Category Archives: Marriage & Divorce
These Are the Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Get Divorced – Bravo
The Real Housewives of Orange County’s Gina Kirschenheiter is in the middle of an emotional split from her ex Matt Kirschenheiter, while The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Danielle Staub split from Marty Caffrey when the ink hadn’t even dried on their marriage license.
The Real Housewives of New York City‘s Bethenny Frankel was tortured when her divorce dragged on for years. Ramona Singer split from husband Mario after he had an affair. Then there was the whole Luann de Lesseps and Tom D’Agostino fiasco.
The list goes on and on… and on… and on for the Housewives (and other Bravolebs) who have had to call it quits on their marriages for one reason or another. It can be a confusing time; it’s not always clear if you should pull the plug on your relationship. Personal Space spoke with family lawyer Christina Djordjevich, of Walzer Melcher, who explained what you should really consider before you walk away.
First, the think about the kids.
“If you have children, are you prepared to have them spend time in two different households? Assuming both are fit and competent parents and the courts choose both, you will see your children less and that is hard on people, at least initially,” Djordjevich said. “It’s typical to alternate or divide holidays in a given year, which can be difficult for some families to get used to initially.”
And consider the cost.
“Another question is ‘Are you prepared for the financial consequences of divorce if you have communal or marital property?’ You will likely have half as much after the divorce than you did before — unless you have a prenup that says otherwise. If spousal support or alimony is being paid, that means you will also have less — both the payer and the receiver.
“Before filing, are you prepared to handle your own finances after the divorce? Typically, one [partner] handles some or all the finances and the one who is not accustomed to doing the finances must become more familiar with their financial situation — what you have, what you need, what you spend — so you can prepare for life after divorce. It’s best to consult with a financial planner.”
Remember, divorce means no secrets.
“There’s a misconception that when you file for divorce that’s it, but there is no privacy between your spouse even after you divorce or separate. Once a divorce action is filed they think they don’t have to disclose accounts or credit cards, but there’s an obligation to disclose financials until the divorce is complete, which comes as a surprise to a lot of people.”
Do people change their minds a lot?
“Certainly I’ve had, at the very easy stages, I’ve had parties decide, ‘I wanna give this another try,’ after hearing about the divorce action and what it entails,” Djordjevich said. “Once you start down that path though, probably the minority change their mind once the process gets started.”
Djordjevich also plays therapist to her clients because the process is so difficult to go through.
“That’s part of the job… it’s such an emotionally taxing time for people even in divorces that are amicable. I will often recommend that a party engage their own therapist to make sure they have a support system around them.
“I always tell them there is a light at the end of the tunnel and this will get easier — everything is very raw and divorce is unfamiliar to a lot of people and the legal system is unfamiliar and as time passes it gets better — this is the toughest part. And I love hearing after the divorce from my clients that they’re happy and healthy and their children are happy and healthy.”
Credit: Gina Kirschenheiter/Instagram
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When is it too late to save a marriage? – The Seattle Times
Dear Carolyn
Carolyn Hax is away. The following first appeared on April 14, 2004.
DEAR CAROLYN: My wife feels unfulfilled in our relationship and wants to move on. We are great friends, and I’ll admit our marriage has gone flat.
She will seek counseling, but I feel she has already made up her mind.
I have put in writing the changes I need and want to make. I have addressed her complaints — that I am stubborn, un-alive, un-driven in my career, emotionally dependent on her and have too few friends — which are valid.
I’m seeing a career adviser, volunteering, contacting old friends, turning off the TV, buying her flowers and cooking her romantic dinners. Already I feel more confident and alive. I fear I am too late. When do marriages become irreconcilable? She is the love of my life and I am determined to earn her love and respect.
— D.C.
DEAR D.C.: D.C., D.C. Earn your own love and respect.
To answer your question, a marriage becomes irreconcilable when one of you decides it is.
That’s apparently up to your wife now, and while everything you’ve undertaken to lobby her sounds healthy and productive, the fact that you’re lobbying her is anything but.
You’ve jumped from depending on your wife to be your entire purpose in life to making it your entire purpose in life to win back your wife. If you’re having trouble seeing the distinction, good, because I have no idea what it is myself. Maybe codependence updating its résumé versus codependence eating a bag of chips.
You say you feel more confident and alive. Good stuff. That has to be what drives you now, and braces you.
Not only because your marriage might be beyond saving, but because its only hope is for you to save you — enough to become an entity unto yourself versus a satellite of your wife.
Carolyn: A close friend is in a wedding next weekend. She just found out the bride’s mom died and is to be buried on Monday.
