Archive for September, 2008

Traditionally when couples divorce they have a bitter spat over who gets custody of the kids, what access they have, and who gets the possessions such as cars, houses and jewellery. However in South Africa right now arguments over who gets the dog are more common. Also other pets as well, not just dogs, but I thought I’d lead with a dog.

After the recent judgement in the UK where a man had to pay his ex-wife £50,000 per year to keep her horses, legal experts say that pet maintenance in South Africa is very common.

Billy Gundelfinger, a divorce lawyer in Johannesburg, says that disagreements over pets were very common in South Africa:

I’ve had cases where that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, where they’ve settled the residency of the children, they’ve settled the finances, the antiques and the paintings, the cars and the holiday homes, and then they fight over the pet — and one of them says the whole deal is off, we’re going to court.

He gave one example of how a divorce settlement worth millions disintegrated because neither the husband nor the wife could agree on who took custody of the Staffordshire terrier.

They both wanted the Staffie … we started the trial and then, in the tea break, I persuaded my client that this was absurd.

Eventually the couple agreed on shared custody whereby they both took the dog on alternate months.

Clive Bellmore

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Who’d have thought that aging rocker Ronnie Wood would have cheated on his wife with a 20-year-old Russian? Oh, everyone? Ah well. It looks like the affair to remember is going to cost Ronnie a cool £50 million in terms of his settlement, as photos of him and his Russian girl emerged.

Ronnie and his young girl (Ekaterina Ivanova) were seen dining in a plush London restaurant this weekend, which probably wasn’t the safest place for the pair to go out unnoticed when you think about it. Ronnie was linked with the young girl in June, but after his spell in rehab his wife thought they could rebuild their relationship.

A friend of Ronnie’s wife stated:

Jo has had enough of his behaviour. She feels humiliated, spurned and furious that her best friend has treated her like that.

She has spoken with her legal team and they’ve made it clear she is in a terrifically strong position.

Although his wife could be due 50% of Ronnie’s estimated £70 million fortune, as she’s also his manager, executive assistant, director of his company etc she’ll probably get a lot more.

Although it seems like an aging rocker fulfilling the role that rockers are supposed to fulfil, a friend of Ronnie’s insists that he’s serious about the 20-year-old Russian waitress.

Everyone has painted Ekaterina as a wild child but she was supporting Ronnie through rehab. She is committed to helping him remain sober.

She is in love with him and they forget about the age difference when they are together. Even though she stays most nights they always leave separately.

I know Jo was hoping he would dump Ekaterina and return home but that is not going to happen.

If you marry a Rolling Stone, you’ve kinda got to expect this to happen!

Clive Bellmore

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A divorced mother of three, who received £56,000 in her settlement from her ex-husband, has lost the whole lot to a conman who said he’d help her invest in a mortgage scheme. The mother, from Oxford, says she was groomed by the conman for the purposes of swindling her out of the money.

The woman, aged 38, says other women should be careful not to fall for the same trick. She’s said she doesn’t want to be named (obviously) but the man who conned her (named as ‘Eric Fretten’) is being sought by police.

The gullible woman stated:

He was getting my trust by doing nice things like taking me out for dinner. He convinced me he was a financial and mortgage expert and everything he did was believable. Looking back, he groomed me.

My money has all gone. You cannot describe how vulnerable and stupid this makes you feel. Now all the money I had set aside for a home for me and my three children to live in has gone.

According to the woman, the conman overheard her conversation about her divorce payment and he offered to help her invest it. Just how stupid was this woman???

It then took less than three months for the man to take all of the £55,900 she had received in her settlement, and disappear with it. He’d wooed her with meals out, ballet tickets and fake stories. Incredibly, he still hasn’t been caught. But then, why would he, he’s not the stupid one?

No, the stupid one went on to say:

It may sound stupid but I completely trusted him. I thought he was my friend.

He was a 61-year-old guy. I didn’t think he could be a conman.

After she was overheard bragging in public how she was going to invest her divorce money in property, the scam artist moved in and managed to persuade her to transfer £5,000 from her Lloyds TSB account into his account in a matter of weeks. He’d managed to get the full £54,900 from her a few weeks later, which included one single payment of £34,000.

It’s unlikely he’ll ever be caught

Clive Bellmore

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When you get divorce, everything is split down the middle (even the car, which usually means someone paying money to keep it). One of the hardest things to divide during divorce is the furniture, as when one person moves out you’ll both need the same furniture to start a new life. Furniture such as dining room furniture, bedroom furniture (like wardrobes and beds) and the sofa and coffee table for the living room.

It can be difficult to compromise with splitting up furniture, as often you’ll have one or two pieces that you bought together and you both want desperately. For example, you may have an antique sleigh bed that cost a few grand and neither of you wants to part with it (though often, you’ll find that neither of you will actually want the former marriage bed). More likely it will be practical furniture that goes missing when your other half moves out, such as a set of pine wardrobes (as happened to me) or that stylish cane dining furniture that was bought from a specialist furniture maker.

