compared with married households.

The researchers also compared married households in the United States with households that had weathered divorce and remarriage: The environmental footprint rose, then shrank back to that of married households.

Other lifestyle trends that impact family living structures include the demise of multigenerational households, and people remaining single longer, the researchers concluded.

The results, Liu said, indicate another lifestyle trend needs to be taken into consideration in environmental strategies.

"People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered," Liu said.

Via Yahoo and LiveScience.

Evangelicals shift toward acceptance on divorce

When Pentecostal power couple Randy and Paula White recently announced they were headed to divorce court, the most remarkable part of the reaction was that there wasn't much reaction at all.

For increasing numbers of clergy, a divorce no longer generates the kind of career-killing hue and cry of decades ago, in part because plenty of people in the pews have experienced divorce themselves.

The shifting views on divorced clergy reflect a growing concession among rank-and-file conservative Christians that a failed marriage is no longer an unforgivable sin.

For many evangelical Christians, the line seems to have shifted from a single acceptable reason for divorce — adultery — to a wider range of reasons that some say can be biblically justified.

"I am probably one of those evangelicals who would say it would be three A's for me," said Chris Bounds, a theologian at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind. "Abuse, abandonment and adultery."

With the Whites' breakup, Randy White now leads the Without Walls International Church in Tampa, and Paula White remains prominent in Christian broadcasting. Not long after they announced their divorce, Atlanta evangelist Juanita Bynum filed for divorce from her husband, Bishop Thomas Weeks III, after he allegedly assaulted her in a hotel parking lot.

Beyond the church, polls by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press indicate the divorce records of GOP presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain have not hindered their popularity among white evangelical voters.

Christianity Today, a magazine that often serves as a barometer of evangelical culture, published an October cover story called "When to Separate What God Has Joined," in which David Instone-Brewer, a senior research fellow at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England, concluded that adultery, physical and emotional neglect, abuse and abandonment are all biblically justified reasons for divorce.

Mark Galli, the magazine's managing editor, said there is a simultaneous rejection of divorce in principle but acceptance in practice, in part because almost everyone knows someone who's been there.

"I think conservative Christians are becoming more liberalized in the sense of, I guess, making more room for the acceptance of divorce and remarriage," he said. "You'll see a lot of churches that plunge right in and have divorce ministries. ... Marriage is a really difficult thing in our culture right now."

But the reaction to Instone-Brewer's article reflected a lingering discomfort with divorce; Galli estimated that 60% of responding readers had a negative reaction. Prominent author John Piper responded that he found Instone-Brewer's reasoning "tragic" and an "astonishing extension of the divorce license."

Statistics bear out that divorce affects conservative Christians just as much as anyone else. A study this year by The Barna Group, a California research firm, showed that 27% of "born-again"

Christians have been divorced, compared to 25% of non-born-again Americans. In 2005, Phoenix-based Ellison Research found that 14% of clergy have been divorced; the vast majority have remarried.

Paula White, in a recent interview, declined to go into detail about her divorce, but stood by statements in her new book "You're All That!"

that God can mend any relationship "if both persons are willing to come into alignment with his principles." She added that no other person's love can be completely fulfilling.

"In fact, I say a healthy relationship is, 'I am free to be me, you are free to be you, and together, we're us,'" she said. "So no one in life can complete you. Nothing can complete you. Only God can absolutely complete you."

Last month, Bynum said her recent marital strife may actually expand her ministry's outreach.

"I believe it will absolutely, positively broaden my ability to reach people that probably would not ever have come to a church," she said at an appearance in Birmingham, Ala. "I'm able to teach on the subject of suffering with experience behind it."

J. Lee Grady, the editor of charismatic and Pentecostal magazine Charisma, said Bynum may have generated a "sympathy factor" because of the alleged abuse, but the Whites are more unusual because there has been no clear biblical reason given for their split.

That leads to a concern by some in charismatic and Pentecostal circles that people can "just flippantly get divorced like you go get a haircut," he said.

