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What can we learn from serial celebrity break-ups, billionaire bust-ups, misbehaving spouses, pants-on challenged politicos and the ever-shifting landscape of divorce law? Question is, "What CAN'T we learn"? With latte in hand and clicky finger at the ready, dive in for the best in divorce news, views, gossip, and buzz – assembled below for your reading pleasure.

Our current contributors are Jill Brooke, Maureen Dempsey, Naomi Dunn, and Linda Lee.

Faith Eggers's picture

Woman Rails On Ex for All To See

Posted by Faith Eggers on Wed, 04/16/2008 - 10:33am

Tricia Walsh-Smith, the actress and playwright, is using an ingenious, never before seen, method to lash out at her estranged husband Phillip Smith, president of the Shubert Organization, the largest theater owner on Broadway. And the amount of heads she's turning, is nothing short of scary, for us all.

So, what is this new tactic? The answer may not surprise you, its YouTube. Yes, YouTube.

In a furious and stunning video with close to 150,000 hits to date, Tricia rails on her husband. She talks about their prenup and describes herself as an "f'ing idiot", for signing it. She goes into embarrassing details about their sex life, and at one point, with cameras rolling, calls Phillips assistant and fills her in on those details. She talks about how she is being evicted from her apartment, and takes the crew on a tour. She even brings out her wedding album and uses words such as, "evil" and "nasty," to describe her step-daughter and other family members. You can see it for yourself here.

Tricia's divorce attorney, Raoul Felder, called for comment on the video, termed the whole thing "funny, but there's also sadness. This is a victim who is holding her head up. I think she comes off well."

As for Mr. Smith, his office said he had no comment and his lawyers said they didn't, either - "other than that we're kind of appalled."

Click here for more.

How does a man once worth an estimated $10 million find himself broke, in divorce court, donning a jail uniform and begging his ex-wife for money? Well, with any luck, he wouldn't. But it doesn't seem that luck has been on the side of 72-year-old Ronald Miserendino lately.

After leaving his first wife and their six children on the east coast, Miserendino moved to Milwaukee. It was there that he met his second wife, Cynthia Son, when she came and applied for the job of his housekeeper. Within six months they were married and they had three children in four years. Wow, these kids moved kind fast.

In 2001, after 22 years of marriage, Cynthia filed for divorce and that's where Miserendino's problems seem to have began.

He refused to accept the service of his divorce papers, and with the help of his son, Mark, set out to secretly liquidate his company's assets and go underground.

The effort involved taking out a bank loan for $5 million, a $500,000 advance on the company's line of credit, and cashing in Treasury bonds worth more than $10 million, according to court records. Miserendino then gave the $5 million from the bank loan to his son. Mark got smaller cashier's checks and sent them to his father, who was secretly in Hawaii, where his company owned a house and two lots.

The divorce was granted and courts awarded Cynthia $5 million, but the money was gone.

In November 2005, after living with a girlfriend secretly in Hawaii and failing in an attempt at bankruptcy, Miserendino moved back to the mainland, where he was quickly arrested when his federal warrant showed up during a routine traffic stop. He is still awaiting sentencing.

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Faith Eggers's picture

Divorce a "Grave Sin" Says Pope

Posted by Faith Eggers on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 9:25am

During audiences at the Vatican on Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI called divorce and abortion "grave sins" and warned that a "culture of death" may even put the lives of the elderly at risk.

The pope says divorce and abortion harm the dignity of human life, cause suffering to those involved and hurt innocent victims, such as the unborn child or the children of a divorced couple.

He told participants in a Catholic congress that "The ethical judgement of the Church on divorce and abortion is clear and well-known, they are serious offences... which violate human dignity, inflict deep injustice on human and social relations and offend God himself, guarantor of conjugal peace and origin of life."

However, he did add that there were those that have committed such "errors" and have "suffered" from wounds of the soul and sought peace.

"Divorce and abortion are choices....which sometimes develop in difficult and dramatic circumstances... and are a source of profound suffering for those who take such decisions."

He then called on the Catholic church to be merciful to those that have experienced such events.