They are going through with the wedding. I think that is incredibly tacky.
Five years ago, my brother got engaged to a great girl. Her family planned an elaborate engagement party at some real expense. My mom died, unexpectedly, six days before the party. It was horrible. The bride’s mother canceled the party and sent a letter that my dad held while he cried. It said that in light of the tragic death of the groom-to-be’s mother, this special but ultimately trivial party will not be held.
My dad and I still can’t believe how thoughtful his daughter-in-law’s parents were. Am I just weird about this, or do you agree a funeral should — um — stop a wedding?
– Vermont
DEAR VERMONT: I believe both hosts acted appropriately.
In the past case, the loss wasn’t suffered by the host, but instead by a guest of honor — so the host was, I agree, most gracious to cancel the event out of respect. In the present case, the loss was suffered by the host (and guest of honor) herself, and so it was up to her and her family entirely to decide how best to honor the mom’s memory. If it were my daughter whose wedding was six days after I died, then I’d want the joyous event to go on.
Opinion | Married woman wants to rekindle things with old flame: Ask Ellie – TheSpec.com
Meanwhile, the desired ex-boyfriend needs to give credible assurance that he’s ready to marry, or the situation is back where it started.
However, though it seems there’s no question about the love felt for him, the mention of “rekindling” the relationship is worrying.
If the wild emotions are mostly on one side, this woman needs to give herself a time-out for counselling.
If she’s locked into personal deadlines about being married and getting pregnant, she may be rushing into the wind… no more certain that her “soulmate” is any better at commitment than he was in the past.
Q: Recently, a woman, age 26, who works where I do, told me about her “wonderful boyfriend” whose early Christmas gift was booking both for a week’s vacation in Mexico.
She confided that she sometimes follows a website that trashes people and found that another woman had written about her guy that he was a cheater and a liar. She’d also received an email from an unknown woman claiming to have had sex with her boyfriend.
She told me, “I just can’t see him doing that. He loves me and is always buying me expensive gifts.”
She sounded so trusting of him that I had no idea how to respond. As a more experienced woman (late 40s), should I have warned her to look more closely at this guy, and also get tested for sexually transmitted infections in case he IS sleeping around?
What’s the Right Response?
A: Young women need guidance and support from those who’ve had more life experience. This woman’s being so dazzled by her boyfriend’s gifts, that she’s not seeing the realistic possibility of deception.
While it’s hard to believe posts on a website that exists solely to trash people, the direct email to her makes it harder to dismiss. Certainly, someone wants her to believe that the guy’s a player.
As for suggesting that she get an STI check, that’s a solid way to tell her that, if it’s even possible that he’s seeing other women, it can have a direct, unpleasant, and even lasting effect on her health.
The fact that she opened up to you was the clue that she needs and wants your wiser opinion.
Ellie’s tip of the day
An emotional frenzy is a poor foundation for any major decision, especially one that involves marriage.
Read Ellie Monday to Saturday.
Email ellie@thestar.ca or visit her website, ellieadvice.com.
Follow @ellieadvice.
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Emotional Dilemma
What’s the Right Response?
Read Ellie Monday to Saturday.
Email ellie@thestar.ca or visit her website, ellieadvice.com.
Follow @ellieadvice.
Mum of premature twins uses wedding dress business to raise charity funds – Belfast Telegraph
A bridal shop owner whose premature twins overcame the odds is using her wedding dress business to raise funds to support other families coping with early births.
Catherine Smith’s daughters Katie and Hope were delivered 22 years ago at just 29 weeks. Doctors were not hopeful about their chances, with Hope in particular not expected to survive, but after three months in intensive care both were finally able to go home.
Believing guardian angels protected the twins both in the uncertain weeks after their birth, and ever since, Mrs Smith sews a small pair of silver wings into every wedding dress she sells – her way of passing a blessing to newly-weds.
Her boutique in the village of Greyabbey, Co Down, is called Seraphim – the name given to the highest form of angels.
Mrs Smith, a former nurse, credits her daughters for encouraging her to pursue her dream of working in the fashion industry when she left the healthcare profession.
With the business now established, she is using it to raise funds for TinyLife, a charity that supports premature babies and their families in Northern Ireland.
Catherine Smith sews silver angel wings into each wedding dress she sells (Liam McBurney/PA)A wedding dress maker whose twins were born prematurely is encouraging new brides to support premature babies charity Tiny Lives.Press Association photo. See PA story ULSTER Babies. Date: Saturday 08 December 2018. Picture by Liam McBurney/PA Wire
As well as donating £50 for every dress sold in a sale in January, she is now stocking her boutique with TinyLife wedding day favours.
