NO VACATION

I returned from holiday on Friday to find the country immersed in Royal Wedding mania and inundated by media coverage. Getting home too late in the day to watch the proceedings live, I had not envisaged that it would be quite so easy to catch up on the minute by minute details of the big day nor indeed so difficult to find anything else to watch on television. Every channel and every news bulletin appeared swamped by a plethora of pomp and procession. I quickly learnt from the various expert commentators that there would be a plague of copy cat weddings taking place not only in churches in this country but globally; ivory lace, trees in aisles, strawberry plants and Jerusalem will be the order of the day, together with chocolate biscuit wedding cakes.

I also learnt that only the groom knew the honeymoon destination although there was some comment that in these economically constrained times it would be appropriate for it to be a staycation here in the UK rather than a stay in an exotic, foreign location. It was probably sensible advice. The number of people marrying on tropical beaches has no doubt pushed up the cost of a wedding in recent years. Affordable if you have the savings to pay for it or a life time together to discharge the credit card interest. Divorce lawyers, however, see those cases where a marriage breaks down too quickly and the only financial legacy to show for it are the wedding photos and a large debt. Unsurprisingly neither party ever wants either of them.

Of greater surprise this weekend though was the announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (as I was told they now are) will not be taking an immediate honeymoon after all. Forget the staycation it’s a no vacation, allowing the groom to return to work as soon as possible, though I doubt if it’s through financial necessity.

Outdoor Man and I of course set the precedent for the no vacation honeymoon marrying the day before a Bank Holiday weekend and then, as I recall, spending the weekend anti-fouling his boat! Still we remain together 24 years later, so perhaps it’s a good omen and a trend that might now catch on.

NOT TONIGHT DEAR

Now I appreciate that it may be unlikely but if you are in the middle of a divorce, or even thinking about one, whilst travelling to Nepal with your soon-to-be ex, read on. News has broken that Nepal’s highest court has just ruled that where spouses are both imprisoned, they should be jailed together to preserve their conjugal rights. Apparently the right for citizens to reproduce is enshrined in the country’s interim constitution. Oh dear, could that be a headache the “not tonight dear” half of the duo is developing?

DONE UP LIKE A KIPPER

Now this might not work for every wife but if your relationship has taken a bit of a dive lately you may be able to resurrect it by getting your husband elected to the House of Commons and then preferably as Speaker. According to the Speaker’s wife, Sally Bercow, in an interview for the Evening Standard, “living under Big Ben with the bells chiming” is “sexy.” Also and whilst you might be somewhat concerned that other women will “hit on him,” it seems that life might have its recompenses as more men will hit on you too! Mind I’m not sure that I’d want to be “done up like a kipper,” but do wonder if you can get the same effect from a grandfather clock and election to the local Parish Council.

TILL DEATH US DO PART

I know this is supposed to be a blog about divorce but that has to allow me to talk about marriage from time to time doesn’t it? I hope so because I just wanted to highlight the sad news reported by the BBC today that one half of Britain’s longest married couple has died. Frank and Anita Milford (both 101 this year) met at a YMCA dance and married 2 years later in 1928. When they were interviewed in 2007, at the time of their 79th wedding anniversary, they attributed the longevity of their marriage to being prepared to “give and take.”

Strangely, that’s also how some divorcees describe the outcome of their divorce settlements: “I gave and she took.”

That’s not what the Milfords meant, of course, and I hope that their sentiments have inspired and helped many other couples with their relationships. I would also wish to express my sincere condolences to Mrs Mitford and the couple’s family at this time of mourning.

WIFE

Last night I went to listen to Professor Germaine Greer speak.

“Wife,” she began, “is a reviled 4 letter word. Whoever wants to be one?”

She then presented us with a conundrum.

“But why is it that every little girl wants to be a bride and thinks herself a failure if she hasn’t married by her mid-twenties? Wherever do girls get that idea of failure from? It certainly isn’t from their mothers!”