The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, recently changed its rules to say that a marriage crisis should not permanently disqualify someone from ministry. The church voted this summer to permit remarried ministers if their divorce occurred because their spouse was unfaithful or was an unbeliever who abandoned them.

Still, the church does not allow divorced ministers to serve under all circumstances. "We have not permitted credentialing for those who simply do not get along with one another," said the Rev. George O. Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God. "We feel that would be a scriptural violation."

Bishop Noel Jones, a divorced Pentecostal pastor in Gardena, Calif., who counts the Whites, Bynum and Weeks as friends, said judgment should be withheld from both high-profile clergy and everyday worshippers going through a divorce.

"I think that in Christian circles, people are more relaxed about the reasons," said Jones, a spokesman for FaithMate, an online Christian dating service. "I still think that divorce is pretty much a difficult subject for anybody — and rightfully so, but ... we allow more rules, more worldly concepts to prevail."

From USA Today.

Man 'torched £350,000 home to stop his wife getting it in divorce'

A furious husband burnt down his £350,000 home to stop his wife receiving it in a divorce settlement, a court heard.

Gary Hooley, a builder, had previously threatened to "knock the house down brick by brick" during one of many heated rows with his wife Michelle.

With the short marriage heading for divorce, he set fire to the house they shared in a callous act of retribution committed while drunk, Sheffield Crown Court was told.

The detached dormer bungalow, which 50-year-old Hooley had extensively renovated inside, was largely gutted and almost all possessions were destroyed in the arson attack in February this year.

No one was inside at the time of the late-night blaze.

Mrs Hooley owned the home, which was hers from a previous marriage and was in her name. She insured it and was paying the mortgage. Her contents insurance included expensive jewellery and 70 pairs of shoes.

Iain Hillis, prosecuting, said: "It may be he realised his marriage was over and wanted to destroy the house."

Police arrested Hooley nearby, sleeping in the front seat of his van.

Hooley, who denies arson, drank eight or nine pints of beer that night. He told police he had nothing to do with the fire and someone else must have started it.

The couple, who had known each other since school, had been going out for two years before getting married.

But it was far from wedded bliss and they agreed on a trial separation last July. After four months apart they agreed to try again, but it did not work.

Asked in court about the state of the marriage at the time of the fire, Mrs Hooley, 49, said: "I think it was just about on its last legs."

Mr Hillis asked her if she wanted to stay married to Hooley. She replied: "No."

The fire happened after the couple had gone to a 50th birthday party for a female friend of Mrs Hooley's in a pub near their home in Barnsley.

Mrs Hooley said her husband had been in a bad mood all evening and they argued when he ignored her request to watch her handbag when she went for a dance.

Although he calmed down when they danced together, he remained "very offhand" and "snappy".

When she told him she could do no right in his eyes, he pushed over a table of drinks and said: "I'm out of here." He told his wife: 'I'm going to have you brick by brick."

She did not feel like going home and stayed with a friend - only to be awoken by a call from the police in the early hours saying her house was on fire.

Mrs Hooley, an adviser for an energy company, said all her clothes and sentimental items were destroyed.

The marital bed and bedroom were burned to a cinder.

Her daughter from a previous relationship, Lauren Hooson, and Lauren's boyfriend, who both lived in the upstairs half of the house, were out at the time. Two dogs were rescued from the blaze.

Under cross-examination by Ian Storey, defending, Mrs Hooley said the marriage had been "full of quarrels". In one earlier row Hooley allegedly told her: "I will bulldoze the house down brick by brick."

And the court heard that when Hooley temporarily moved out in July last year he had asked for his property and she refused to hand it over.

Mrs Hooley admitted her husband's personal belongings had gone up in smoke in the blaze as well as hers, but she denied a defence claim that Hooley had made £50,000 of improvements to the house.

Asked if she was convinced he had started the fire, she said: "I am, yes."

Her father, Trevor Carr, told the court the police rang him to say the house was on fire. He rang Hooley and said: "Do you know your house is on fire?"

Hooley allegedly replied: "So what. It's nothing to do with me." Asked where he was, Hooley said: "I can't tell you that."

