Divorce

Men write on Reddit of the moment they knew their marriage was over

Published on: September 4, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m not getting along with my husband. We’ve been married two weeks and it was a mistake. Can’t I just get an annulment?”

Last Tuesday, men who had divorced their wives provided, via the online sharing site Reddit, a post-mortem on their marriages, divulging for the virtual world the moment they knew their martial bonds were strained to the point of no return. Their stories may be enlightening to couples—women in particular—who fear they are headed for divorce.

The Huffington Post found some common themes in the men’s tales. Trust was a common issue, or rather distrust. One man wrote that in order to rebut his wife’s constant accusations that he was cheating on her, he photographed street signs on his 25-minute journey home from work, to establish a timestamp of the entire route. Finally, he said, he just left his wife.

Another man wrote that he knew it was over when he became indifferent to his wife’s “long and frequent infidelities.” When the anger stopped, the man realized he could focus on planning an end to his “toxic marriage.”

Men have long been accused of being bad at sharing their feelings. When one man revealed to his wife that he felt hopeless and depressed and described his condition “as an existential crisis,” however, his wife laughed in his face. The wife may have thought the man was joking, but the man was serious. “I realized I didn’t really matter to her,” he said.

Polygamy ban upheld, but “Sister Wives” can still cohabit, call themselves “married”

Published on: September 2, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”

Stars of the TLC reality show “Sister Wives” can return to their home state of Utah and live together without the fear of prosecution by the State for polygamy. Stars Kody Brown, Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown and Robyn Sullivan left their home while the suit was pending after “repeated” violations of their constitutional rights and “years of criminal investigation and public accusations,” according to their attorney.

The Browns sued Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Utah County Attorney Jeffrey R. Buhman in 2011. In their complaint, the Browns acknowledged that only Kody and Meri Brown were legally married, and that the family did not hold multiple marriage licenses. Instead, “they call themselves a family in the eyes of their church.”

In their complaint, the Browns alleged that Utah’s criminal bigamy law criminalized “not just polygamous marriages but also an array of plural intimate relationships and associations of consenting adults.” They asked a federal district court to enjoin Utah’s enforcement of “laws banning and criminalizing polygamy.”

Utah statute Section 76-7-101 made a person “guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife,” marries “or cohabits with another person.”

Elder law clinic confirms spike in elder divorces, explores causes

Published on: August 26, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”

Larry Weiser, the director of Gonzaga University’s Elder Law Clinic, says all of the sudden, he is seeing older people wanting to divorce their spouses. The sharp rise in people aged 60 and up seeking low-cost legal advice for divorces is like nothing he has seen in 33 years at the clinic. Divorce requests in the Elder Law Clinic have tripled in the first seven months of 2014 alone.

Weiser and others at the clinic are scratching their heads. What is causing an apparent increase in older Americans seeking divorce? Weiser told the Spokane, Washington-based Spokesman-Review that the issues underlying divorce cases handled in the Elder Law Clinic are frequently domestic violence or situations in which “the marriage has been over for a long time.” Weiser said many couples seeking divorce have lived in the same home for years, but have been living separate lives, in effect, under the same roof. In other cases, one spouse left the home years ago, and now the parties are formally ending their relationship for, if nothing else, peace of mind.

However, Weiser said, in many other cases, the same common issues that plague younger couples cause older couples to seek divorce. Older couples struggle with domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and gambling. They deal with marital strain brought on by financial difficulties, medical issues and strain brought on by family members—including children or step-children—who don’t support their parents’ marriage. This latter factor, Weiser said, is especially true in divorces in which one or more spouse is ending a second marriage.

Special considerations for couples older than 50 divorcing

Published on: August 21, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” Is there some property that the judge cannot divide?”

It used to be that if a couple made it far enough down the road of marriage, they’d be especially likely to stick it out, literally, until death forced their parting. A quarter century ago, just ten-percent of divorces in the United States involved divorcees who were over the age of 50. Now that figure is 40 percent, according to researchers at Bowling Green State University. That amounts to more than 600,000 divorces involving over-50 divorcees in 2010 alone.