UNVEILED

Fake Stig looking serious
Originally uploaded by nahtanoj

After months if not years of speculation the country was surprised to discover that The Stig was Michael Schumacher, then everyone shrugged their shoulders and dismissively implied they’d thought as much all along. There’s always something of a surprise, then anticlimax, when a disguise is lifted to reveal the true identity underneath. One only has to look to The Merry Wives of Windsor for confirmation when Caius declares with both astonishment and disgust “Mistress Anne Page is a boy!”

It’s the same with marriage. Lifting the veil from the bride’s head does the groom ever imagine that one day, as my clients complain, she’ll turn into her mother? Conversely wives bitterly resent the fact that their husbands never change, despite their best efforts!

NAVIGATIONAL HAZARD

It was reported today that the sat-nav system could break down within the next year. I hazard to guess that, if it does, numerous marriages will follow. Outdoor Man and I get along famously until he wants directions in the car. He accuses me of being unable to read a map; I accuse him of not knowing his right from his left; he ignores my instructions then asks me to point; I hit his nose when doing so. Sounds familiar?

Certainly there are countless couples who will say that the lady hidden in the computer on the dashboard has saved their marriage. Even Outdoor Man never gets upset when she insists he makes U-turns that he has no intention of executing. Moreover, when she gets really irritated with him, he just turns her off; you can’t do that so easily with your wife!

THE BARD OF MERRY ENGLAND

Today is not only St George’s Day but also the anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare in 1564 and 1616 respectively. Now as everyone knows William Shakespeare is England’s most famous playwright, renowned the world over for his masterpieces such as “Macbeth” or “Romeo and Juliet.” English literature’s role model you might say. That said, had he lived today, he might equally have been described as the scourge of politicians; married in a shotgun wedding at the age of 18 before his wife gave birth some 6 months later, he proceeded in due course to move to London leaving his wife at home with a young daughter and a set of twins. In those days Stratford upon Avon was hardly within commuting distance of the capital and although it is reported that he returned there once a year, details are very hazy and there subsists a suspicion that away from home he formed a relationship with another woman. Regardless he remained married to his wife. Who needed divorce in those days when an alternative home in London might as well have been at the other side of the world? Nevertheless Shakespeare delivered an equally cruel wound to his marriage from beyond the grave. When his will was read, it left only his second best bed to his wife!

A CLASSY AD

Last week the media reported how a Gloucestershire builder came up with an ingenious idea to put divorce lawyers out of work. Instead of visiting a solicitor he put his wife up for sale, advertising her in the classified section of Trade-It as “Nagging wife. Very high maintenance – some rust.”

COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW

Is there a link between colour blindness and divorce? Apparently up to 8% of men are colour blind and of those up to two thirds struggle with the difference between red and green. Presumably the inability to help their wives choose matching shoes and handbags could be a factor but by itself hardly a great contributor to the divorce statistics.

What is more likely are the arguments which rage as a result of a man’s ability to see things in black and white when his wife wants all the colours of the rainbow; the tunnel visioned monochrome against the multi-hued bonanza. His insistence on thinking fruit when she mentions peach, plum or apricot; tangerine, lemon or pumpkin. How many men appreciate the subtleties in shading when told its purple, mauve, lavender or violet? Mention salmon and men surely think fish. Copper, brass or platinum; she thinks hair dye and he imagines pipes and screws. Buff, tan and bronze has him thinking of beaches and bikini clad maidens. No wonder there are so many arguments and misunderstandings in the paint pot aisles of DIY hyper stores. Raw umber surfaces as she gets madder and whilst champagne and chocolate can go some way to repair the dissent and domestic turmoil, there are occasions when harmony can only be bought with gold and sometimes it has to be studded with ruby or sapphires.

MUSIC TO THE EARS

“Like living with a screeching violin,” is how clients have described to me the effect of a wife’s constant nagging. Little Girl has been learning to play the violin for four years. Today she was practising a new piece. Sometimes, I know how those clients feel.

THE ENFORCEMENT OF ROMANCE

Under Iranian law a husband apparently pledges a gift to his wife on marriage known as a “mahr”. She can claim delivery of it at anytime during the marriage or else in the event of divorce. It is reported that an Iranian court today made an order under this law requiring a husband to comply with his promise of ten years ago to deliver 124,000 red roses to his wife and has seized his apartment until he does so.