The trial continues.

This story from This London.

Celebs Play Hardball During Divorce, Custody Battles

High-Profile Couples Will Do Anything to Come Out on Top, Lawyers Say

Celebrities know how to play hardball — especially when it comes to divorce and custody battles. From Alec Baldwin's bitter divorce from Kim Basinger, to Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's courtroom drama, Hollywood is no stranger to the marital woes of the rich and famous.

And the latest high-profile split to splash headlines — that of former Beatle Paul McCartney and his ex-wife Heather Mills — is, so far, proving to be just as nasty, just as manipulative and just as newsworthy as its predecessors.

Mills, who did the rounds on British and American talk shows earlier this month, told "Good Morning America's" Diane Sawyer that she has considered suicide because of the negative media attention — she said she has been called a "whore" — and that she fears for her safety.

Mills is asking McCartney for his U.K. estate, because, she says, the home's extra security will protect her and the couple's 4-year-old daughter, Beatrice.

But according to the U.K.'s News of the World, McCartney isn't going down without a fight.

He told the publication that if Mills fears so much for her life — as she has told the press several times — Beatrice will be safer with him. McCartney now seeks full custody of his daughter.

While several divorce lawyers told ABCNEWS.com that divorce proceedings can get ugly, whether you're famous or not, many agreed that the games celebrities play, when money and children are at stake, are truly eye-opening.

Nanny Becomes Character Witness

"Celebrity divorces are uglier, in the sense that the whole world is looking at them," said Raoul Felder, a New York-based celebrity divorce lawyer. "They have money to indulge in terms of paying lawyers and getting experts to come in. Celebrities are bottomless pits of money, combined oftentimes with limited IQs."

Embarrassing their one-time significant other, Felder told ABCNEWS.com, is a commonly used tactic by celebrities during their divorce proceedings.

More at ABC News.

Making Divorce As Painless As Possible

If you believe that a bad marriage will somehow make a good divorce, you’re dreaming.

Worse, you’re unprepared for what’s ahead: The most wretched period of your life.

“It’s easy to hide assets, especially if the divorce turns nasty, so be prepared,” says Christina Rowe, author of Seven Secrets to a Successful Divorce. “Know your financial situation. It’s easy to let one spouse or the other handle the finances during the marriage, but if you’re getting a divorce, you’re headed for serious trouble if you don’t know what your assets are.”

It’s easy to torture your ex in court – all it takes is a dash of imagination, an unhealthy dose of viciousness and buckets of bucks. Remember: Your attorney has a vested interest in litigating all things petty and stupid and will be more than happy to help you make a fool of yourself while running up the bill.

Divorce isn’t, or shouldn’t be about reprisal that quickly morphs into a form of insanity. Set your emotions aside because divorce is a simple division of assets. The law and the numbers are straightforward. The issues become complicated only when emotion overwhelms reason.

Most people want just one thing in a divorce: out of a dead relationship. But don’t let your eagerness to move on obscure the need to nail down the basics. Personal finance is fertile ground for shenanigans in the hands of a vindictive ex. Here are some basic steps to limit the mischief:

• Locate, organize and copy all financial records. Make one copy for yourself and a second for your attorney. Save the originals.
• Close all joint bank and brokerage accounts. If that’s not possible, freeze access to the accounts.
• Close all joint credit accounts. Open new accounts in your own name.
• Maintain a written record of all expenses run up during the separation. This also includes joint expenses such as bills paid and home improvements or auto maintenance.
• Establish your net worth. Keep a record of all income during the separation. Save pay stubs, bank and brokerage statements.
• The forced sale of stock or other investments is likely to have tax implications. Consult your financial planner as needed.
• Before the settlement conference, make a list of what you seek right down to household goods.
• If there’s something you know your soon-to-be ex wants in the property settlement, don’t give it away in a hopeless effort to establish goodwill. Use it as a bargaining chip and trade it for something you want.
• Settle out of court. This will cut legal costs and ease your jangled nerves.

