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The Department of Health conducted a poll to discover what causes distress to teenaged children in their lives, and one of the main worries among children was the possibility of their parents divorcing. Actually, 17% were concerned about the breakup of their parents, which does seem quite low, considering the number of marriages that end in divorce. Unless of course many of those who took part in the poll were either already from broken homes, or they just weren’t concerned about the prospect.

Another worry for teenage children is their parent’s health, and the fact that they can’t quit smoking. 46% of children are worried about the health of their parents who smoke.

37% of those polled were concerned about financial matters, with the country being in recession and job prospects being bleak, and 29% were worried about the old school problem of bullying.

Clive Bellmore

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OK, so the lyric is actually ‘wash that man right out of my hair’, but let’s face it, sometimes we guys need to clean women out too. When you’ve been in a marriage for a long time, living in each other’s pockets and occupying the same space, when you eventually get divorced and you’re the one still living in the same house, everything reminds you of your ex-wife.

The pictures on the wall, the cutlery she picked out, the bedding, even the stain on the carpet that was caused when you spilled wine one evening. The whole house is a living memory jogger of a time you’d rather put behind you. For this, you need to get some cleaning sorted. Clean the whole house from top to bottom, throw out anything that reminds you of her, scrub the floors, steam clean the carpets. You know the score.

If this sounds like too much hard work, or something you just can’t bring yourself to do, you could try getting a cleaner in to do it for you. You don’t have to be some decadent rich guy either, as cleaners aren’t that expensive, especially in the major cities (as there’s so much competition). Plus you don’t even need to hire a cleaner on a permanent basis as you can have a one off service to wash every trace of the ex-wife out of your home. One-off cleaning London services are easily found, and you can get a professional to remove evidence that you ever shared a home.

Clive Bellmore

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When you’re going through a divorce you can be forgiven for getting distracted in your work and making mistakes, however depending on your job, some mistakes can prove more costly than others.

For example, if you work in Tesco and you’re pricing up beans, mistakes caused by the stress of divorce can cost a few pence. If you’re a major film director and you’re working on a multi-million dollar movie, mistakes can cost you (or your producer) millions.

Guy Ritchie has made one such mistake on his new film about Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law. He has been ordered by studio execs to reshoot scenes of his movie, despite wrapping up, because they felt the scenes were too unrealistic. The Sun newspaper has put this mistake down to the stress of the divorce from Madonna.

Clive Bellmore

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A Muslim man has been accused of cutting his wife’s head off after she filed for divorce. Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce from her husband, forty-four-year-old Muzzammil Hassan, alleging that he subjected her to domestic violence.

Muzzammil Hassan is the boss of a TV network in the UK, and his wife’s body was found headless at the TV station. The couple worked together at the TV station, a popular Muslim channel in New York State.

Mrs Hassan’s divorce lawyer explained that violence had prompted her to file for divorce. The TV station also released a statement that it was:

Deeply shocked and saddened by the murder of Aasiya (Zubair) Hassan and subsequent arrest of Muzzammil Hassan.

The couple had two young children together.

Clive Bellmore

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Divorce can be a difficult time for everyone, with tensions running high, arguments causing stress and accusations flying around all over the place. Both partners can get very emotional during a stressful divorce, but the problems don’t just affect those directly involved. Divorce also affects your parents and immediate family, your friends (who end up getting drawn into taking sides) and of course your children.

Even pets can get caught up in the distress of a painful divorce, with partners arguing over custody of the family dog or (to a lesser extent) cat.

It’s the children who really suffer though as they don’t know why their parents are breaking up. They don’t understand the reasons for the arguments, the hatred; especially when there was love there before.

Try to remember the good times of being a family, especially the parts that involved the children, such as their birthdays, Christmases, the time when they were born, or even before they were born when you excited about having children for the first time, such as the baby shower.

Those were happier times, and the sorts of times that children should be exposed to, rather than the distress of their parents getting divorced.

Clive Bellmore

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Do you suspect that your partner might be having an affair? It could be that you’re being too suspicious and insecure, or it could be that you’re correct and your wife or husband is indeed cheating on you.

There are a few telltale signs that your partner is cheating on you. For example, if your partner has suddenly put their mobile phone on silent, when they don’t normally do that, there could be a good reason. Perhaps they’re expecting to receive calls and text messages and they don’t want you to know about it? If their phone keeps going off with messages all night, you’d rightly be suspicious, but if it’s on silent, ask yourself why!