Inevitably court decisions of this nature raise eyebrows amongst lawyers here, unused to such gestures of romance or laws to enforce them. In particular, how has enforcement of this pledge by means of court proceedings affected the marriage and where will the wife put the 124,000 roses when she receives them?

If such a remedy was available in this country would women prefer the contents of their local garden centres to divorce and the delivery up of the home?

THE PARETO PRINCIPLE

I’m a great believer in the Pareto principle, you know the 80:20 rule, whereby 80% of effects are attributable to 20% of causes and which can be extended to apply to day to day activities. So I admit that I wear 20% of my wardrobe (the boring black suits and white blouses) 80% of the time; 80% of the dictation that I do at work is undertaken in 20% of my time in the office; 80% of the really enjoyable things that I do in my life (excluding arranging divorces for people) is done in 20% of my waking hours.

The principle operates in marriage breakdown too. So it is said that whilst 20% of married men kiss their wife goodbye as they leave the house in their car, 80% of divorced men have kissed their house and car goodbye.

This, come to think of it, explains why last week a client told me that hurricanes are named after women because they breeze in, grow wild, and then they move on, taking both the house and car.

DOMESTIC BLISS

In Kerala which is the state in South India where we spent our holiday, Hindus, Moslems and Christians live comfortably side by side. I’m sure the tropical climate and abundance of wonderful foods in what is after all the spice garden of the country must play their part in aiding this compatibility.

It was noticeable however that, whilst it was predominantly men who were talking on the village streets, it was women we saw picking tea, weeding the paddy fields and washing pots and clothes in the canals. I couldn’t help wondering, therefore, if there was the same level of domestic bliss in the home as between the differing religions on the street.

CHRISTMAS CRACKERS

The old jokes are always the best and none more so than the ones that come out of Christmas crackers. Is it just co-incidence or is there a line in crackers for those with relationship difficulties? I’m thinking particularly of:

When a woman steals your husband, there is no better revenge than to let her keep him; or
I haven’t spoken to my wife for 18 months; I don’t like to interrupt her.

Once upon a time however, I interviewed my very own Christmas cracker. Although it’s many years ago now, I can still remember his Christian name; it was Rudolph. He was large with ginger hair and a ruddy expression. It was Christmas Eve and he wore a garland of tinsel around his neck and a paper crown on his head. He described to me how he and his wife had both thought they were happy for twenty years but had then met and married, following which he realised that he had never known before what true happiness was, although by then it was too late. Unfortunately his wife never learned the true secret of a perfect marriage, namely to forgive her husband whenever she was wrong, and matters had finally come to a head the day before when they had argued over the weather. She insisted that it was snowing but he had told her it was only raining. The bickering was incessant and eventually he asked her to go outside with him so that they could establish who was correct. She agreed, and, as he had maintained all along, it was raining. “How did you know that?” she asked.
“Rudolph the Red knows rain dear,” he replied.

Happy Christmas!

I have promised my family a break from blogging over the Christmas holiday but shall be back here in the New Year.

EGG ON YOUR CHEEKS

There’s apparently no need for an organisation like Relate in Cyprus. Suffer from a relationship problem with your wife and you can call for a sorcerer instead. The only problem is that she might crack an egg into your underpants and charge you 5,000 Cypriot pounds for her efforts. News reports however confirm that the sorcerer is now on trial, but fail to indicate whether or not her efforts resulted in a reconciliation.

Click here for link to Reuters News Agency Report

HINDU WEDDING

Photo originally uploaded by kennethg

It was reported today that an Indian farmer married a dog on Sunday in a full Hindu wedding ceremony, witnessed by neighbours and village elders. Apparently the farmer has been suffering from 15 years’ bad luck after killing two dogs who were trying to mate in one of his rice fields. This bad luck extended to the farmer becoming unable to walk and suffering the loss of hearing as well as of an ability to talk properly. His physical condition has had doctors baffled but someone more knowledgeable put his condition down to a curse inflicted by the dead dogs’ spirits.

