The ceremony may have looked familiar, as friends and loved ones gathered around Saori Teshima and her husband to celebrate a monumental life change. But this wasn’t a wedding. When the ring was displayed, the pair weren’t joined, but separated. They took up a hammer and smashed the ring to bits, completing what is becoming more common in Japan: the divorce ceremony.

Teshima’s marriage was ending in divorce after five years, and the couple decided on the increasingly popular divorce ritual as a way to end their union with the same gusto that marked its beginning, according to an article in the Telegraph.

In these ceremonies, spreading across Japan, couples raise toasts to never having to see each other again, and they take symbolic rides in separate rickshaws to symbolize the new journeys that they will begin alone. As a wedding symbolically represents the union of two people, these divorce ceremonies use a series of gestures that signify the split itself.

There were over 250,000 divorces in Japan in 2008, which experts blame on a down economic climate and the end of an era when salarymen led the conventional family unit and provided the foundation of many aspects of life in Japan.

The divorce ceremonies come at a time when divorce still has a stigma attached to it. They serve to make the divorce agreement public and formal, in a manner that friends and family will find acceptable.

Entrepreneur Hiroki Terai is one founder of the idea of a public divorce ceremony. He came up with the idea when some friends of his had decided to split.

“A ceremony at the end of marriage gives the couple and their friends and family the opportunity to gain emotional closure,” said Terai of his invention.

Since that first ceremony, he has started a company that arranges divorce ceremonies exclusively. He has conducted 21 ceremonies since March, and over 700 people have contacted him about them.

According to Terai, “couples ranging from 21 to 57 have taken part in ceremonies so far. Some wear white dresses, a few opt for cakes, and it’s always very moving.”

Roland Kelts, a Japanese cultural critic at the University of Tokyo, told the Telegraph that the divorce ceremonies were a way for people to adjust to changing family structures in the culture. He cited more worldly family members who found themselves comparing their marriages to wider cultural markers, and the change that comes when men are no longer guaranteed employment security for their entire lives.

Terai, meanwhile, maintains his emotional view of the events that he organizes: “Everyone deserves a fresh new start,” he said. “Two couples actually decided to stay together after the ceremony because it made them realize how much they still cared.”

It’s unclear when these couples made the decision, whether it was during the formal exchange of greetings, or the separate rickshaw drives to Terai’s Divorce Mansion, where the couple play out the symbolic reverse of the trip down to the courthouse.

Aoyama Tsuyoshi, a guest at a recent divorce ceremony, said, “I thought it was a joke when I first received the invitation.”

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

Divorce may be a social contagion that can spread through friends, family and even coworkers, according to a recent study by James Fowler, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, that was posted on CNN.com.

The preliminary findings of the study, which had fellow researchers from Harvard and Brown Universities, indicates that your decision to divorce can sway your friends into divorce as well.

Fowler describes divorce as similar to the flu: “You get a virus and you’re more likely to spread the symptoms to someone else. This is not just true for a virus. This is true for a lot of social behaviors.”

As evidence, Fowler cites a statistic that states that people who had a divorced friend were 147 percent more likely to divorce than people who didn’t have any divorced friends. Even just having a co-worker who divorced increases a person’s likelihood by 55 percent.

Children were capable of making people less susceptible to being influenced into divorcing, according to Fowler’s study.

Fowler follows his disease analogy by saying that “some people can be a carrier of the disease without actually exhibiting the symptoms. They can carry a virus, but they might not get a fever or a cough.”

Fowler illustrated how this divorce “disease carrying” might work by describing how it could work in real life. The article describes this process with an example: “a divorcing person confides in a married friend. The married friend doesn’t opt for divorce, but relays details of the divorce discussion to a third person, influencing that third person in the chain to get a divorce.”

Fowler does caution that the study is not very large, containing only 5,000 data points.

The article uses Fowler’s research to seek insight into the marital difficulties that are plaguing the Gore family.

Recently, former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper announced, much to the nations surprise, that their marriage of 40 years was ending in divorce.

Shortly after this announcement, Karenna Gore Schiff, the couples eldest daughter, announced that she is separating from her husband after 13 years of marriage.

Gore Schiff is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia Law School has three children with Dr. Andrew Schiff. The children would seemingly dilute the effect of the divorce contagion, according to Fowler’s research.

Whether or not the separation of Karenna Gore Schiff and Dr. Andrew Schiff was in any way related to the divorce of Al and Tipper Gore is too difficult to conclude. Fowler has additional research to do in order to solidify his theory. The implications of Fowler’s research are not immediately apparent, but the idea of divorce catching like a cold is a frightening notion. As more research is done, it will be interesting to watch and see what comes out of it.