Although it can be difficult, it’s often better to let the furniture go in some cases as the cost of arguing over it, both financial cost through solicitors and emotional cost in terms of your health, can be far less than it’s actually worth.

Clive Bellmore

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Is divorce good for your health? This joke would suggest so, though to be honest I’m not so sure myself.

Getting divorced isn’t a good way to lose weight, as divorce often leads to depression, which leads to eating. Eating of course leads to weight gain. In fact divorce seems to have varying effects on people, as some spiral into a depressed routine of eating, watching Bridget Jones and generally feeling sorry for themselves, whereas others go the opposite way and try to get into shape in order to prove to their ex what they’re missing, and to find themselves a new partner.

Personally I went down the fitness route and hit the gym, but then marriage had taken its toll. The endless nights of takeaways and chips took a while to burn off, but it was worth it in the end.

Clive Bellmore

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After divorce from a lengthy marriage, one thing you’ll need to do quickly (though not actually quickly, if you get my drift) is get back in the saddle and start dating. It can be tricky though as you’ll have been out of the game for a while, unless you’ve been cheating on your wife of course, in which case you’ll be well practised and it would explain the divorce in the first place.

To make it easier to start dating, you could try online dating sites. I know there’s a certain stigma attached to online dating, but it’s really not as bad as you may think. Rather than being full of life’s losers, the dregs of society, dating websites tend to be used by people who haven’t the time to go out and find a partner because of work commitments, or lifestyle commitments (such as they may have children).

It’s also quite common to see divorcees on dating sites, like yourself. The best part is you can see what the person looks like before you contact them, the disadvantage is that they can see you before they choose to reply or not!

Prices vary on different sites, and some have more women than others. Most offer you a free trial though, so it’s worth you using that to see if it’s got what you need.

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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Pope Benedict has stated that he doesn’t want the Roman Catholic Church to recognise “irregular unions”, which means Catholics who get divorced and then remarry. He was speaking in an address to bishops at Lourdes, in France.

The church currently doesn’t recognise divorce, and the Pope has no intention of it ever doing so. If a couple divorce, as far as the church is concerned, they’re still married. Never let the truth get in the way of religion eh? If a couple remarry, and they want to remain active Catholics (for some reason) they can only do so, and receive communion, if they abstain from sex with their new partner.

Although bishops have lobbied for a change to the way the church perceives divorce, the Pope has decreed that there will be no change as the rules were laid down by Christ himself.

In a related, yet contradictory comment, from the Pope, he said that the church should make allowances for those who wish to conduct the original Latin mass in church.

Everyone has a place in the church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home and never rejected.

Every person, without exception… that is unless you’re divorced of course. Nice one Pope, you’re a real hero.

Clive Bellmore

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We all know that Pop stars are stupid; they prove it almost every day. Pink is no exception. After her divorce from Carey Grant (surely he died years ago?) she’s proven just what an imbecile she is and turned to Scientology. This act of gross moronism is in some misguided effort to help her get over her divorce.

The couple’s two year marriage came to an end earlier this year, and after getting divorced the brainless woman turned to her down to earth friend Juliette Lewis for some consoling. Juliette, rather than doing what most women do to help a friend after divorce by taking her out, getting her smashed and watching some Bridget Jones, took her to meet her idiotic Scientologist mates.

They’re not the only idiots to follow the new religion invented invented by a failed science fiction author, other imbeciles include Lisa Marie Presley, Kirstie Alley and the perennial career wrecker with poor movie choices, John Travolta.

Actor and resident divorcee cum short guy, Tom Cruise, is said to be the second most powerful man in Scientology at the moment. Does that make him the most gullible, or is he in on the whole hoax?

You decide.

Clive Bellmore

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Following on from my post yesterday when a man physically cut his car in half in order to stop his wife gaining any share of it (or more accurately, to give her her share) I thought it would be an idea to talk about a way round the problem.

You see, when you get divorced you have to split everything down the middle; this of course means your car as well. If you happen to have a particularly nice car you’ll be expected to give your soon to be ex half the value of the car (not half the physical car as we saw yesterday) which, in many cases, would mean you could be forced to sell the car. Not everyone would have the sort of cash lying around to give away half the value of their beloved car.

So, an idea would be not to own a car in the first place, as owning the car means you need to split its value. Instead you could lease a car from a car leasing company. This allows you to own a flash car without having the liability of needing to pay out an ex-wife. When you lease a car, you don’t own it. You just pay for the lease, then when the lease is up, you can give it back and get a new one.

It works out cheaper than buying a car, there’s no depreciation and your ex-wife can’t touch it because you don’t own it!

We’re all winners!

Clive Bellmore

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