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Faith Eggers's picture

Divorced Author Begins Book Tour

Posted by Faith Eggers on Wed, 04/02/2008 - 2:00pm

Looking for a good, cathartic read? Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert might be just it. Gilbert's memoir chronicling her year abroad following a painful divorce has become a huge success with more than 1 million copies in print and published in 30 languages.

This is not a huge surprise to us at First Wives World. With all of the divorced men and women out there, why wouldn't this book be a success?

Eat, Pray, Love details Gilbert's journey from a divorce to an enlightened, if more spiritual, place. She spends four months eating in Italy, four months praying and meditating in India, and four months finding a balance in Indonesia.

Gilbert, who begins her first national book tour this Friday in Arizona, says that her book tends to speak to all people, and said, "Even if you're not into the spiritual journey, you can enjoy the pizza."

She says that after her divorce, she desperately need to do what she did in order to "grow up" and get her life "back together."

Sounds like a great idea to me. But according to Gilbert, there are those have disagreed and told her that a year long vacation was nothing but a "selfish escape" from her "romantic failures." What do you think?

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Faith Eggers's picture

Show Him the Money

More husbands seeking alimony

Posted by Faith Eggers on Tue, 04/01/2008 - 8:28pm

Men receiving alimony want a little respect, says the title of an article in today's Wall Street Journal. Its been nearly 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against gender discrimination with regard to alimony, and divorce experts say that fewer and fewer men are outright rejecting any talk of seeking alimony.

In fact, the percentage of alimony recipients who are male rose from 3.6% during the five years ending in 2006, up from 2.4%, in the previous five year period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

They say that percentage is likely to rise as more and more marriages feature a primary earner who is female. In 2005, which is the last year for which data is available, wives out earned their husbands in 33% of all families, up an incredible 28.2% a decade earlier.

Today's men are receiving alimony for the classic reasons that women traditionally do and did. The most common argument: They sacrificed their careers for the sake of their wives'.

Some feminists say that this shows progress of some sort. "We can't assert rights for women and say that men aren't entitled to the same rights," says famous feminist lawyer Gloria Allred.

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Evangelicals Hold the Key to Marriage

Posted by Faith Eggers on Tue, 04/01/2008 - 9:23am

Extra! Extra! Want a better chance at a lasting marriage? Become an Evangelical. According to a new study by The Barna Group, evangelicals are less likely than the overall population to divorce, although one out of every four evangelicals who are or have been married nevertheless have gone through at least one divorce. Compared to about one out of two for the general U.S. population.

The survey was based on a sample of 5,017 adults conducted over a year, from January 2007 through January 2008. Of this sample, 3,792 adults were or had been married.

Christian researcher George Barna said Americans have grown accustomed to divorce and added,"There no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce; it is now seen as an unavoidable rite of passage." And indeed it does.

Barna goes on to suggest that one reason for the shockingly high divorce rate in America is co-habitation. He says that although government statistics have shown that co-habitation increases the likelihood of divorce, it is still growing in popularity.

Why? Barna suggests that America has become an "experimental, experience-driven culture" and rather than learning from the objective and teaching based information, people prefer to follow their instincts and let the chips fall where they may. Personally, I couldn't agree more.

So, what do you have to do to be considered an evangelical by Barna researchers? Click here to read about that, and more.

Faith Eggers's picture

Kimora Lee Simmons Files

Posted by Faith Eggers on Fri, 03/28/2008 - 7:56am

Baby Phat fashion designer Kimora Lee Simmons and entertainment mogul Russell Simmons broke it off two years ago in March 2006, but until recently neither had filed for divorce. They have however moved on, as Kimora has already been dating actor Djimon Honsou for quite some time.

Perhaps it was that fact that finally provoked Kimora to file for divorce on Tuesday in a Los Angeles court.

Kimora and Russell were married for seven years and have two daughters 8-year-old Ming Lee and 5-year-old Aoki Lee. It doesn't appear though that we'll be seeing any Britney vs. K-Fed style custody battles out of these two as in the papers filed she requested that Russell be granted, "reasonable child visitation ... accompanied at all times by the children's nanny and security personnel."

