Sometimes, there’s a clear smoking gun leading to a divorce. One spouse catches the other cheating, getting drunk or high again after swearing it off, one spouse loses their shirt again at the gaming table, etc. But sometimes it’s a lot fuzzier than that, or just a combination of relatively minor things.

Below are some unlikely things that are anecdotally correlated with divorce (for reasons not always known):

1. Commutes over 45 minutes one-way
2. High incidence of divorce in a person’s family or social circle
3. Firstborn child is female, based on the US census
4. The wife developed a serious illness
5. The wife is a physician … who works long hours
6. The husband pitches in to help with half the housework
7. The wife drinks significantly more alcohol than the husband
8. The husband and wife maintain healthy body weights
9. One of the spouses is low in a hormone associated with affectionate nature

Read more in this Yahoo Health article by way of Prevention magazine: 9 Really Weird Causes Of Divorce .

Washington Husband and Wife have 9 year old Son together.

Son is in the hospital. That’s not all that unusual for Son.

According to Husband and Wife, Son suffers from cytomegalovirus, contracted while in Wife’s womb, autism with sensory distortions, cerebral palsy, microcephaly, seizures, ADHD, ODD, OCD, digestive problems, food and oral aversions, scoliosis, immune system dysfunction, brain calcifications, hearing loss, etc.

Son uses a wheelchair.

Son has undergone several surgeries of different types, all, presumably, performed by health care professionals.

Son’s physicians have now reportedly come to harbor concerns however that Son is not as ill as Husband and Wife suggest to the world via the internet, and dispute that Son requires a wheelchair … or the feeding tube that some health care professional inserted.

As a result, Child Protective Services removed Son from Husband’s and Wife’s custody and have placed Son in foster care.

Husband and Wife stand accused of “caregiver fabricated illness”, formerly known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Sometimes Munchausen parents actually cause their children’s illness / symptoms. Other times, they merely embellish.

Weeks after Son’s removal from Husband and Wife’s home, a family court has ordered that Son remain in foster care while an investigation continues.

Husband and Wife are allowed limited visitation with Son.

Read more in

1. this Yahoo Parenting article: Why Did Officials Take Away This Couple’s Disabled Son? and
2. this K5 NBC TV news article: Judge rules Bubby Everson will remain in foster care

In a ruling with far-reaching impact, the US Supreme Court has overturned the law of several states and legalized gay marriage across the nation. Florida began allowing gay marriage earlier this year.

Benefits to gay people in committed relationships will range from the obvious emotional ones to all the economic benefits and rights legally married heterosexual couples have long enjoyed, from spousal pension and retirement, social security spousal and survivor benefits, spousal health care benefits, spousal inheritance rights, health care decision-making rights for a spouse, and on and on.

Along with the universal availability of gay marriage will come the universally recognized right to divorce and, presumably, adopt children.

Read more in

• this Reuters article: Landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizes gay marriage nationwide
• this Global Post article by way of Reuters: Gay marriage’s big benefit is Social Security .

Couples are always shocked when their marriage falls apart. Or are they? Really?

A recent survey of about sixteen hundred divorced couples in the UK actually suggests quite the opposite.

More than half of the survey participants revealed that they had serious doubts about going through with their marriage right up until their wedding day.

Astonishingly, only thirty-six percent of the survey participants felt optimistic about their marital future. Fifteen percent reported actually feeling physically ill.

Yet ninety percent never uttered a word to their intended. About thirty percent unloaded on a good friend or their mother.

Given such reservations, one can’t help but wonder why the couples went through with their weddings. The researchers wondered as well, and asked.

The reasons reported included:

1. They hoped they were wrong

2. It was the last minute

3. They thought it was normal to have such doubts

4. They felt guilty for having doubts

5. They didn’t want to disappoint their family

6. They thought their intended would change for the better after the wedding

7. They were embarrassed

8. They didn’t want to let go of their intended

9. They and their family had invested too much into the wedding

10. They had children together and wanted to create a family and home for them.

It would be very interesting to conduct the same survey with a representative cross section of married couples.

One thing is almost certain. Most of these couples might have eased their minds and saved themselves a pretty penny and a whole lot of stress and aggravation by having a premarital conversation and entering a prenuptial agreement.

Read more in this news.com.au news article: Half of divorced British couples had doubts before their wedding .

Eighty-eight year old Husband and seventy-seven year old Wife have a less than perfect marriage.

It seems Husband has been stepping out on Wife, with more than one other woman, in fact.

Husband is a retired, successful advertising executive, who sold his agency for big bucks. Girlfriend is a retired fundraiser.