Many couples—or perhaps one-half of couples—know they want a divorce long before taking the proverbial plunge. One 53-year-old divorcee, interviewed by Yahoo Finance, said she knew she wanted to get divorced years ago, when her 19-year-old daughter was still a toddler. Her daughter required day-to-day medical care, and the woman did not believe she could care for her on her own. She waited until her husband retired so that she could collect some of his pension.

Divorcing late—or later—in life raises some unique issues for potential divorcees. Certified planner Jean Ann Dorrell cautions those nearing or passing the half-century age to consider the challenging financial and other issues such divorcees may face.

One common issue is who gets the house? Many young couples may not own real estate; many older couples do. An investment in real estate is usually a couple’s largest, and the investment involves more than numbers. It is a home where children may have been raised, where the best (and worst) of times may have occurred, where someone has fled for years for comfort from the so-called slings and arrows of life. Can a couple facing divorce work together to sell the house and divide the proceeds? If one spouse decides to let the other spouse keep the house, who pays the mortgage? These are issues that need to be addressed.

Most marriages are happy and divorce rate is closer to 20 percent, says author

Published on: August 19, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m not getting along with my husband. We’ve been married two weeks and it was a mistake. Can’t I just get an annulment?”

Sometimes what “they” say is not good enough because “they”—whoever “they” are–don’t have the facts. One thing “they” have always said about divorce in the United States is that Christians are just as likely to divorce as unbelievers.

“They” were wrong.

Harvard-trained researcher and author Shaunti Feldhahn has released a book in which she debunks some commonly held myths about divorce and divorce rates in the United States. The book is titled The Good News About Marriage: Debunking Discouraging Myths about Marriage and Divorce.

Feldhahn got the idea to write the book eight years ago when she asked her assistant to locate some reliable divorce statistics for an article she was writing. After searching, both Feldhahn and her assistant concluded that there weren’t “any real numbers.” They spent the next several years digging through “[t]remendously complicated, sometimes contradictory research to find the truth.”

19-year-old says she is remarrying her 54-year-old ex-husband

Published on: August 12, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What does uncontested divorce mean?”

Consenting to your wife’s divorce so that she can go “experience other men” may not seem like a normal thing to do, but little in the now-rekindled romance between 19-year-old Courtney Stodden and 54-year-old Doug Hutchison has been “normal.”

Hutchison is billed in media reports as a “star” of the 1999 film The Green Mile, a film that also featured Oscar winners and nominees Tom Hanks, James Cromwell and the late Michael Clarke Duncan. He met the “fame-hungry” Stodden when the then-16-year-old signed up for Hutchison’s online acting workshop. After courting online for several months, the pair met in person and, soon after, married. At the time of their Las Vegas marriage, Hutchison was 51 and Stodden just 16.

The marriage brought the pair more publicity than any acting gig for either party before or since. They parlayed the publicity into a reality television show about their romance. Stodden’s stint on Celebrity Big Brother U.K. left her feeling “strong and independent” and, according to reports, interested in other men. Hutchison appeared to observe that sage quote, from writer Richard Bach: “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were.” He let Stodden go, sort of.

Stodden said she was aiming for younger men in her “sow the wild oats” stage, telling TooFab last year that “people say age is just a number and I said that also and obviously age isn’t just a number. I’m excited to taste new things.” Stodden and Hutchison announced their split in a joint statement, saying they would share custody of their dog, Dourtney.

Study tries to explain why marriages with first-born daughters more often end in divorce

Published on: July 24, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “My wife and I are not getting along If I leave the house, can she get me for abandonment?”

The least complicated—and least controversial—aspect of a new study of possible causes of divorce is the recitation of a long-recognized statistical truth that marriages featuring first-born daughters are more likely to end in divorce than those featuring first-born sons. The recent study—by Duke University researchers Amar Hamoudi and Jenna Nobles—pushed back the clock, so to speak, to try to explain the disparity.

The study by Hamoudi and Nobles expands on the widely-accepted concept that girls and women of all ages are more likely than boys or men to make it to their next birthday. This concept is known as the “characteristic female survival advantage.” While this survival advantage has been well documented outside of the womb, Hamoudi and Nobles studied what happens inside the womb—all the way back to the moment of fertilization.