Donned in a wedding sari the bride dog went through the ceremony, but once it was over and the hold on her leash loosened, she absconded. It appears however that she has since been safely returned to her husband, who is purportedly planning to find a human bride once the curse is lifted. Won’t he need to get a divorce first and will he be blessed with a dowry to meet the ensuing financial settlement?

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

When I did the weekly food shop yesterday, I had a pleasant surprise; with the use of a Nectar points card, it only came to £2! A trolley load of goodies for free! Except it wasn’t really. If I’ve learnt something from my years on this planet, it’s that you don’t get anything for nothing. What seemed like a free gift was only as a result of all the money I’ve previously spent in that same supermarket. Like everything in life you have to work hard; putting in, so that you can take out and sometimes, despite all the effort, you never manage to do so.

It set me thinking as I weeded the flower beds later; is there anything you ever truly get for free?

Outdoor Man answered that question for me as he threw me a compliment I felt I’d done nothing to earn.

“You’re looking blooming,” he remarked, as I came in through the back door.

“Thank you,” I blushed, before going upstairs where I coyly examined myself in the mirror. Reality dawned; half the flower garden was stuck in my hair!

UXOR

Today, I asked Outdoor Man if he’d named his boat Uxor because he intended to spend more time with it than me.
“Of course not,” he protested and then tried to wriggle out of the situation by claiming that I should be flattered because essentially he’d called her after me.
“Why’s that,” I asked, “if it isn’t about all the time you’re planning to be with her?”

His explanation went as follows: “I can handle her only by knowing the ropes; she needs a mate and a strong arm to comfort and guide her; when she rolls she creaks just like you; she has a broad reach.” Then, just when I thought I had heard enough, “She needs paint to keep her looking pretty,” he added.

Outdoor Man is not a lawyer but he now knows that verbal abuse can give rise to grounds for divorce on the facts of unreasonable behaviour!

THE STEPFORD WIVES

I watched the 2004 film version of The Stepford Wives on television last night, starring Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler and Glenn Close. Unlike either the book or original film it was not intended to send shivers down the spine but was instead a rather poor comedy, and I recall that film critics voted it a miss at the time of its release. It does share one ingredient with the originals, however, and that is that there is clearly no home in Stepford for a divorce lawyer.

In the original film, men were mobilised by the fear of women abandoning the traditional home-making role for the workplace. In this version it is the high-flying career women who have been recaptured by their inferior lesser halves and turned into beautiful, obedient, robotic versions of themselves, happy to do the most mundane of tasks at the push of a remote control button. It is described as a world of “romance and beauty…tuxedo and chiffon” where men who are sick of the increasingly hectic lifestyle of their shoulder-padded spouses have found a different solution to divorce: the magic box, from which their wife emerges as a brainless blonde trained only to dispense money from her mouth like an ATM, bake cakes and parade in supermarket aisles. “The women are perfect sex-kitten bimbos; the men are drooling nerds.”

To be honest I would have dismissed the film as a waste of my time and given up watching, save for the fact that in fairness it did have some clever lines, which if I caught them correctly included:

Husband: “We are in the country now, so no more black.”
Wife: “ No more black? Are you insane?”
Husband: “ You heard me. Only high-powered, neurotic, castrating Manhattan career bitches wear black. Is that what you want to be?”
Wife: “Ever since I was a little girl.”

Husband: ”Did you make the sandwiches?”
Wife: “No, I was finishing the last chapter, did you?”
Husband: “Where are the kids”
Wife: “What kids?”
Neighbour: “Are you two okay”
Couple: “Yes, we’re just married”

My favourite: “The women are always busy and smiling; the men are always happy. It’s not normal”

There is a twist at the end, when it is revealed that the whole thing was actually created by a woman; a former brain surgeon who after finding her husband in the arms of another woman (and an ugly one at that) had killed them both and essentially created a robotic replacement and Stepford. She claimed in pride to have turned the clock back to a time before stress and overtime.

Some words of advice- if you’re suffering from stress and overtime in your marriage: patch it up; see a divorce solicitor, if you have to; don’t visit Stepford.