In the newest season of the hit shows, Real Housewives of D.C., on Bravo, Charles and his wife Cat Ommanney are center stage.

The problem? Charles and Cat are no longer together, and he has regretted the spotlight ever since it started. According to a recent article in the New York Times, Charles hasn’t seen the previews and is refusing to watch the show.

Charles is upset be all the attention that this show is bringing to him, and the negative effect it has had on his career.

As Charles points out, there was a time when you could Google Ommanney and see his proud family history of naval admirals, going back to his great-great-great-grandfather, but now all you find are rumors about the couple’s marriage and break up.

Charles, originally from England, was a photojournalist who covered the White House for 9 years, including the George W. Bush years. He made many connections with some of Washington’s most elite, including President Bush (who nicknamed him Chuckles for his personality, and Lion King for his wild hair).

When Charles and Cat met, they fell in love fast, and had a short but intense two year marriage. It was because Charles cared for Cat that he agreed to be a part of the Real Housewives show.

Charles’ decision to be on the show was a shock to his friends who knew him to be camera shy. Charles, according to close friend Christopher Morris, “is a very solitary person… He’s low profile, so being thrust into that environment, it seems odd.” Mr. Morris noted that Charles would often skip White House correspondents’ events because of the publicity.

Charles recounts how when he started the show, his friends became more reluctant to talk to him on the phone or meet for lunch. They would often ask him if he was going to be miked, or if the people from Bravo would be with him filming the encounter. The result of this was to embarrass Charles to the point of near isolation. Despite living in Washington D.C. for almost ten years, when he left for England, there was no one to send him off.

Charles thought that this would be a good way for his wife to do something she was passionate about.

“I wanted happiness for someone I was in love with. I put all my reservations aside and said: ‘Go for it. Do it if it makes you happy.’ Then I regretted it. I lost touch with everyone, and mix that with my marriage falling apart and the show taking over, it was very sad.”

In his attempt to do something selfless, Charles took a risk, and now he may be suffering from it for a long time to come.

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

The economic downturn seems to have an unexpected correlation on divorce; as the economy dips, divorces and infidelity decrease.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a recent study from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention show divorce at its lowest point since the early 1970s. In 1980, the divorce rate per 1,000 married women was 22.6, which dropped to 16.9 in 2008, and in 2009 fell even further to 16.4.

Director of the National Marriage Project, Professor Bradford Wilcox, says that this trend “runs counter to the image people [get]… from the media that divorce is prevalent but the reality is we’re not experiencing divorce that way.”

Divorce statistics have been a highly contention area of statistical research. Some researchers use projections, trying to draw conclusions about people marrying in the present. Others use statistics from marriages which began years prior.

However, most statisticians are now in agreement that the overall rate of divorce has been declining since the “divorce revolution” of the 1970s.

There is some speculation that the financial expense of divorce are a factor in determining both the success and fidelity of a marriage.

Professor Wilcox speculates that, “if your husband has a secure job, or your wife has a great health care plan, or your in-laws are helping out with the kid’s tuition… you are probably a lot more willing to put up with your spouse’s faults and failings now than you might have been five years ago.”

The article cites interesting correlation between people’s views of cheating while in a marriage. For example, the number of women who believe that infidelity was “always wrong” went up 11% (to 84% total) in the 2000s, up from 73% in the 1970s.

However, when encountering studies like this, it is important to keep in mind the difference in correlation and causation. There is merely a correlation in the increase in fidelity and the poor economic performance.

There are many factors that would also correlate to the decrease in divorces over the past several decades. One could just as easily say that as our use of computers has increased, so has the stability of marriages.

Just because we use computers much more now than in the 1970s, or that the economy is worse now, doesn’t necessarily mean that the two are related.

It doesn’t preclude the economy being a cause for relationship stability either. What the study does show is that marriages are lasting longer, and it does match up with the performance in the economy.

The theory that the economic conditions will have a significant impact on the stability of marriages is an interesting one.

he likelihood of it being accurate is difficult to gauge, but it’s something to keep in the back of your mind when the economy does turn around.

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

It has already been established that a married couple with children are most likely to divorce when the children are young. The amount of time and stress involved in raising young children is believed to drain the spouses of both their time and emotion.

Once the children become older and more self-sufficient, the parents are less likely to divorce.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune discusses the fact that parents of autistic children are frequently told that their risk for divorce is as high as 80 percent.