But what have they been doing for the past two years? Click here for more.

Faith Eggers's picture

"Gray Divorces" Replacing Silver Anniversaries

Posted by Faith Eggers on Tue, 03/25/2008 - 1:36pm

Researchers say that the divorce rate for people in their 50's, 60's, and even 70's are increasing at an almost rapid rate and are dubbing these divorces, the "gray divorce" — as opposed to the silver anniversary.

And just when you thought that once you got over that 30-years-of-marriage hurdle you were in the clear. I don't know, I'd still be pretty hard pressed to imagine my grandmother and grandfather calling it quits after so many years of putting up with each other. Why would they?

One researcher suggests that as our life expectancy increases, there are more years to think of "putting up" in an unhappy marriage.

Divorce and family law attorney Carol Lindsay suggests that as a person ages there is a "vague longing." "Mortality is calling," she says, and sometimes people will feel a sense that they've missed out on something and try to make it up.

She does note that these "gray divorces" are sometimes nicer, as older couples will sometimes show "more maturity" and be "graceful" in the way they handle their divorce. Also, rarely are there the gut-wrenching, bitter, custody battles that are so common when younger couples divorce.

So, it seems that we can say again, divorce can effect everyone, divorce doesn't discriminate. Click here for more.

Faith Eggers's picture

Bad Advice For Silda

Posted by Faith Eggers on Sat, 03/15/2008 - 3:00pm

It seems like everybody has got a piece of advice for Silda Spitzer, but I found the advice given by New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams to be shocking.

In an article titled "Stay With Shpritzer, Smart Lady," Cindy Adams said (among other things):

"I want to tell her — so what. She may not longer be New York's first lady, but a husband hooking up with a hooker is not reason enough to no longer be a married lady."

and

"Sex, a primal need, outpoints fear, hunger and love as mankind's No. 1 driving force. Unless you're a pig or a monk, many an able-bodied — and I use that term deliberately — 48-year-old husband of 21 years has grazed. I'm not advocating it. I'm merely saying, so what? It's like takeout food. Less work for mother."

and then added

"Paying a pro isn't disrespect to his wife."

Whoa. I completely disagree. I think that "a husband hooking up with a hooker" is not only enough of a reason, but a fabulous reason to no longer be a married lady. In my book, and I think that a lot of women will agree with me here, it's grounds for instant divorce, no discussions.

And what's with the "so what" attitude? This is a big deal. Infidelity is heartbreaking. I can't believe she is making it seem so trivial. Then comparing hiring a hooker to takeout food?! You know, a lot of married women enjoy having sex. I did. In fact, I don't think I know any who don't. Besides, has anyone here ever spent $80,000 on takeout food?

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Faith Eggers's picture

What About Silda?

Posted by Faith Eggers on Tue, 03/11/2008 - 3:03pm

I opened my front door this morning and was immediately confronted by the newspaper with a headline that screamed "Eliot Mess — Spitzer liaison with prostitute caught on wiretap" with this picture below it.

I can think of quite a few things to say about my feelings on his affair, but for now, I think the papers are covering that quite well. What nobody seems to focus on is his poor wife, Silda. I looked at that photo of her today, and my heart broke. She looks so sad.

Can you imagine for a second how humiliating it must be to be the wife of the Governor that just got busted for prostitution? Talk about no privacy.

I suppose that if she wants someone to talk to, someone who could truly understand her position, she has several options. Starting with Hilliary Clinton. We all remember what she went through with Bill, Monica, and the infamous blue dress.

Then there's Wendy Vitter, wife of David Vitter, a senator in Louisiana, who interestingly enough, had this to say when asked if she would be as forgiving as Hillary were her husband caught having an affair: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary, if he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me." Lucky for David, it seems she changed her mind.

And let's not forget Dina McGreevy, wife of New Jersey Governor James McGreevy, who resigned from his position after announcing that he is gay and was having an affair. They are getting divorced.

It seems that these type of affairs have happened all throughout history, but it also seems that things aren't quite what they used to be, in that people are not as forgiving or as quick to turn their heads.

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