The researchers found evidence suggesting that female embryos are better able to withstand maternal stress in utero than male embryos. A female fetus, therefore, is more likely to make it to birth than a male counterpart whose mother is experiencing relationship stress. The researchers studied data from the 1979-2010 National Longitudinal Study of Youth. From the study, they deduced that couples who argued frequently during a pregnancy were more likely to have a firstborn daughter than a son. Males are less likely to survive the stressful atmosphere in utero.

Hamoudi said the research neither proves that daughters cause divorce nor that they do not cause it. Instead, he cautioned those who would draw hasty conclusions from the statistical correlation between firstborn daughters and divorce. Many people have suggested that girls, by their nature, have a negative impact on the stability of their parents’ unions. Hamoudi said his study should put an end to that assumption.

Correlation found between social media usage and divorce; causation not established

Published on: July 22, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m not getting along with my husband. We’ve been married two weeks and it was a mistake. Can’t I just get an annulment?”

Users have known for months—maybe longer—that Facebook lets you see if any of your friends are registered sex offenders. The Friend Verifier application—used over 8-millions times to date—lets users scroll over their friend lists to find matches with sex offender registries.

Friends like these, right Facebook? What does the social networking site say about people closer than friends, namely spouses? A lot.

Facebook doesn’t yet have an application that can predict whether users’ marriages will end in divorce, but researchers from Boston University’s College of Communication and the Pontifical Catholic University say using Facebook may put users at a greater risk of divorce.

The researchers studied relationships between use of social media sites like Facebook and marital satisfaction by comparing survey data from spouses with divorce statistics from individual states in the United States. The study, they said, could raise profound questions about the impact of social media on day-to-day human behavior.

While researchers stressed that many other factors contribute to individual divorces, they did observe a correlation between spikes in Facebook usage and spikes in divorce rates in state populations. The correlating spikes did not indicate that Facebook caused divorces, but researchers said that seeking to understand the role of Facebook in divorce and martial satisfaction was worthy of further policy-oriented research endeavors by social scientists.

Not all divorces are forever—Lebron remarries his hometown team

Published on: July 15, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How can an attorney help me with my Divorce or Separation in North Carolina?”

When Lebron James announced on live television that he was taking his talents to South Beach, he set off a very public and very intense public firestorm. Cleveland Cavaliers fans burned James’ Cavaliers jersey in the street. Some said if he ever wanted to come back, they wouldn’t take him. It looked to be a very messy and very public divorce.

Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert addressed a letter after James’ announcement to “All of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters” saying Lebron “deserted” Cleveland. He wrote that Lebron’s announcement came after a “several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up.” Cavalier fans did not deserve that “kind of cowardly betrayal,” Gilbert said.

Ouch!

LeBron kicked off his Miami campaign during the “Recovery Summer” with an announcement that he planned to bring as many as eight NBA titles back to South Beach. That was oh-so 2010.

The Heat teams led by LeBron were upset by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 finals, then won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013—true to the form—before being trounced by the San Antonio Spurs in 2014.

Second time around not sweeter for Pamela Anderson, Rick Salomon

Published on: July 8, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”

Unlike the singer in Shalamar’s 1979 hit “Second time around,” Rick Salomon couldn’t make his second marriage to Pamela Anderson “so much better.” Instead, their second marriage appears destined for an ending lacking any Baywatch-esque saving heroics. Anderson filed for divorce from Salomon on July 3.

Anderson and Salomon married the first time around in 2007 in Las Vegas during a 90-minute break between the magic shows Anderson was appearing in at the time. That marriage lasted just two months. Both Anderson and Salomon alleged the marriage had been tainted by fraud.

When an annulment is granted, a marriage is considered, for all intents and purposes, to have never happened. Many annulment cases involve a kind of partner bait-and-switch; one spouse learns the truth about exactly who the other is only after he or she has married. If lies were employed to induce the partner into marrying, those lies can serve as the basis for an annulment.

The reasons underlying the annulment of Anderson’s and Salomon’s first marriage were not made public, however Salomon was no stranger to annulments when he first married Anderson. Former Beverly Hills, 90210 star Shannon Doherty annulled her 2002 marriage to Salomon after just nine months. She married the alleged lothario after just two days of dating.