The disorder is officially known as autism spectrum disorder, and leaves the children needing a lot of attention, even as they become teenagers and young adults. Compounding this is the communication problems and the repetitive behaviors often displayed by these children and young adults. The combination can create an incredible amount of stress, even on a normally low-stress couple.

To determine the frequency of divorce among parents of children with autism, the Adolescents and Adults With Autism study examined 391 families of children with autism and compared the divorce data to other families with children developing normally.

The results were shocking. The overall divorce rate for families with autistic children was 23.5 percent, which was nearly double the 14 percent of the control families. The divorce rate among the families with an autistic children was even higher when there were other children in the family.

Another factor was the age of the mother of an autistic child. The younger the mother, the more likely the relationship would end in divorce.

Another interesting statistic that came out of the study was the point at which the rate of divorce let up. For the control families, the divorce risk began to decline when the child turned 8, and when the kids became 26 the odds of divorce dropped to “virtually nonexistent” numbers.

For families with an autistic child, the rate of divorce didn’t begin to even out until the age of 30.

If you have an autistic child, you shouldn’t take this study as a death spell for your marriage. The vast majority of marriages with autistic children, over three-fourths, remained married.

What is important to take away is the ability to appreciate the difficulties that you might be going through.

If you are married and raising an autistic child, you should understand that the stress of your situation can cause problems for your marriage. The key is to understand the warning signs, and to remember to make time for your relationship.

It’s easy to forget that your relationship needs work. Researches from the study noted that this study should be used to help in “identifying strategies to enhance their marital relationship in an ongoing way, such as learning how to best communicate with and support their spouse and carving out ‘couple time.’”

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

There is insurance for nearly everything these days. From automobiles, to health, home, life and even tuition, we have grown to expect an option to be insured.

Now, Safeguard Guaranty Corporation, created by entrepreneur John Logan, is offering insurance against divorce.

These policies are available to individuals, meaning the wife or husband could each obtain their own insurance without involving the other partner. In fact, there isn’t even a need to inform your spouse if you chose not to.

Logan recently had an interview with the Chicago Tribune to explain his new and controversial insurance policy.

Essentially, a divorce insurance plan works like any other type of insurance. You pay your monthly premium, and if the marriage ends in divorce you would receive a payout.

In the article, Logan describes the plan as having a $15.99 cost per unit per month. You would select how many units you would like to have, and pay that amount multiplied by $15.99 per month. The payouts reflect the amount of units you purchase.

If you had a 10 unit policy, your monthly payment would be $159.90. If your marriage then lasts five years, you would have paid in $9,594, but your payout would be $15,000. This could be helpful money for attorney fees or to help with temporary housing until you can figure out permanent living arraignments.

For the same policy for 10 years, your payout would be $27,500 after paying in $19,188 for a net $6,312.

When asked how it is possible to prevent people from committing fraud or marriage/divorce for profit schemes, Logan explained:

When someone buys our policy, they have to pay in for a minimum of 48 months before they can file a claim to be paid… [a policy holder can cancel at anytime] but this is a casualty (or liability) policy, like a car insurance policy, which means it has no accruing investment or surrender value. No one gets any money back if they cancel.

Logan also stated that a parent could buy one for a child who is about to enter into a marriage that the parent doesn’t support. And, similar to how your spouse wouldn’t have to know of your policy, the child wouldn’t have to know that the parent took out a policy on their marriage.

The caveat to purchasing insurance for your child’s marriage is that the parent cannot be the beneficiary.

“The parent has to identify who the insured is. And the insured has to be immediately related.”

Taking out a policy for your child because of you doubt the stability of his or her marriage could clearly become a source of conflict if your child finds out. The wisdom behind creating an insurance policy like this is yet untested, but it is an option for those who fear what a divorce would do to their finances.

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

In what has already been a contentious and at times outlandish high-powered divorce, the principal figures in the McCourt divorce case are now actually taking the stand to testify.

The testimony, from Frank McCourt himself as well as advisors on each side of the case, has shed some light on the breakdown of a marriage that lasted almost three decades, as reported by The Los Angeles Times.

One of the biggest bones of contention, determining ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball franchise, was put under scrutiny in the latest round of testimony. A lawyer who worked with Frank’s wife Jamie discussed some of the negotiations that surrounded ownership.

