Archive for February, 2009

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

Post a Comment

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

Post a Comment

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

Post a Comment

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

Post a Comment

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

Post a Comment