Divorce is governed by state law and the details may vary slightly from state to state. However, there can be wide differences in the interpretation of the law among judges in the courthouse, so ask around about the attitude and temperament of various judges toward men and women, alimony or joint custody.

But keep in mind that most divorce attorneys regularly appear in court and will be reluctant to disqualify a judge because they’ll be back with another case tomorrow. However, if you have good reason to believe that a judge can’t be impartial, insist that your attorney file the needed paperwork to get your case transferred to another judge.

You’ve got to nail this down because mere feelings aren’t enough to disqualify a judge from your case.

No attorney can be certain how a judge will rule. A competent attorney will tell you what’s happened in similar cases and will discuss likely outcomes. If your attorney guarantees an outcome, it’s time to get a new lawyer.

Keep discussions with your attorney short and to the point. Remember that your lawyer is an advocate – not your friend and confidant. Most attorneys don’t want to hear the gory details. If you need to talk, see a friend, a member of the clergy or even a psychiatrist, if you can afford it.

Most men want to maintain regular contact with their children and a few want to be the custodial parent. If the kids will live with their mother, she’ll need money to raise them and may need money to cover household expenses until she resumes her career.

Two people who were once close should be able to figure this out. Of course, divorce is rarely that simple but with a little thought you can prevent it from becoming hideously complicated.

Think back to when you met and recall why you flipped for your future ex. You once listened and one of the reasons the marriage failed is probably that you stopped listening and talked past each other. It’s difficult to listen during a divorce, especially if one party is angry or feels betrayed. But there’s great incentive to listen carefully and resolve the divorce quickly: your kids and your wallet.

Read it all at Minyanville.

Separate emotions, assets when facing divorce

Q: My husband and I are divorcing. The prospect frightens me on many levels. What advice do you have for dealing with the financial issues and consequences?

A: When you throw money conflicts in with other marital differences over religion, child rearing, dealing with family, sex and whether to recap the toothpaste tube, reaching an agreement to divorce and divide things financially can cause real fireworks.

Money is intimately connected with divorce. During a divorce, couples often argue over how to divide the assets. After the divorce, divorcees find themselves needing to adjust to a lower household income and reconfiguring their financial plans.

Hard as it may be, one of the keys to having a "financially successful" divorce is not to let your financial issues take a back seat to legal and emotional issues. While both your emotional life and financial life are important, it is vital to keep them separate. If you let your emotions interfere with the financial issues of divorcing, legal bills and frazzled nerves will accumulate.

By separating your emotional lives from your financial lives, a divorcing couple may very well be able to settle out of court. Few people are ever happy with what judges decide; negotiated settlements are usually more palatable. But if you refuse to lay down your swords, such a settlement is not possible.

In addition to keeping your emotions at bay, educate yourself financially. Take a personal-finance course and read some good books. You also might seek financial advice — but be careful. Attorneys generally lack the training and perspective to look at your whole financial picture. Most financial advisers sell products, have other conflicts of interest and have little experience dealing with divorce issues.

Consulting with a tax adviser is worthwhile in some cases, as taxes weigh heavily in some divorce situations. For example, if you have the choice between paying more in alimony or child support, it's useful to know that the former is tax-deductible while the latter is not.

One of the most important exercises for spouses is to analyze their individual spending. Lower-income-earning spouses, who are typically women, face the biggest reduction in their standard of living post-divorce. A budget will help during the divorce to justify requests for alimony or child support, as well as with adjusting to a new financial life after divorce.

Planning for your post-divorce financial life is important. Most divorcees are faced with lower incomes and higher costs of living. The main reason: Living together as a family is usually cheaper per person than maintaining separate households.

Other financial issues must be rethought as well. You might need different insurance coverages and a new investment strategy.

If you're not committed to divorcing, perhaps all this talk of lawyers and becoming a financial and tax expert is daunting. If there's a way to work things out, especially when children are involved, work at making your marriage continue. Consider seeking help from a marriage counselor/psychologist if you can't talk things out yourselves and picking up some good books on the subject.

This Q and A from the Houston Chronicle.