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

When Julie Chang filed for a divorce from her husband of 13 years, claiming cruelty, it took seven years for the New York courts to let her out of the marriage. According to Chang, those years cost her $40,000, and amounted to “judge-sanctioned harassment.”

“The process of trying to prove fault made an already bad relationship worse,” said Chang, a mother of two, in an article from the Boston Herald. “This whole seven-year process was simply about grounds.”

Now, the law that kept her from getting her divorce granted, the burden of proving
fault in New York State, could be overruled by lawmakers. Every other state in the U.S. has no-fault divorce, but in New York a judge can still only grant a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery, abandonment or a three-year or more prison sentence. When both sides consent to the divorce, they can sign a separation agreement that grants a divorce after a year.

These laws, set in 1966, are now under threat from a bill in the state senate that would allow one spouse in a marriage to opt out of that marriage, just by swearing under oath that the marriage is irretrievably broken down and that it has been for at least six months. Under the new legislation, child support and custody, alimony and property division would need to be resolved already.

Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, a Democrat representing the Bronx and co-sponsor of the bill, said that “the requirement of finding fault is often unfair to children and horrendous for victims of domestic violence trapped in abusive marriages with no way out without the consent of the abuser.”

The battle that the new legislation faces is far from a sure thing, however. Advocates for women’s rights have found themselves contending with advocates for victims of domestic violence. The National Organization for Women, for example, says that the bill would make it easier for judges to ignore documented cruelty cases, and make it easier for men with money to hide their assets and leave women poorer.

In a rare occurrence, the Catholic Church and NOW find themselves on the same side of the issue. That church cited the bad message that the bill might send to society, and to young people. “It says marriage is disposable. You can throw it away if it doesn’t work for you.”

NOW also says that judges can be gender biased, and that husbands with money can opt for a no-fault divorce and force wives without as much money into the court process, without money or legal recourse.

The bill passed the Democrat-led Senate in a vote of 32-29 last week, and will soon move to the state Assembly. Both Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Governor David Paterson said that they like the concept of the bill, but that they would not necessarily pass the bill if given the opportunity.

In New York, there were just over 127,000 marriages in the state in 2008, and over 52,000 divorces.

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

A story that sounds like it was taken from a mobster movie has led to a change in California divorce law, as a man sought to prevent his wife from benefiting financially from their divorce.

Why did he want to prevent her from getting money in the divorce, beyond the usual reasons? Well, for starters, she had tried to hire a hit man to have him killed, according to an article from the Associated Press.

A new bill that will be heard in California state congress will see to close a loophole that the authors claim exists in the state’s no-fault divorce code. In particular, it has to do with spouses who attempt to have their husbands done away with. The bill would specifically prevent spouses who solicit murder from collecting financial rewards in divorce cases.

John Pomroy, the husband in the divorce case and a police detective, has spurred the bill onward. His ex-wife tried to hire a member of a biker gang to kill her husband, after she lost custody of the couple’s children in their divorce. She went to prison for her crimes, and when she got out, in 2004, she was able to collect almost $70,000 from their estate in the divorce.

As the law stands now, spouses who are convicted of murder or attempted murder of their husband or wife are not entitled to collect from the couple’s estate during a divorce. The loophole that’s there currently does not include spouses who hire somebody else to do the dirty work on their behalf. In the bill, a victim’s assets are protected in the event that a spouse tries to line up a hit man.

“If you [pay someone to] commit arson on our house, you don’t get the insurance money,” said Pomroy, in defense of the bill. “You go to prison and all sorts of things happen to you. But if you try to [hire someone] kill someone that is your spouse, the current law allows you to collect something.”

Krystal Callaway Jaime is a supervising attorney for the Family Protection Clinic at the University of California, Davis. Jaime supports the closing of the loophole in California state law. “This bill is very, very necessary,” said Jaime. “It seems obscure, but this does happen more frequently than people realize.”

There are widely varying divorce laws from one state to the next, and in California typically estates are distributed equally to both parties in a divorce case.

In Pomroy’s case, his wife pled guilty to soliciting others to murder him, and she spent around a year in prison. She had been faced with losing their children and the support of her husband’s salary, so she asked members of the Vagos biker gang—who lived down the street—to kill her husband while he was on duty.

Pomroy’s wife’s legal representation, Michael O’Brien, claimed that she didn’t plan to carry out the murder, but that instead she was out of money, addicted to drugs and desperate at the time that she made the attempt to hire a hit man.