One of the key days in the saga of the team ownership was May 12, 2009. On that day, Frank decided not sign a document that would have given Frank and Jamie shared ownership of the Dodgers. After Frank informed her of the decision, Jamie called her lawyer, Leah Bishop, who had drafted the document.

Bishop responded to the news by providing two options for Jamie in her opinion. Two tools, as she called them: “a civil conversation with Frank or a nuclear bomb.”

Two months after that day in May, the couple separated.

These details came out as Bishop testified in the divorce case. Bishop tried to stress what she had intended to express to Jamie when she said that. She meant, according to her testimony, that to let conversation break down would be to invite conflict.

“If you don’t start talking to each other,” Bishop said, “everything is going to explode. It was going to be like a nuclear wasteland.”

This was the second day of the divorce trial. It’s a trial that is likely to break records in California over how much money is at stake, and the high profile of some of those assets, and particularly of the high profile Los Angeles Dodgers.

In a storyline fit for Hollywood, two big-time trial lawyers will be cross-examining witnesses with big money and big brands hanging in the balance.

On Jamie’s side, her lawyers are working to show that Frank McCourt was not looking for something in return after signing an agreement with Jamie that protected their homes from creditors.

Frank’s lawyers, in the meantime, are trying to unpack how the couple separated out their business assets and kept them in Frank’s name, and that Jamie didn’t put any stake in the Dodgers franchise, no did she sign the indemnity forms that baseball owners must sign.

Part of the early testimony involved the Dodgers, and whether or not Jamie understood or agreed that no part of the team was not in her control. Frank’s attorney, for example, had documents he thought showed that Jamie had identified the Dodgers as Frank’s separate property.

Bishop went on to describe some interactions she had with Frank, in which she said she thought there were times she had witnessed that he had not been nice to her. This included an incident she described in which he had yelled at Jamie in front of other people.

“That was not a nice thing to do,” Bishop said.

Of Jamie’s role as CEO of the Dodgers, Bishop said Frank “was fine with her being referred to as the most powerful woman in baseball, but not if she really believes it.”

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

An economic recession can have a big impact on the way couples stay together and how, when, and if they decide to divorce.

There’s good news, however, as according to new data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the divorce rate in the U.S. is the lowest that it has been since the early 70s. Add in the fact that affairs are declining, and the it would appear that couples are doing what it takes to make it these days.

The news comes via the Wall Street Journal, which reports that the divorce rate dropped from 16.9 divorces per 1,000 married women in 2008 down to 16.4 divorces per 1,000 women in 2009. That number sounds even better when you compare it to the figure from back in 1980, when the divorce rate per 1,000 women was up at 22.4.

These numbers come from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, which regularly publishes reports on marriage and relationships.

Professor Bradford Wilcox is the director of the National Marriage Project. He pointed out that there can be a big difference between what plays out in the gossip headlines and what is actually going on with American couples.

“It runs counter to this image people have of Tiger Woods and divorce,” he said. “They get a sense from the media that divorce is prevalent, but the reality is we’re not experiencing divorce that way.”

Generally, those who track divorce rates across generations are in agreement that the divorce rate has been declining since the 70s, during the divorce revolution.

The divorce rate in the last few years decreased further from 2008 to 2009 than it did from 2007 to 2008, so the trend is, if anything, building momentum.

As we have talked about before, it may be that some couples are waiting for the economy to improve before they take what can be the costly step of going through the divorce process.

Couples are also waiting longer to get married in the first place.

Infidelity rates have also fallen recently, especially among married men, according to the Wall Street Journal and Prof. Wilcox. Though the drop in infidelity rates may be modest, according to his research the rates of infidelity have not gone up in the last several decades.

Adults who were married at any point in this decade responded to surveys from the General Society Survey reporting that 21 percent of men and 14 percent of women had sex with someone who was not their spouse even while they were married. In the 1990s, 22 percent of men reported they had done so, and the number for women was the same.

For those who are married right now, 16 percent of men say they cheated, alongside 10 percent of women. In the 1990s, the percentage of men held steady, while women came in at 11 percent.

Eighty-four percent of women said that infidelity was “always wrong” in the 2000s. That rate was at 73 percent in the 70s. Among men, 78 percent said that infidelity was always wrong.

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

It’s become fairly common knowledge that the power couple, Frank and Jamie McCourt, who have run the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2004, are going through a bitter divorce, with the ownership of the team waiting in the balance.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune has taken a deeper look into the divorce, specifically at the judge presiding over the case. The judge’s demeanor is especially relevant in this case, as many divorce cases, because there will be no jury and the judge will solely determine the outcome.

