Divorce Lawyers' Guide to Staying Married

Tide Turning Against Gay Marriage in California

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, California's Proposition 8, which would amend California's constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, is gaining ground. The proposition was written in response to the California Supreme Court's split decision in May holding that California's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

When the proposition was first introduced, polls showed that the Proposition was headed for defeat. So what changed? Have California's mainly Democratic voters suddenly become conservative?

As a California resident, I can tell you what has changed.

Pro prop 8 groups recently began running very effective commercials promising that if Proposition 8 fails and gay marriage stays the law of the land, that we can all expect our children to be taught in school that homosexual marriage is a wonderful alternative to heterosexual marriage. Teachers would presumably read their classes books where Prince Henry and Prince Joe marry and live happily ever after.

So while many Californian's believe that gays should be allowed to marry, they don't believe that teachers should teach students that gay marriage is a terrific alternative to heterosexual marriage.

Ready for some irony? Journalists who have looked at the issue don't believe that if Proposition 8 fails that same sex marriage would ever be "taught" in school, but one of the major donors against to the defeat Proposition 8 is California's teacher union!

So what gives?

Great Marriage Articles

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

I came across two great articles on marriage this week.

The first, which appeared in LA Weekly, is cleverly titled "How to Get Divorced by 30" by Sascha Rothchild.
The piece lists every possible red flag that twenty somethings rushing to the alter tend to ignore. And I would like to add one additional sure fire way to make sure that you are not divorced by thirty: don't get married before you are 30!

The second piece is by one of my favorite writers: Dan Neil. (To give you an idea of how obsessed I am with this writer, I read his weekly auto reviews in the LA Times Highway section, and I have ZERO interest in cars.) Yesterday (Sunday), he wrote a very personal piece about his failures and recent success with the institution of marriage for the LA Times Sunday Magazine. For any of you who have gone through difficult divorces and told anyone who would listen that you would NEVER get married again, his piece is a must read!

Walsh-Smith: You Tube Divorce Tactic

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

My favorite part of the ubiquitous You Tube divorce rant of Shubert head Philip Smith's soon to be (second) ex-wife Tricia Walsh-Smith, is that the public got a peek at what divorce attorneys see on a regular basis. The You Tube video made by Walsh-Smith shows all of the emotions frequently associated with divorce: hurt, anger, and vindictiveness.

Her follow-up interview with Good Morning America (where I share some additional thoughts) hardly helped her case.

So what have we learned from Tricia's divorce experiment on You Tube? When you are REALLY angry at a soon to be ex-spouse, call your therapist, rant to your divorce lawyer, cry to your best friend, but DON'T vent on You Tube!

Spying on Spouses Goes High Tech

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

It seems like just yesterday when catching a cheating spouse meant long stake-outs parked in front of a suspected rendezvous spot for hours clutching your 35 millimeter film camera. No more. Today, suspicious spouses are going high-tech. They are tracking their spouses physical movements with GPS devices, and their computer movements with hidden spyware. The New York Sun recently ran a piece detailing the lengths spouses go to catch their loved one in the act.
One woman interviewed for the article, who stashed a GPS device on her soon to be ex-husband's car, credited the device for confirming that her husband was having an affair. She explained, "It's kind of like a MapQuest map-there's a star where you could see him. The addresses don't come up exact, but it was close enough to prove what I wanted to prove. That's how I established that he showed up at 7 at night and stayed til 7 in the morning." According to the "experts" in spousal spying, Valentine's Day and Christmas are prime dates for tracking a wandering spouse since a cheating spouse nearly always connects with their lover on those dates.

I have mixed feelings on spying on your spouse. What do you think?

Living in the Shadow of a Famous Spouse

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

Are you and your spouse on unequal footing career wise?

Although it is rarely discussed, where one spouse has incredible career success during the course of the marriage and the other spouse turns out not to be as successful (or, as is often the case, gave up a career to raise the couple's children) marital problems often arise. The spouse that is not in the limelight often feels insignificant and insecure.

Kay Warren, wife of famous author Rick Warren, has found her own limelight and shares her insights in her new book. Her passion, her "purpose" is helping AIDS victims in Africa. But she has been very candid on various talk shows and in her book about the difficulty of being married to a major personality.

This is what Kay's internationally known husband had to say about marriage compatibility. "I don't believe in the phrase compatibility. I think it's a myth, " said Rick Warren. "I think any two people can be compatible if they just grow up. And a lot of it is plain selfishness: 'I don't want to change.' You know, we say before marriage 'opposites attract,' and then after marriage 'opposites attack.' And so that's what happened with us."

The way that Kay Warren got out of her husband's shadow is that she found her own passion, helping AIDS victims.

If you feel like your marriage is on unequal footing, follow in Kay's footsteps and find your own purpose. Suddenly, you will find yourself marriage equals.

Christianity and Divorce: Are Christians More Open to Divorce?