Pomroy, for his part, remained unimpressed by his wife’s crime.

“I’m just trying to prevent some poor sap in the future who goes through this, to prevent him from losing his assets to somebody that’s trying to kill him,” said Pomroy.

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

Gary Coleman, whose fame began as a child star in “Diff’rent Strokes”, died on May 28. At the time, Coleman was legally divorced from his wife, Shannon Price, since August of 2008. After Coleman’s death, Price filed a petition to be the administratrix Coleman’s estate.

Price is claiming that despite the couple’s divorce, she’s still Coleman’s common law wife. According to the Chicago Tribune, Price has attached documents stating that the couple, “assumed all marital rights, duties and obligations consistent with a marital relationship after the [divorce] decree was entered” even filing taxes as a married couple.

In Coleman’s will, which was signed several years before meeting Price, Coleman’s former manager Dion Mial is named as his estate’s executor. Price has, among other items, attached a handwritten note from 2007 which was supposedly intended to amend any earlier will and name Price the sole heir of “his earnings, home, toy trains and other property.”

Mial’s attorney, who had not read Price’s filing, called the argument of common law marriage “an interesting theory” and said that, “I just don’t know how a court would find on that question.”

Coleman has had his cremation on hold while the legal disputes is settled. In contention are Coleman’s assets which include his Utah home valued at around $315,000, and a collection of toy trains. Both Coleman’s ex wife, Price, and his former girlfriend and manager, Anna Gray, are claiming to be the lawful administratrix of his estate.

Gray’s attorney claims that Coleman and Gray knew each other for eight years and that she moved to Utah and lived with Coleman briefly before Coleman and Price started their romantic relationship in 2005.

Mial has declined to contest for control as the administrator of Coleman’s estate because he believes that a will naming Gray the administratrix takes precedent over the 1999 will naming him, citing the fact that the Gray will is more recent.

Coleman’s estranged parents, Sue and Willie, said they are not attempting to make their son’s funeral arrangements. The parents stated that they wanted Coleman to rest and they want him to be left alone.

Price’s claim as the heir of Coleman’s estate is hinged on her contention that she and Coleman were still common-law husband and wife. Her evidence is mainly that the two continued to live together, share bank accounts and even present themselves as husband and wife. Price was the one who made the 911 call on May 26, and during the call she referred to Coleman as her husband.

Price and Coleman’s divorce was not public until after the actor’s death, giving more evidence to the notion that the two still acted as a married couple.

Not all states have common-law marriage, but it will be interesting to see how the judge rules in this case.

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

The latest tales of celebrity divorce involve two powerful women in the music business: Shania Twain and Sarah McClachlan.

According to CBS News, country music superstar Shania Twain has finalized her divorce from ex-husband Robert “Mutt” Lange. The two were married for 14 years, and separated in May of 2008.

Shortly following their separation, there came the allegation that Lange was engaged in an extramarital affair with the couple’s secretary and caretaker of their Swiss chateau, Marie-Anne Thiebaud. In an odd twist, Twain has been spotted around town spending close time with Thiebaud’s ex-husband, Frederic.

Twain is also steering her career in a different direction, with a new TV series that will air on the Oprah Winfrey Network, called “Why Not? With Shania Twain.” And according to CBS, there are even rumors that she could be replacing feisty Brit Simon Cowell as a judge on the very popular singing competition show American Idol.

The divorce’s finalization doesn’t seem to have Twain hung up. Sources said that she “looked radiantly happy” on the arm of Thiebaud at a recent gala event.

For songstress Sarah McLachlan, her personal struggles, including a divorce from husband Ashwin Sood, provided her with the material that would fill her first album since 2003. She and Sood, who is a drummer, were married for 11 years, and they have two daughters together.

The new album is “Laws of Illusion,” and many of its songs deal with themes that emerged as a result of McLachlan’s divorce and subsequent heartbreak.

“The emotional roller coaster of the past couple years played heavily,” McLachlan told Toronto’s CTV. “I find it very difficult to write when I’m happy. It’s a fleeting, light-hearted experience and you don’t want to analyze it because I’m sure you’ll find something wrong with it if you looked hard enough.”

When there’s heartbreak and sadness, she went on, there is more to grab onto and wrench the emotional content out of. In the midst of the most intense emotional turmoil, McLachlan didn’t have the time to write music, however. Just taking care of her two daughters was enough, along with trying to figure out where to go from there, like many people must do when they are faced with divorce.

“My world sort of fell apart,” she said “and I just had to work to figure out what the heck I was going to do next.” McLachlan explained that it was easier for her to write music after the fact, when the deepest emotional angst had passed on.

