What We Can Learn from the Top 10 Celebrity Divorces of 2010

Do celebrity divorces provide entertainment? Yes, but maybe we can learn something from them too.

Courteney Cox and David Arquette
Courteney Cox and David Arquette are in a trial separation and contemplating divorce.  They say they have “grown apart” during their marriage and that was confirmed when we all heard David talking about his sex life on Howard Stern’s radio show.  Honesty is a virtue, but one’s new single sex life is better left unsaid if you hope to reunite with your ex.  To David’s credit, he tweeted an apology.  Could the impetus of the separation have been California’s divorce law, which likely would increase Courteney’s spousal support obligation at the 10-year point?

Lesson:  Keep your single sex life to yourself during your trial separation.       

Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren
Some couples can rebuild trust in their marriage and heal from an instance (or two) of infidelity.  Tiger Woods’ obsessive interest in sex outside the marriage turned out to be fatal to his marriage with Elin Nordegren. 

They conducted their divorce, however with great dignity and relative civility (except for the golf club incident, which was totally understandable).  And Tiger’s attempt toward self-improvement included a treatment facility to try to cure his sex addiction.  Few divorcing people own up to their own deficits and act responsibly so we offer our best to Tiger and Elin for showing people the way to a dignified divorce under extenuating circumstances.

Lesson:  A marriage can survive a single affair if there’s a great commitment of patience and forgiveness.  A marriage will rarely survive multiple affairs.  In the case of sex addiction, probably best to end it with dignity.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Noah Baumbach
Sometimes when complicated people get married they have, well, complicated marriages.  Leigh and Baumbach are that kind of couple as seen through Leigh’s acting persona and Baumbach’s writing.  Their 5 year marriage has come to an end, with an infant son born just seven months ago.   

Both Baumbach and Leigh came from artistic families with great professional success.   They share something else in common which is a family history of divorce.  Leigh’s parents divorced when she was two years old and Baumbach’s when he was a teenager.  In fact, his breakout film, “The Squid and the Whale” (2005) was based on memories of his parents’ breakup.    While some children of divorce work harder, others follow their parents’ pattern and cannot achieve a high level of commitment.

Hopefully Baumbach and Leigh’s professional collaboration, which included “Margot at the Wedding” (2007) and “Greenberg” (2010), will survive the demise of their marriage.

Lesson:  Know your risk factors.  Two artistic and career-focused people from divorced childhoods will probably need to work harder on their marriage than the average couple.

Al and Tipper Gore
Al and Tipper Gore announced that they were getting divorced after 40 years of marriage, citing a divergence of paths.   Since meeting in high school, they persevered through the near fatal car accident of their son in 1989, Tipper’s clinical depression, 8 years of vice-presidency, a court-decided loss of the 2000 presidency, and Al’s rebound on the world stage as an environmental activist.  Did their previous common purpose in times of struggle become weaker after the challenge had gone?

 Lesson:  People change over time.  Sometimes a deep sense of common purpose is required to make a marriage last over decades.

Frank and Jamie McCourt
The McCourts’ divorce was widely reported this year, due to litigation involving a postnuptial agreement signed in 2004.  The couple was married 30 years and has 4 grown sons.  After their purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers and their move to Los Angeles, the marriage unraveled, at least partly due to the bungled postnup,  which was identified as a problem when they went to an estate planner to develop a joint estate plan in 2008. 

Postnups can be very helpful to mature marriages, by addressing and clarifying financial issues.  This one was not, and caused many  problems.  It may have caused the end of the marriage, while running over $20 million in legal fees, making it one of the most expensive divorce lawsuits in California history. 

Lesson:  Anyone considering a postnup can learn from the McCourts’ mistakes by working out an agreement that preserves and strengthens the marriage, rather than weakening it.

Cameron Crow and Nancy Wilson
Cameron Crowe and Nancy Wilson divorced after a 24-year marriage.   Like Robin Williams and his wife, Marcia Garces, they chose to end their marriage through a process called a collaborative divorce, pledging to be “honest, cooperative and respectful” and to put their children’s interests first.

Cameron and Wilson worked out all issues (including joint custody and spousal support) through face-to-face meetings with their attorneys and themselves.  As part of the process, they agreed not to litigate using their current attorneys.  This gave the Cameron and Wilson benefit of legal counsel and a safe place to work out the terms of their divorce, in private.  This can only help their 10-year-old twins while they grow up with divorced co-parents.

