Archive for the ‘Marriage’ Category

When starting a marriage it’s often a good idea to start as you mean to go on and make decisions about your wedding together. You should choose the food for your wedding dinner, the type of cake and even the venue. You should both agree on the invitations, the order of service and the honeymoon. You should also agree on the venue for the evening meal and the sort of entertainment you’ll have, whether you go for a disco or a wedding band.

Of course, if you find that you disagree with your future wife on many aspects of your wedding, it won’t bode well for the future as you’ll always end up arguing.

For example, on my wedding I designed the order of service handouts myself, only to find that my wife’s brother-in-law decided he didn’t like them, and swapped the design for some Microsoft Word clip-art… WTF?

I also wanted a live wedding band for the occasion, but instead was overruled and her parents went with a disco, presumably someone they knew.

The point being, if you can’t have any input into your own wedding, the chances are you won’t have any input into your own married life.

Clive Bellmore

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A US woman was shocked to find that her Philippine husband only wanted to marry her to gain entry into the country, and even more shocked to find that he was already married to two women back home.

What a rotter.

Jamie Griffin thought that her new husband, Norman Simon, was in love with her and had just divorced his one and only wife in the Philippines in order to marry her. Well, he had divorced ‘a’ wife from the Philippines, but he kept two back as spares.

Luckily for Jamie Griffin, as her marriage wasn’t legal she doesn’t need a divorce. Some small mercies eh?

Clive Bellmore

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There are many things that might lead a guy to file for divorce, and being handcuffed by your wife certainly qualifies!

Robert Drawbaugh was rescued by police last month when his wife handcuffed herself to him when he wanted to leave her. When they found the man, and his handcuffed wife, he had bites on his arms and upper body.

His wife, Helen Sun, 37, had been married to Mr Drawbaugh for 7 years before it broke down.

According to Helen Sun the handcuffs were necessary because she couldn’t speak to her husband properly without them.

Clive Bellmore

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All of this talk about high profile celebrity divorces and people paying millions in divorce settlements may be entertaining for viewers, and harrowing for those involved, they never quite reach the level of the running joke of Ross Geller in Friends.

Ross was married three times during the ten year run of Friends. His first wife, Carol, became a lesbian. His second wife, Emily, divorced him because he said Rachel’s name at the altar (easy mistake) and his third wife, Rachel, divorced him because they were married while drunk in Vegas.

This prompted Phoebe to label Ross ‘Divorce-o’ after he proclaimed that he loved marriage, to which Ross retorted:

If you have to call me a name, I prefer, “Ross, The Divorcer.” It’s just cooler.

I think other celebs should take on names such as this!

Clive Bellmore

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It’s a fact that rape is rape, even when it’s your own wife. A man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, found that out this week as he was found guilty in a court in Londonderry of raping his wife. The couple are going through divorce, and his wife alleged that he raped her and committed a series of domestic assaults on her in a two year spell between 2006 and 2008.

The twenty-eight-year-old man has been ordered to surrender his passport and has been released on bail. He will be sentenced just before Easter.

The couple were getting divorced at the time, but it seems the man didn’t like the idea of not sleeping with his wife, even though they were in the middle of a divorce.

Sadly for him, that’s considered rape.

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 was the name of a TV series on ITV last year about a couple going through divorce, with the notion of which one of them keeps the dog. Dogs aside, the question of who gets what in a divorce is always the most contentious of problems. Married couples fight over money, assets, furniture and generally everything they can.

It often gets quite bitter!

During my divorce the question of who keeps the dog wasn’t really an issue as the wife actually got rid of the dog before everything kicked off, in readiness for a divorce. That was planning ahead. I got home to find the dog had disappeared, and had been given to some family who lived at the seaside… a likely story.

The question was more about who gets the furniture, who gets the wardrobes, the sofa, the dining room table and the recliner chairs that were bought for watching TV?

Obviously this question couldn’t be easily answered, and despite a financial settlement in court dictating where the furniture (and not to mention the house) would remain, some of it still managed to find its way off to who knows where. Most likely sold on or given to friends.

To cut it short, divorce is a very messy business and even a court ruling and agreement can’t force anyone to abide by it.

Clive Bellmore

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It’s the same adage for musicians, football teams and marriage. The second album, season, or year of marriage, is the most difficult. Many musicians find following up the success of their first album difficult, so much so it’s become a cliché, the ‘difficult second album. It’s the same for the football teams in the Premiership when they’ve just been promoted. They survive the first season in style (like Reading for example) then when the second season in the top flight comes along, they struggle, and get relegated.

Marriage is just the same it appears. Most marriages that end in divorce do so in the second year of marriage. That’s 10% of divorces in the second year, according to research from the divorce website Divorce-Online.co.uk.

One of the contributing factors to the divorce figures is the quick and easy divorces on offer from online divorce websites. Divorces over the Internet have doubled in the first part of 2008.

According to Christine Northam, part of ‘Relate’, the marriage counselling service:

Younger marriages tend to be less stable. Possibly it was not strong enough to start: one of them wanted a wedding, or there was pregnancy, peer pressure.

It all feels too much too soon and one starts looking outside the marriage.

Clive Bellmore

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As if China wasn’t repressed enough, now you’re not allowed to register for divorce on August 8th in Zhengzhou, China, the opening day of the Olympic games.

The number 8 is considered a lucky number in China, with many believing that the number brings fortune and happiness. With the Olympics opening on August 8th, the date has even more significance for the Chinese. Almost 1,000 couples are expected to get married on the date in Zhengzhou, which leaves the city’s authorities fully stretched. As a result, they’ve announced that no one will be able to apply for divorce on that day, as there’s no one there to approve it.

Anyone looking to get married on that day in China will have to have booked it by now, as there’s no room left. Anyone wishing to apply for divorce on that day will be out of luck.

That’s just favouritism really!

Clive Bellmore

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Divorce is so common these days it almost seems a shame to get married in the first place (wish I hadn’t).  However gay marriages have a much better chance of success according to recent figures released by the National Association of Gays and Lesbians.

I know, they’re obviously biased towards gay weddings, but the figures speak for themselves. 50% of marriages currently end in divorce, but of gay and lesbian weddings, only 17% end in divorce, which is quite a difference.

Of course, some parts of America don’t actually allow gays and lesbians to divorce, when they’ve only just allowed the marriages in the first place, but then America has always been a bit backward in this respect.

One of the thoughts behind the higher success rate of gay and lesbian marriages is that they tend to live together before they get married, whereas heterosexual couples have a higher propensity to jump straight into marriage.

Whatever the reason behind the higher success rate, it’s interesting to note that the family unit stands a much better chance of staying together if both parents are the same sex, which must surely outrage the Christians… I’m always in favour of that!

Clive Bellmore

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