Another telltale sign is that they’ve got a new watch, jewellery or some other thing that they wouldn’t normally buy themselves. Perhaps they’ve claimed that they’ve had some business gifts, or they’ve decided to treat themselves, but has someone else bought it for them?

Also, are they acting aloof at all? Are they not around when you’d expect them to be, and are un-contactable by phone? It could be that they’re with someone else.

You shouldn’t always be suspicious of your partner, but sometimes your suspicions are correct.

Clive Bellmore

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Marriage is about give and take, compromise and working together to live with each with other. With this in mind it’s important that you both treat each other fairly, and give each other the same opportunities. For example, if one of you gets to spend the night out with your mates having a good time (and presumably getting right royally trollied) it’s only fair that your other half also gets the chance to go out, especially if it means one of you staying behind minding the kids.

But when you do go out and have a good time, you need to make sure your ground rules are laid down and you both know what is, and is not acceptable.

One time for instance, my wife went out with her friends playing bingo, before heading into town for a hen party. Naturally this involved a male stripper, where much frivolity was had by all. No great deal, just a bit of fun.

However, when I went out on a similar night out that included a lap dancing bar, the rules had very much changed! Suddenly what I had done was unacceptable, disgusting and tantamount to cheating. The fact that both nights out, for me and my wife, included getting drunk and watching strippers, was irrelevant. She insisted that her scenario was different, whereas mine was wrong.

What does everyone think about that?

Clive Bellmore

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It has been said that most divorces are caused by arguments over money or sex. While this may be true, arguments over more trivial matters are also frequent in divorce cases, especially as the financial settlement draws on and solicitors become involved.

Money and access to children is one thing, but people then begin arguing over who gets to keep the cutlery set, the car and the record collection. Of course, the cost of replacing item such as these has to be offset against the cost of arguing through your solicitor about them, as your solicitor will charge by the hour, for each letter, phone call and email.

So common sense will tell you that by arguing over things that cost very little, running up a high cost to yourself, doesn’t make financial sense. If you have a moral solicitor (as I did, believe it or not) they’ll tell you not to pursue it either.

Of course, when you’re in the middle of a divorce, common sense and financial sense are irrelevant. The principal of the thing is what counts. If something is mine, I want it back, regardless of how much it costs to get it, and how little it might cost to replace it.

For example, during my divorce I had a collection Michael Jackson jackets, including several tour leather jackets and the Billie Jean live sequin jacket. They’d been bought over the years on eBay, and would have been very hard to replace. The ex-wife had removed them from my home (for reasons known only to her) and was refusing to return them. Most likely because she knew I wanted them.

Anyhow, I pursued this through my solicitor, against her advice, insisting on their return. The act of getting the jackets back cost me plenty, but in the end I did have them returned.

Trivial? Perhaps. It was morally right though, and you can’t put a price on that.

Clive Bellmore

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The views on whether the economic crisis has increased divorced rates, or decreased them, as been divided of late. Some people can’t afford to get divorced as they’re in negative equity with their home, and can’t afford to sell it, so are staying together instead of divorcing. Other couples are arguing over money, redundancy and other issues, so are flocking to the divorce courts.

Divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd-Platt is of the opinion that the credit crunch is seeing a spike in divorces, especially among men who look to duck large settlements by getting divorced after they’ve been made redundant. She claims that wealthy men are seeking divorce as a way to cut costs, namely their wives, out of their lives. These men are divorcing their wives now, taking the opportunity to get divorced while they have little or no income, so they don’t have to pay out as much.

Clive Bellmore

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Amy Winehouse’s divorce from Blake Fielder-Civil looks like it might get nasty, as her love letters to Blake are to be used in court to prove that Blake was the inspiration for Amy’s music. If it is proven that Blake was the inspiration for Amy’s success, he will be entitled to a larger share of her personal fortune, estimated at £10 million.

Winehouse herself has already stated that her hit song ‘Back to Black’ was inspired by problems with her boyfriend, which was revealed to be Blake. The love letters to Blake show that Amy stated she would be dedicating more of her tracks to her husband, which can only work well for Blake in the divorce settlement.

Amy wrote to Blake stating:

Blake, you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I’m thinking how about I write you a few albums.

According to reports, Blake has even updated his profile on Facebook to show that he is single.

Clive Bellmore

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