Girlfriend has been assisting Husband with promoting his autobiography, among other tasks. Ironically, Girlfriend also assisted Husband with shutting down a former mistress … who threatened Husband with a $3 million lawsuit which would have brought her to Wife’s attention.

Finally, Girlfriend went to work on “helping” Husband divorce Wife. Which is when she learned that Husband wasn’t having any of it.

Cast aside, Girlfriend in turn has sued Husband for $2 million, the value she assigns to the professional services she rendered to Husband. She alleges that Husband promised to pay her for her efforts.

Just to be clear, Girlfriend obviously knows full well that a court cannot enforce a contract for services of a, uh, … nonbusiness / nonprofessional nature.

Nor will a court enforce or compensate anyone for a breach of a promise to divorce.

Read more in this New York Post article: Mistress sues her ex-lover for not leaving his wife .

I previously posted in Husband and Wife Against the World, or the State of Maryland Anyway about a family that favored raising their children with so-called “free range parenting” … and butted heads with child protective services and law enforcement because of that.

Child protective services’ actions regarding this family drew global interest and ire and sparked a lot of discussion.

Ultimately, all the investigations of Husband and Wife were closed without further action for lack of any evidence of child neglect.

But, perhaps feeling some heat for its actions, the state of Maryland has issued a statement reassuring the public that it would not intervene in families’ affairs unless children were actually harmed or were at “substantial risk of harm”.

Read more in this Washington Post article by way of AP: After ‘free-range’ case, Maryland clarifies solo-kids policy

Idaho Husband and Wife set off with their four children on a family vacation to Las Vegas.

Only it turns out that Wife was having an affair … and Husband knew it. He allegedly had someone rough up Wife’s boyfriend – and taunted that he would take their children away from her.

Husband and Wife’s van is flagged down by police one night for nonworking headlights. But the police send them on their way.

Later on, at Wife’s urging, Wife’s brother allegedly assaults Husband with a hatchet, striking Husband multiple times, until he was nearly decapitated … while Wife reportedly held Husband down. During the struggle, Husband stabbed Wife’s Brother once.

Wife then called police to report a carjacking and attempted murder when they stopped due to car trouble.

Wife and her brother were expected to be charged with murder and conspiracy to murder.

Read more in

• this Latin Times news article: Enrique Hernandez Murder: Maria Hernandez, Wife, Had Husband Killed After She Cheated, For Fear Of Losing Children Custody and
• this New York Daily News article: Idaho woman had brother hack husband to death after he discovered her affair, threatened to take kids: cops

There is some overlap. Forewarned is forearmed though, so here goes:

1. Your Communications Just Don’t Cut It
2. The Romance and the Fun Are Not Nurtured
3. You Don’t Make Time for Your Relationship
4. You’re Not Ready for a Relationship with Someone Else Because You Haven’t Figured Out Yourself Yet

Read more in this Yahoo Health article by way of Self magazine: The Number One Relationship Problem, According To Therapists — and How to Fix It

New York Husband and Wife have two minor children together.

Both Husband and Wife have established successful careers.

Husband boasts of having thirty years in corporate finance and international banking under his belt.

Yet Husband reportedly testifies in family court that he has been working for a start-up for the last three years and has not received any income. For three years.

Then Wife produces photographs of Husband skiing in the Swiss Alps – and passing time in Monaco.

Oddly enough, this doesn’t add up for the family court judge, who takes Husband to task for not paying his child support. And orders Husband to come up with some income to pay child support.

Husband then offers to put his proceeds of sale from a real estate deal into an escrow account available for costs in the divorce case.

Read more in this New York Post article: Judge rips ‘broke’ deadbeat dad who skied in Alps.

A few months ago, I posted about a case in Palm Beach County that has garnered considerable international attention, Mother Held in Contempt of Court for Delaying Son’s Circumcision For … Three Years .

It is interesting to contrast this case with a similar (but not identical) case that unfolded in Israel, where circumcision is part of Jewish religious practice.

In the Israeli case, which was a divorce case, Israel’s highest appellate court reportedly held that the question of a child’s circumcision is not a proper subject for his parents’ divorce case.

One important distinction between the US and Israeli cases is that the appeal in Israel was from a ruling by a religious, or rabbinical court, presiding over a divorce, rather than a secular family court which typically considers other types of family law matters.

The essence of the ruling was that that the rabbinical court lacked authority, or jurisdiction, to rule on whether the child should be circumcised.

Read more in

1. this Jerusalem Post opinion piece: American courts should follow Israel’s lead in case of boy facing circumcision
2. this Haaretz article: Israel’s High Court voids rabbinical ruling ordering woman to circumcise son and
3. this YNet article: High Court overturns rabbinical court’s forced circumcision ruling .