The judge for the case is Scott Gordon, a former police officer and a man described repeatedly as “no-nonsense”.

The Tribune article began by describing a telling scene between Judge Gordon and attorney for Frank McCourt, Steve Susman.

Susman is one of the most well respected attorneys in America, and is ranked as one of the top 10 trial lawyers in America.

Susman suggested to Gordon how to number the exhibits for trial, and during the third attempt at explaining the ordering, Gordon cut off Susman.

“You’re from Texas?” Gordon asked. After Susman responded with an affirmative head nod, Gordon continued, “It’s a fantastic state… The last thing I would do in Texas is tell a Texas judge how to run his court.”

Judge Gordon seems to be a good fit for the trial, as Lynn Sodik, a Santa Monica family law attorney states, “He’s perfect for this case… He’s very smart. Sometimes it can be hard when you’ve got heavyweight attorneys, some from out of town. [Gordon’s] not intimidated at all.”

Gordon, 54, studied at the Air Force Academy and at Cal State Dominguez Hills and then joined the Santa Monica Police Department in 1977.

Gordon eventually went to law school and graduated from Southwestern Law School in 1985. He then went to a law firm for several years before joining the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. His areas of expertise was domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault.

Gordon also played a part on the prosecution team in the O.J. Simpson trial. After the trial, Gordon was reportedly disappointed in the system and desired something more meaningful.

After the Simpson trial, Gordon researched and co-wrote a book about eight German terrorists sent to the U.S. by Hitler during World War II.

This led to Gordon working with the United Nations tribunals prosecuting war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Eventually, Gordon secured more than $1.5 million so the tribunal could use computers instead of handwritten notes, and GPS devices to find crime scenes.

In 2002, Gordon became a court commissioner, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him a judge in April.

Gordon made a point to remind the parties that their high-profile doesn’t make their case a high-priority in his courtroom. child custody cases and battered spouse cases carry greater urgency than a case to determine the owner of a baseball team.

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

Peter M. Brant and his soon-to-be ex-wife and former super model Stephanie Seymour have been in an extravagant divorce to end their 15-year marriage.

When Brant met Seymour, he was a billionaire and know for his vast art collection and his very own polo team. She was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and the ex-girlfriend of a rock star.

The divorce is gearing up to be one of the biggest. According to an article in the New York Times, when the trial begins on September 20th, the divorce will have caused more than 12,000 pages of public divorce documents, and millions of dollars in lawyer’s fees.

According to the Times, the divorce “[a]t the most basic level… has turned into a case of ‘he said, she said,’ with charges ranging from infidelity to rampant drug use.”

A clear oversight by Brandt has made the divorce even messier: he didn’t have a prenuptial agreement. This means that his net worth of $500 million is left to be divided by the court system, instead of being decided upon in advance.

The ultra-famous, or infamous, depending on your view, real estate mogul Donald Trump has expressed his attitude that Brant should have had a prenuptial agreement.

“I was very surprised when he married her [without a prenup]” said Trump, “It’s a lot easier to get done when you love each other than when you hate each other. And they hate each other. It’s a mess.”

The two lead glamorous lives before ever meeting.

Seymour dated Axl Rose, made the cover of Vogue five times and was a Playboy cover girl in 1991 and 1993.

Brandt made his fortune in newsprint, and at the age of 20 met one of the most well known artists, Andy Warhol. Continuing his contact with artists, such as Julian Schnabel and Richard Prince, which allowed him to put together one of the best collections of modern art.

Once Brandt and Seymour began their relationship, they were a common sight at gallery opening and parties.

The two have two sons, Peter Jr., 16, and Harry, 14, as well as a daughter, Lily, 5.

The divorce hit many close to the couple by surprise. The two did a good job hiding it. Even in February the couple was seen, and photographed, smiling and talking with guests at a party.

As of late, the divorce is getting nastier. Seymour has begun accusing Brant of everything from “bad-mouthing her, changing the locks and safe combinations at their home and telling school officials to not let her pick up Lily after school.”

There are claims of infidelity and even requests for drug and alcohol tests. The divorce is likely to get more intense as the trial approaches. All we can do is stand back and watch the whole scene unfold in front of the judge and public.

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