The favours give couples the option of donating to the charity in lieu of a gift traditionally left for guests on the table at the wedding dinner.
Mrs Smith, who lives in Comber, Co Down, said she has always told Katie and Hope, and her two younger sons Pete and Josh, to take their angels with them.
“I bought all four of my children wee silver angel wings when they were wee and they all still have them,” she said.
Katie and Hope Smith were treated in intensive care for three months after their birth at 29 weeks(Smith family/PA)
“I very much believe in faith, faith was a very big part of my life and still is.
“When our girls were born we had to have faith that they would be okay, we didn’t know if they were going to be okay, but we had to have faith that they would be okay.
“So it’s something I very strongly believe in. So what we do as a consequence now is we sew a small pair of silver angel wings into each bride’s dress at her final fitting with blue silk thread and it’s just our way of telling them that our prayers for a long and happy marriage and good family go with them into their marriage and it seems to mean a lot to people so we believe in passing it on.”
Mrs Smith recalled the worrying days and weeks she and husband Al experienced after the girls were born.
“We were told by the paediatrician once the girls were delivered that Hope wasn’t expected to do (to live), which is why she is called Hope,” she said.
“They were both ventilated and it was 48 hours before I saw the girls, all three of us were very ill. Katie was the smaller of the two, she was 2lb 3oz, and Hope was 3lb 5oz.”
Catherine Smith with her twin daughters Katie (left) and Hope are raising fund for the TinyLife charity for premature babies (Liam McBurney/PA)
She said when Katie was well enough to be taken off a ventilator she was placed in the same incubator as her sister, to see if it would help her battle for life.
“They started to notice that Hope’s heart rate went up and she definitely stabilised when she was in there,” she said.
“They’ve always been very close and I am very grateful that 22 years later they are healthy and well and a credit to me and their dad.”
The couple had to dress their daughters in dolls clothes when they finally came home because they were so small.
“We knew nothing about looking after premature babies other than the fact that they were very vulnerable so it was really, really scary,” Mrs Smith said.
Alexander and Catherine Smith holding their twin premature daughters Katie and Hope in hospital in 1986 (Smith family/PA)A wedding dress maker whose twins were born prematurely is encouraging new brides to support premature babies charity Tiny Lives.Press Association photo. See PA story ULSTER Babies. Date: Saturday 08 December 2018. Handout from the Smith family/PA Wire
“When we got to the stage of wanting to do something to help a charity, there wasn’t really another charity that we really thought about. It just all meshed beautifully. I wouldn’t have this (shop), I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for the encouragement of my daughters. They wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the expertise of the medical staff and all the help we got.”
Katie said sewing wings into the dress conveyed an uplifting message.
“Being a bride and getting married is such an important day for both bride and groom so I think to be able to have that connection to hope and to faith makes all the difference – I think it makes the experience and the dress more personal and I think it’s a really lovely gesture,” she said.
“We’ve always supported mum and it’s amazing to see an idea come to life and I think to also give back to a charity like TinyLife is so important too, just to have the story behind the business.”
Catherine Smith with her twin daughters Katie (left) and Hope, show a set of silver angel wings Catherine sews into each wedding dress she sells (Liam McBurney/PA)
Hope said the decision to support TinyLife was an easy one.
“I think we always talked about when our mum got established a bit more we always talked about doing something for a charity and we didn’t really need to think about it because we were immediately (thinking) Tiny Life,” she said.
“We knew we wanted to do something and give back because there are a lot of people who have premature babies who really do need the help.”
Head of Fundraising at TinyLife, Valerie Cromie, welcomed the support.
“For the bride and groom, TinyLife wedding favours are a wonderful way to show their support for a charity that is close to their hearts and a great memento of the day for their guests,” she said.
Katie (left) and Hope Smith in their mother’s bridal shop in Greyabbey, Co Down (Liam McBurney/PA)
“Over 2,000 babies are born too soon, too small or too sick in Northern Ireland. Some arrive as early as 24 weeks, weighing as little as 1lb 454 grams, the same weight as half a bag of sugar.
“At this understandably very stressful time for parents, TinyLife is there to provide practical advice, emotional support and to give a helping hand to families who have a baby in a neonatal intensive care unit, with their network of Family Support professionals in every neonatal unit across Northern Ireland, ensuring parents receive optimum support in hospital, at home and within the community.”
For more information visit www.tinylife.org.uk.