When she did begin to write about the divorce, if not in specific terms then in general emotional themes, it came easily to her.

McLachlan has said that she has difficulty analyzing her own musical work, despite her articulate descriptions of songs and lyrics and music.

When asked how the past few years of turmoil affected her, she replied, “God, I hope I’m a bit wiser. I certainly feel like I’ve been through the wringer the past couple years. And I feel like, all these experiences, good and bad, are where we grow—especially the hard times. That’s where you find out what you’re really made of.”

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

Reality TV mainstay Heidi Montag filed for a legal separation from her husband Spencer Pratt in Santa Monica on June 8. Montag cited irreconcilable difference in her court documents requesting a separation, according to People.com.

What is a legal separation?
A legal separation does not put an end to the marriage. A legal separation will help settle many of the issues that would be brought up during a divorce, including division of assets and debt, child custody and support, visitation and spousal support.

There are several benefits to a legal separation. It allows the couples time apart to determine if a divorce is really what they want. A legal separation will often still allow for the retention of certain benefits, including medical, which a divorce would end. It can also allow for both parties to take advantage of certain social security benefits. Also, if a divorce does eventually occur, often times the transition from a legal separation to a divorce can be much easier than going from a standard marriage to divorce.

Legal separation is going to be different in each state and it is important to know and understand what is available to you in your jurisdiction before you make any decision.
Montag says she has moved out of her house with Pratt and was quoted as saying, “There are so many lies out there about me and I just needed space—even away from my husband” and that she needed “to concentrate on myself.”

Interestingly, Montag is moving in with a fellow reality star Jen Bunney and the two will be filming a new show.

Thus far, there is little explanation about what the ultimate fate of Pratt and Montag will be. Of all the advantages to a legal separation, we can only speculate as to what was the driving motive for this separation. However, Montag and Pratt’s former Hills co-stars think that this is a media-ploy, adding a new dimension to this story. It will be interesting to watch and learn the real motives behind the legal separation.

Audrina Patridge was quoted as saying that she thinks the break up is a “joke” and that that she doesn’t believe it because “they’re inseparable and in love.”

Whether or not Pratt and Montag are on the verge of a divorce, taking time to mend their relationship, or making a ploy for media attention, we can be certain that their legal separation will help the public become more aware of legal separation as a tool for either helping a struggling relationship or help a failing relationship transition into a divorce.

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

Researchers are growing increasingly interested in trying to pinpoint what makes long-term marriages make it. A recent article from The New York Times lays out some research into the brain activity of happily married couples and those that file divorce.

One thing scientists do know is that it is very difficult to determine how long a marriage will last unless you are in the marriage. A study by Robert Levenson, a director of psychophysiology laboratory at the University of California, Berkley, demonstrated that people who viewed married couples arguing were only able to accurately predict which marriages would end in divorce half the time.

In another, researchers looked at the brain scans of long-term couples for insight into what kinds of emotional attachments between couples make for a successful marriage. Researchers surveyed long-term married couples, and found that 40% still had this romantic association.

Researchers knew what the brain waves of couples who were recently smitten with each other looked like, and were surprised that long married couples had this type of brain activity. In addition, many of the long-term relationships also had the part of the brain associated with deep attachment activated.

According to the main researcher, Dr. Brianca Acevedo, the fortunate couples that had the strong romantic associations and deep attachment “have the feelings of euphoria, but also the feelings of calm and security that we feel when we’re attached to somebody… I think it’s wonderful news.”

Are there any tricks to keeping a relationship feeling fresh while building that security?
Studies show that couples that have new experiences, as opposed to merely following a routine, are typically happier. The theory is that these new experiences activate dopamine and mimic the brain chemistry we experience when we recently fall in love. Having new experiences, like going new places or starting a new hobby, with your significant other can help keep the feelings you had when you first met.

When a relationship of 40 years of more ends, according to Dr. Betsey Stevenson, it’s important to look on the bright side. Dr. Stevenson described the relationship of Al and Tipper Gore by saying, “They had 40 years of marriage, and they had what, by many dimensions, should be considered a successful marriage… The fact that they both can look forward and see a promising future by not being married… [is] somewhat a celebration about how much optimism they have for the rest of their lives.”

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

A recent article on CNN.com is reporting that an increasing number of divorce cases are being determined based on content uploaded to the popular social-networking website Facebook.

In the article, several divorce and family law attorneys describe their experience with the evolving use of Facebook for undermining the credibility of one of the spouses.

One of the attorneys interviewed, Ken Altshuler, was quoted saying that: “Facebook is a great source of evidence… It’s absolutely solid evidence because he’s the author of it. How do you deny that you put that on?”