Lesson:  If you’re going to split, do it respectfully and avoid litigation if at all possible.

Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt
Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt’s marriage was reported to be on the rocks and their lives became a reality show until the divorce announcement turned out to be a hoax.   Apparently the “divorce” was merely a publicity stunt to restart her career.

Heidi and Spencer are both very young. (Heidi was born in ‘86 and Spencer in ’83.)    Their wedding ceremony was in Mexico with no family members present and lasted 15 minutes.

No doubt,  Heidi and Spencer do have some marital problems.  Spencer is a self-identified “fame whore” who wants any kind of press, even negative while Heidi doesn’t like bad press. 

Lesson:  During the hoax, Spencer stated his love for fame and her love for puppies were incompatible.  As a divorce lawyer, I thought I heard just about every reason for divorce, but apparently, not this one.  There are no lessons to be learned here.

Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds
Ever heard of the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder”?  Don’t believe it when it comes to marriage.

The Johannson/Reynolds marriage has ended after just two years.  It has been blamed on their conflicting work schedules with much business travel.  The spark is extinguished (for now), but, according to them, they remain best friends.  Both appear poised for a rebound.  They are young and beautiful and every first-timer has the right to a “marriage mulligan”, don‘t they? 

Lesson:  If you consistently put your career before marriage, you are not helping your odds of a long-term successful marriage.

Kelsey and Camille Grammer
The demise of the Grammers’ 13-year marriage came after Kelsey spent time in New York City for a gig as Georges in the play “Cage Aux Folles”.  Kelsey seemed to enjoy the single life and did not want to return to his marriage, which was apparently already in trouble.  Would it have lasted had he stayed in L.A.?

Lesson:  Again, a heavy work schedule involving lots of travel is not the recipe for marital success.  Sometimes work does need to come first, but be aware of the marital strain you are creating.

Billy Ray Cyrus and Tish Cyrus (parents of Miley Cyrus)
After 17 years of marriage and 5 children, the famous parents of the “Hannah Montana” star have filed for divorce.  The gossip rags claim it was jealousy over Billy Ray’s “Achy Breaky Heart” groupies but perhaps more insightful is this 2004 quote from Billy: “You know what, this train may come off the tracks, but I’m going to be a dad. I’m going to be a husband, and try to have something in my life that is right.”  It sounds like he’s had doubts all along.

Lesson:  Part of marriage success is the simple fact of believing in the marriage.  If you want your marriage to success, you have to ignore the short-term distractions of groupies, fame, and money.

© 2011 Laurie Israel.

How Mediation Can Help an Elder

Mediation, a form of out-of-court dispute resolution, is very much in the news these days.

Everyone’s heard about divorce mediation, and maybe you have a friend or family member who has used it for his or her divorce.  A new field of mediation, marital mediation, is now emerging.  In marital mediation, a mediator helps a couple who wants to stay married resolve their conflicts.  It is an alternative to marital counseling, and sometimes it works when marital counseling does not. 

In mediation, a neutral person (often a lawyer, sometimes another professional) leads the disputing parties through decision-making by facilitating their discussions.  A very important part of mediation is to help people actually express their needs, rather than their positions.  Often, they find out that their needs are compatible, and they were just taking adverse positions, which resulted in an apparent (but not a real) conflict.  

In Massachusetts, there is a 200-plus member organization of family mediators called the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation.  www.mcfm.org.  There is a trove of useful information on their website describing the different kinds of mediation available.  Some of these types might be of special interest to elders:  

Are you having difficulty discussing your estate plan with your grown children?  A neutral mediator can lead that discussion and help you and your children come to clarity.

Are you and your children having conflict over your plans for the future?  A mediator is trained to level the playing field, so that your feelings and aims will be heard by your children. 

Is there a family business that you would like to transfer to the next generation but it is very complicated, and you wish to achieve your goals?  Mediators can help lead that discussion and get and help you evaluate the professional help that might be needed in putting the plan into effect. 

Are you having a dispute with someone where you reside?  Use of a neutral mediator to lead that discussion might be very helpful. 

Are you having marital problems?  Marital mediation is a very useful and productive way to address disputes, especially in “mature” (long) marriages. 

Are you getting married and feel you need to have a prenuptial agreement?  Formulating a prenuptial agreement with your intended spouse through mediation is a wonderful way to do this.

Do you want to explore having a postnuptial agreement?  These agreements made between you and your spouse after your marriage to try to “fix” something that is of concern to both of you.  This can be handled very well in mediation sessions.  