Top 10: Divorce Movies

When I was a little girl, I didn't dream of my wedding day—I dreamed of my divorce day. The courtroom drama! The mysterious status of being a divorcée! Blame excessive consumption of Knots Landing, but there's something very glamorous, ugly, rich and comical about divorce. Take The Heartbreak Kid, opening this weekend, which is about a dude who marries a hot chick and wants out nine seconds later. 

In that way, you'd think it would be easy to make a great divorce movie, but then you see Le Divorce. Still, it's tough to pick just nine marital meltdowns. Which is why you need to make your case for your number 10 pick in the Comments. Court adjourned. Movie time.

1. The Squid and the Whale: Writer/director Noah Baumbach's  entire cast—including you, "my brother," tennis instructor William Baldwin—is perfect. We feel for Jeff Daniels, the philistine-loathing patriarch. But then we feel for Laura Linney, the woman who's given him the boot. Oy, if only it was as simple as good parent versus bad parent. Which is why the conflicted, fascinating, well-drawn kids (Owen Kline and Jesse Eisenberg) suffer the most. 

2. The War of the Roses: So far over the top that you can't even see the top, War is black, bleak, cathartic, funny and necessary viewing for anyone getting caught up in their own separation drama. Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas want to kill each other—and piss in the food, and murder the pets—and naturally, that kind of venom can be self-destructive. Who knew?

3. Kramer vs. Kramer: Wife and mother (Meryl Streep) leaves husband (Dustin Hoffman) to "find herself." Naturally, they both embark on separate but equally harrowing, Academy Award-worthy journeys to self-awareness. It's not just one of the greatest movies of all time, it's an anthropological indictment of the breadwinner/homemaker model that just doesn't fit every single couple.

4. Stepmom: Sure, it's schmaltzy, but how would you feel if you were a supermom (Susan Sarandon) and your hot ex-husband (Ed Harris) was shacking up with a younger photographer (Julia Roberts)? A great setup, indeed, but the story that unfolds does it justice. Yes, we get group sing-alongs via hairdryers, but we also get a touching meditation on the way: While romance ends when you sign the papers, love can stay. 

5. We Don't Live Here Anymore: Why is a wedding ring that signifies someone's unavailability such an aphrodisiac? Andre Dubus' short stories don't offer simple solutions. We just watch two book-smart but emotionally handicapped couples— Mark Ruffalo + Laura Dern and Peter Krause + Naomi Watts—hurt each other. The high-caliber acting, the aching truth that every couple can't make it, Anymore makes lovin' scary.

6. The First Wives Club: Haute white pantsuits, reinvigorated spirit and a new business venture are the best revenge, according to this bright, caustic fairy tale. Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler have all been dumped for younger models. It's here because all divorcées need to remember that taking charge of your life beats the hell out of Ben & Jerry-Oprah marathons. 

7. Irreconcilable Differences: Married people sometimes become a wee bit egocentric. Take Lucy and Albert (Shelley Long and Ryan O'Neal), who are so caught up in their war that they lose sight of their own precious daughter Casey (Drew Barrymore), scarily good here). As we all know, Casey steps up to bat, and she swings her megalomaniac parents out of the park. Well done, kiddo.

8. Closer: Credit playwright Patrick Marber for finding well-known raw nerve endings and making them seem new again. Credit Mike Nichols with getting Julia Roberts to talk explicitly about her lover's, ahem, taste. The magic of that first time you lock eyes with each other can't sustain a marriage, but it sure can do wonders for a film. Not fair, I know. 

9. She-Devil: The story of a large, red-devil housewife (Roseanne Barr) versus a daffy, pink-devil mistress (Meryl Streep) makes this cut because it's a great caveat for the men—and women—who think marriage is a shorthand term for domestic slavery. While it's a hysterical revenge fantasy about a cheating husband, Devil is subversively optimistic about marriage. Husbands, pick up the vacuum. Wives, get that upper lip waxed. Then, you just might make it. 

10. You tell me!  Let it rip. What movie needs to make this list?

Thanks to E Online.