Quote of the Day: In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage. ~ Robert Anderson

D-Dday

For those of you who didn’t know it, Monday was D-day: not the veterans-day D-day, but Divorce day, the first working day in January, when most people ask for a divorce. Apparently, two whole weeks as a family, family fighting, a stressful Christmas (and you know how stressful Christmas can be, http://www.nottinghillmummy.com/2014/12/15/my-christmas-list/), New Year’s and New Year’s Resolutions, can all trigger a World War at home. As many as 1 in 4 married couples have been thinking about this for some time, months or even years. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2894293/One-four-parents-secretly-thinking-divorce-shock-study-finds-today-s-day-likely-it.html

Digital Divorce

January divorces are well known, and already I have been told of 4 couples deciding to divorce in 2015 in my (very) extended social circle in the last two weeks (friends-of-friends-of-friends-of-friends-of-friends). No one is happy to hear that a divorce is happening, especially when it involves young children (and all of these involve young children, 10 and under), but already the 2015 divorces are already claiming lives. Most people ask for privacy in this difficult time and try not to chat too loudly about their divorces, but someone I knew from school announced her divorce by no other means than Facebook, so in terms of ‘keeping our privacy’ etc… all bets are off.

It appears that they want the world to know: I opened my Facebook the other day, which I very rarely do, and saw announced on her page: ‘As you may have guessed, X and I have decided to separate.’ I hadn’t seen her in about 25 years, (so no I had not guessed) and hadn’t had any contact with her apart from accepting her ‘Friend’ status, but I have been privy to all of her emotional ups and downs along the years, and now her divorce, through her Facebook page. There was an entire announcement of her separation on her page, and exactly the same one on her husband’s page. She had even made an entire photo montage of their lives together, from University to their marriage to their children’s birth photos, where of course they seemed like the perfect, happy family. Just a few months ago, a photo showed her husband preparing her breakfast with the caption ‘Best Husband Ever!’ underneath. The Digital World can help you create your perfect online family, which can easily hide the flaws and cracks of a fragile marriage, and for the world to see only what you want it to see. You can be your own Digital Editor of your life.

I wasn’t sure how to take this announcement. I felt like a voyeur into someone’s life which made me rather uncomfortable, but she clearly had no qualms in airing out her dirty laundry. There was an attached Blog about her divorce, a minute-by-minute detailed description of how the divorce occurred ‘he said to me he no longer loved me and said that I should be honest with myself and admit that I no longer loved him.’ Wow. It read like a Danielle Steele novel and I felt at the same time entranced and enticed to read more but at the same time repelled by the thought of intruding into someone else’s detailed, tragic, personal train wreck. It’s like reality TV, you know it’s so bad but you just can’t stop watching it.

The topping on the cake was a Paypal button. ‘Please donate any money, as you know divorces are expensive.’ This was taking things to another level. It’s one thing to take your husband to the cleaners, which already brings out the worst in a lot of people, but begging on the internet? I started to feel very sorry for her. I am not sure that was the intent, but the whole sordid affair just seemed like it should have stayed behind closed doors. Perhaps I am a techno-prude, but I do like the preferred  old fashioned method, used by one of the other D-Day victims, to keep their Divorce Reasons completely secretive to all but their closest friends.

What are your thoughts on announcing your divorce on Facebook, a Blog, or Twitter? 

Most Famous Digital Divorce

Of course the most famous Digital Divorce Award goes to Gwyneth ‘Goop’ Paltrow and Chris Martin for their ‘Conscious Uncoupling,’ which won the ‘Worst term in 2014’ Award in Australia. Her announcement made on her GOOP website was probably the most read Divorce Announcement Ever. At the end of the day, they were just plain old divorcing, but only Gwenyth would turn it into a ‘positive’ experience. Say it how it is. Divorce sucks, everyone gets hurt, everyone gets down and mostly everyone comes out a bit poorer. Luckily for Gwenny, both parties are rich enough not to care for the other’s bank account. This at least takes out some of the bitter money-fighting that often comes with the D-process.

In the US, in one of the most expensive divorces in history, oil baron Harold Hamm is appealing his order to give his wife $1 Billion because plunging oil prices, which means his personal worth and assets in stock are on its ass. She is appealing saying the sum is too small. What is her point of needing more than $1 Billion please? Does she really think she will be happier with $2 Billion? The only answer I can think of is that during divorces, money is used as a weapon of mass destruction and annihilation of your former partner ’til death do us part’. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-06/continental-chief-ex-wife-fight-1-billion-divorce-ruling.html.

Divorce Quotes

Top divorce quotes when no other words will do:

Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce. ~ P.J. O’Rourke

“Bad divorce?” Hardy asked, his gaze falling to my hands. I realized I was clutching my purse in a death grip. “No, the divorce was great,” I said. “It was the marriage that sucked.” ~ Lisa Kleypas, Blue-Eyed Devil

Ah, yes, divorce . . . from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.~ Robin Williams

A lawyer is never entirely comfortable with a friendly divorce, anymore than a good mortician wants to finish his job and then have the patient sit up on the table. ~ Jean Kerr

In Palm Springs, they think homelessness is caused by bad divorce lawyers. ~ Garry Trudeau

The difference between a divorce and a legal separation is that a legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money. ~ Johnny Carson

Instead of getting married again, I’m just going to find a woman I don’t like and give her a house. ~ Lewis Grizzard

You know why divorces are so expensive? Because they’re worth it. ~ Henny Young man

If you think you have trouble supporting a wife, try not supporting her. ~ Unknown

It was one of those ridiculous arrangements that couples make when they are separating, but before they are divorced—when they still imagine that children and property can be shared with more magnanimity than recrimination. ~ John Irving

You don’t know a woman till you’ve met her in court. ~ Norman Mailer

Nowadays love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money, and divorce a matter of course. ~ Helen Rowland

I look at divorce this way: it’s better to have loved and lost, than to live with that bitch for the rest of my life. ~ Steve McGrew

I can’t get divorced because I’m a Catholic. Catholics don’t get divorced. They stay together through anger and hatred and festering misery, just like God intended. ~ Lenny Clarke

Divorces are made in heaven. ~ Oscar Wilde

Half of all marriages end in divorce—and then there are the really unhappy ones. ~ Joan Rivers

Divorce is a declaration of independence with only two signers. ~ Gerald F. Lieberman

[and last but hardly least . . .]

The only time my wife and I had a simultaneous orgasm was when the judge signed the divorce papers. ~ Woody Allen

xx

NHYM

http://www.nottinghillyummymummy.com

@NHyummymummy