Do you or someone you know have a dispute regarding the probate of an estate?  Family conflict can sometimes be addressed and eliminated (or lessened) in mediation.  

All these types of issues can respond quite well to the mediation process.  So if you have an issue or conflict that is not going away, you might want to give mediation a try. 

© 2011 Laurie Israel.

Tiger Woods – Throw that Prenuptial Agreement Away!

by Laurie Israel.   I’ve been hearing the sorry tale of Tiger Woods’ alleged deficits as a faithful husband to his beautiful Swedish wife, Elin Nordegren.  It is just a more publicized and extreme version of what I see in my law practice where I spend my days as a divorce lawyer.  In youthful marriages (Tiger is 33, Elin is 29, and have been married for 5 years), the pledge of fidelity is often a difficult one to maintain. 

According to Forbes Magazine, Tiger’s net worth from his work as a professional golfer is about a $600 million dollars.  (The $1 billion figure in the news is his lifetime earnings, not net worth.) 

Tiger actually fits the profile of having a good chance of having a marriage that lasted.  He met his wife four years before they were married.  Tiger’s parents remained married until his father’s death in 2006. When a child’s parents remain married, the child generally has a better chance of having a lifelong relationship.

 However, there were three strikes against him.  Tiger had become a very wealthy man at a very young age through his own efforts at his profession.  He has been a celebrity in the public light for a long time. These two factors alone can cause several personal and identity problems. And the third (probably the worst) problem is that Tiger (presumably advised by his attorneys) made sure that he entered into a Prenuptial Agreement with Elin prior to their marriage in 2004. This provided that Elin would get $20 million if she remained married to him for 10 years.

 Now, it appears that Tiger and his wife are compounding the error by renegotiating the Prenuptial Agreement, rather than just trashing it.

 Tiger’s first offer was to add another $5 million to the $20 million Elin would have received under the original terms of the Prenuptial Agreement.  Now, according to news reports, he is offering her another $80 million to remain with him another six years.  (Hmm, how much is that a year?)  Even $80 million for a man with $600 million is small change to buy Elin’s willingness to give Tiger another chance to recommit to his marriage.  So the message is, “You stay with me for another six years, and I will throw a little more money at you if we divorce.”  It doesn’t show very much commitment on Tiger’s part.

 The sad truth is that most fundamental problem in the Tiger Woods marriage may be that they had a Prenuptial Agreement in the first place.  It allowed Tiger to have one foot in the marriage and one foot out of the marriage.  It allowed Tiger (and Elin) to contemplate a divorce and the terms of the divorce even before they took their vows.  It allowed Elin (who was 24 years old at the time of the marriage) to make decisions with a huge impact about the financial implications of the institution of marriage before which she really knew what marriage was about.  It probably made Elin feel abused and probably made Tiger feel cruel and heartless.  Not a good way to begin a marriage.

 So when Tiger and Elin got married, they did not make the 100% commitment that most other married people make on their wedding day.  They had wedding vows, but if they said  “I marry you with this ring, with all that I have and all that I am, for better or worse, for richer or poorer … ” they were not telling the truth.  Tiger and his attorneys were manipulating the terms of a very real institution that has been developed throughout the thousands of years that humans have been creating supportive, monogamous relationships.  By manipulating it with a Prenuptial Agreement, they were weakening it, not strengthening it.  It’s not surprising that Tiger may have found it relatively easy to depart from his marital vows.  He had made another (contractual) vow that conflicted with the marital vows. 

 As a result, Tiger and Elin were only half married.  Marriage requires total commitment.  A Prenuptial Agreement gives a person a “way out” of the marriage.  Without that total commitment there are bound to be marital problems and divorce.  It’s not surprising that Tiger and Elin ran into problems. Couples that depend on each other financially do not have the latitude to think about straying from the marriage.  It is actually a blessing in a marriage not to have “too much” money.

 What if Elin said to Tiger, “Yes, I will stay married to you, but only if we rip up the Prenuptial Agreement and be like real married couples.”  Yes, they would have risk and uncertainly if there is divorce. Maybe that’s a good thing.  If Tiger finally said “Yes, I will be married to you, completely”, then Elin and Tiger could start to be truly committed to their marriage without money getting in the way.  They would both be following the marriage vows, and their marriage could truly restart. 

 So Elin and Tiger, think for a moment about tearing up that Prenuptial Agreement and starting a real marriage now.  Say to each other (finally) “I marry you with all that I have and all that I am.”