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq

Many people turn to religion because they think that it will immunize their marriage from divorce. But statistics don't support that premise. A recent article published on Time magazine's online site discusses the state of divorce in the Evangelical Christian world. According to the article, there is a trend in the Christian world to be a little more lenient where divorce is concerned. Where battered women were once told by clergy to return to their abusive husbands, that is less and less the case.

Check out this interesting article on Time the website and the original article in Christianity Today that prompted the discussion.

So, under what circumstances should religious Christians divorce? Adultery? Drug issues? Gambling? Boredom? What do you think?

Giving Up Your Maiden Name

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

For my mother's generation, there was no question that when you married you exchanged your "maiden name" for your husband's last name. That was true even where the woman had a last name that was easy to pronounce and spell, and the husband's last name was let's say "unique." Today, women have many options. Some use their maiden name exclusively; some drop their maiden name and take their husband's name; and others keep their maiden name sort of as a middle name and add their husband's name. Apparently, Eva Longoria has opted for the option of keeping her maiden name and adding her husband's name. Her new full name, she announced, is Eva Longoria Parker.

I noticed that someone VERY famous seems to have also made some changes where her last name was concerned. When Hillary was First Lady and running for Senator of New York she always seemed to be referred to as Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yet, now that she is running for President, she seems to just be "Hillary Clinton." The Rodham seems to have disappeared.

Maybe her strategists have determined that middle America might be ready to break with tradition and vote for a woman for President, but not ready to vote for a woman who kept her maiden name.

Personally, I think that she should keep the Rodham. What do you think?

Ladies....Speak Up....or Have a Heart Attack

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

The front page story in today's Los Angeles Times Health section focuses on the relationship between a wife's health and her method of resolving disputes with her husband. It seems that women who don't get things off their chest end up having bad things happen INSIDE their chest. "Married women who keep silent during marital disputes have a greater chance of dying from heart disease and other conditions than women who speak their minds..."
So what about the guys? Interestly, it seems that the same is not true of men: men who keep disagreements to themselves had the same life expectancy over a ten year period as men who spoke out.
According to Elaine A. Eaker, the lead author of the 10-year study, summed up the results this way: "When in conflict with your spouse, it helps to express yourself."
The article noted that while in general married men and women live longer than single ones (seven years for men, two years for women), "marital discord is linked to a higher risk of recurrent heart attack in women 30 to 65 and the severity of congetive heart failure in male and female patients."
So ladies, next time that you speak your mind remembering you are not only benefiting your relationship; you are benefiting your health.

Divorce and Older Marriages

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

In the "old" days, "young" marriages-those less than ten years old-were more vulnerable to divorce than older marriages. It seemed that if you made it past those earlier years, you and your spouse were sure to spend your golden years together. However, according to recent census data, your marriage is not innoculated from divorce simply because you have been married for a long time. The New York Times analyzed the census data and noted that "among Americans married in the 1950s, about 70 percent were still married by their 25th anniversay. Only 49.5 percent of men and 46.4 percent of women who married in the 1970s were married 25 years later. In a USA Today article on the same topic, Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University says "Lots of divorces are occurring after the first decade of marriage. It's not the case that if you make it throuh the first 10 years, your marriage is divorce-proof."
The newly released Census information is based on detailed marital responses from 2004 of 27,000 men and 32,000 women as part of its periodic Survey of Income and Program participation.
The census information leaves no doubt that marriages are not innoculated from divorce after the ten year mark-couples are vulnerable to divorce throughout their marriage.
The bottom line? If you want to stay married, you need to be as viligant in watching for the symptoms of divorce in the later years of your marriage as you were in the early years.

Do High Real Estate Values Cause Divorce?

By Wendy Jaffe, Esq.

A great piece on the marital cost of high real estate values was reprinted on Chicagotribune.com. The article includes interviews of divorce attorneys, economists, and recently divorced couples who attribute the recent run-up in real estate values, especially in places like Manhattan, with a means to let less than happy married couples out of their marriage.

One woman who was interviewed for the piece traded in her mansion for her freedom. "Money is freedom" she said, "I don't need the mansion. We made enough money to be able to get divorced and suport two households."

And economists have studied the issue.

"Even though divorce rates are declining overall, as far back as 1977, the economist Gary Becker showed that couples experiencing any unexpected, drastic rise in net worth are at risk of divorce. (The same holds true for a drastic decline in net worth.)"

"Becker, who won a Nobel Prize in 1982, also explored in his divorce study the economic argument for what many people call trading up, or finding a trophy spouse. Noting that 75 percent of men and more than 70 percent of women remarry within 15 years of a divorce, he found that divorced men with higher earnings have the greatest likelihood of remarrying."

"This implied, in his view, that men who have come into wealth have an incentive to divorce because they believe they could better their situation. 'They feel, given their status now, they can find other people of a type that appeals to them more than when they got married, he said in a telephone interview.'"

Much of this is in line with what divorce attorneys told me when I wrote The Divorce Lawyers' Guide to Staying Married. Drastic changes, up OR down, in marital wealth often leads to divorce. It is nice to have a Nobel Prize winner second that opinion.