The kinds of revelations that Facebook and similar websites reveal in divorce preceding may not be what is expected at first glance.

It’s easy to imagine a foolish spouse posting pictures of him or herself in a romantic embrace with someone other than their spouse. This would clearly be important in the divorce proceedings, but almost any claim made by a spouse can have its validity attacked with Facebook.

The article describes a husband who claims to not have anger problems, but who also has ranting postings full of expletives. Facebook was even used to shed light on a husband and alcoholic who claimed to be sober when pictures of the husband drinking at a barbeque surfaced; as a result, the husband’s credibility with the judge was greatly undermined.

It’s also surprising to realize that it’s not just the information one of the spouses puts up that can affect the divorce.

When one woman suspected her husband of cheating she tried to check his Facebook profile for evidence. She realized she was blocked, or prevented from accessing the information he uploaded to Facebook. The woman then used Facebook to check the profile of the woman she suspected was having an affair with her husband. Under the other woman’s profile, the wife found romantic pictures of a vacation, including an embrace in front of an art gallery, and was able to confirm her suspicions both for herself and for the court.

When a married couple begins to enter the divorce proceedings, it is common for the partners to “unfriend” each other on Facebook. What is frequently overlooked are the mutual friends. If a man is friends with his soon-to-be ex-wife’s best friend on Facebook, the wife’s friend can easily act as a spy for the wife. It is as if the husband is still giving the wife full access to his information.

The result of these revelations can greatly impact alimony payments and can even be determinative in child custody cases. Any information that is uploaded has the potential to surface in court. Facebook has changed its privacy settings several times which can lead to people having much less privacy than they think. If you chose to have a Facebook account, it is important to monitor it and understand how serious the potential ramifications may be.

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.

The seemingly fairytale romance between Dennis Janik and his wife, Susan, started with their dream to move to Costa Rica to start an animal sanctuary. It ended in a tale of divorce and legal entanglements that have all but squashed their ambitions to help animals in Central America.

They were young and in love, dedicated to wildlife conservation. In pursuit of those goals, they found Costa Rica, where they worked to create a breeding facility and rescue center for endangered species. The couple had acquired Zoo Ave, a non-profit with those exact goals. They worked long, hard hours in pursuit of their vision.

Now, they are divorced, and Dennis Janik is pursued by what he considers the constant threat of legal persecution, according to the Dallas Morning News. He hasn’t seen the animals that he worked to protect in more than a year, and he would not even talk to the Morning News on the telephone, for fear that it would give away his location.

His anxiety began when his wife accused him of domestic violence and relentless psychological violence.

In Costa Rica, domestic abuse laws leave little room for debate when an accusation has been made, and often a spouse must leave the home where the alleged abuse took place. The country’s laws are the result of legislation passed to confront its rising domestic abuse rates. Women were in need of legal support as they faced continued abuse.

As a result, now a spouse can report physical abuse, attacks to property and emotional abuse to a judge, and the alleged offending spouse can be removed from the house for six months.

After the accusations, Costa Rican police arrived at the couple’s door and “pulled him out,” according to the Dallas Morning News. Susan called the police on the claim that Dennis had denied her sleep, ridiculed her continuously and hit her. Dennis denies these allegations.

Susan, who now lives in Plano, Texas, with her family, declined to comment, but her lawyer told the newspaper that Dennis “is not a victim, he’s an abuser.”

What followed the initial accusation was a long and convoluted divorce case that has gone on for two years, and which Dennis Janik claims has left him hiding out in a safe house and rendered him bankrupt.

Garland Baker, a Costa Rican judicial consultant who opposes the domestic abuse laws, is of the opinion that Dennis Janik allowed himself to be manipulated by the legal system. “Women have taken the law and completely abused it,” he said. “It’s become very one-sided. For whatever reason, they decide they want their spouse out of the house, they go complain, and he is out.”

The accused abuser gets a hearing while the restraining order keeps them from returning home, but according to Baker the court most often sides with the accuser.

Susan Janik’s lawyer, Guiza Pinchanski, argued that the laws protect women in most cases, and that abuses of the law were an exception.

While the courts dropped the domestic violence charges against Dennis, there is still a criminal charge on the books for coercion, as well as alimony payments. The courts have rejected his appeals.

Dennis Janik is worried for the fate of Zoo Ave, a well-respected animal preserve and sanctuary. His family is worried he may end up in Costa Rican jail.

Copyright © 2010 TotalDivorce, LLC. (as licensee). All rights reserved.