There are many popularly held beliefs concerning divorce that are hard for attorneys to dispel. They seem to just take on a life of their own, even when they lack any basis.

One such belief is that it is somehow advantageous or superior to be the spouse who files first.

Over time, I have learned and confirmed many times over that this belief is widespread in Florida, New York and New Jersey.

Now I can add Ohio to that list, and probably have adequate reason to leap to the conclusion that this old wives’ tale shapes many people’s divorce perspectives across all fifty states – and beyond.

But really, it just ain’t so … almost always.

There is one meaningful exception: where one spouse is secretly planning and preparing for divorce, very actively up to no good for quite a while, and the other spouse is utterly stunned with shock and caught completely unprepared when they are served totally out of the blue.

This does happen from time to time.

But it shouldn’t. There were telltale signs. Little red flags. If not far more to go on.

Almost always, the spouse who was stunned, buried their head in the sand, hoping against hope that it wasn’t so, desperately clinging to their fantasy marriage, refusing to face reality.

Similarly, the spouse who is so totally unprepared for divorce is equally unprepared for their spouse’s sudden death … or accident / illness / disability. Unfortunately, such tragedies strike all the time.

If the spouse who filed first has an advantage in their divorce, in truth it derives not from being the first to file but rather from their spouse living life imitating an ostrich and/or flying by the seat of their pants on a wing and a prayer.

If that describes you, that should be your concern, not just being the first to file.

Read more in this Columbus [OH] dispatch advice column: Wholly Matrimony: Filing first for divorce offers no advantage

Like every divorce attorney, I’ve heard this from time to time.

The truth is, in the average layperson’s mind, if a ruling doesn’t go their way, they often tend to feel that their assigned family court judge is “against them”. But, by definition, most divorce court rulings are going to favor one spouse at the expense of the other.

So, in a sense, most family court rulings will be “against” one spouse or the other. But that doesn’t mean that the divorce court judge is “against” the “losing spouse”. And a spouse isn’t entitled to “swap judges” just because the original family court judge has ruled against him or her.

Judges are required to be impartial and free of bias. But ruling is the very essence of a judge’s duty. True judicial bias is pretty rare.

But not entirely unheard of. Take this case from the UK.

In their divorce, Husband, a very successful business man, was ordered to pay Wife alimony and spousal support.

Husband has allegedly fallen behind in his alimony, on the order of UK £2 million.

The presiding Judge threatens to incarcerate Husband.

Problem is, it does not appear that Husband is willfully non-compliant with the court’s alimony and spousal support order.

Rather, Husband allegedly has cancer and is simply unable to pay the court-ordered alimony. Under such circumstances, if true, of course, incarceration would just not be appropriate.

But Judge apparently refused to hear of it.

A UK appeals court saw the situation differently though and recused the Judge from the case, causing the case to be reassigned to another judge.

Read more in this UK Telegraph news article: ‘Hostile’ divorce judge thrown off case

The UK legislature today approved what is popularly called a Three Parent Baby. This is a baby conceived in a lab using genetic material from two women and one man.

The man and one of the women are who have traditionally been considered parents. The second woman’s participation is understood as being limited to contributing what is termed mitochondrial DNA, intended to replace the “real” mother’s “defective” mitochondrial DNA.

Based on limited animal studies, scientists enthuse that this lab procedure will merely allow mothers with defective mitochondrial DNA to give birth to babies free of crippling, devastating and/or terminal mitochondrial diseases.

For context, roughly 6,500 babies across the planet are born with mitochondrial diseases each year. This procedure will also protect all the babies’ future descendants from the ravages of such defective mitochondrial DNA.

Will this lab procedure alter any other genes or characteristics of the Three Parent Babies or their descendants?

Uh, don’t think so. But why don’t you ask again in, say, 25 years?

What all does mitochondrial DNA regulate in humans?

Well, actually, not really so sure. Why not ask again in, say, 25 years?

Has there been any significant progress in treating mitochondrial diseases lately?

Nah, they only affect about 6,500 births worldwide per year. Not a sufficient critical mass to make it cost-effective to bother researching.

And no need. There’s this nifty new lab procedure that works around mitochondrial diseases … and has the potential to do oh so much more tweaking of the genetic code ….

Clinical trials of the type generally required for approval of new drugs or surgical procedures, have not been conducted on this lab procedure. Nor is it clear how much effort has been directed toward treating or curing the mitochondrial diseases this lab procedure is reportedly intended to prevent.

The vote on whether to allow this lab procedure was under debate in the UK legislature for a full 90 minutes.

Scientists in the US have been conducting similar research and animal testing. Clinical trials are anticipated in the not too distant future.

Hey, childhood obesity is an epidemic. Obesity is believed to cause, contribute to or aggravate Type 2 diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and heart attack, sleep apnea, arthritis, gallbladder disease, fatty liver disease, and depression, to name a few. Several of these conditions can be extremely debilitating – or fatal.

Maybe a variation of the newly approved procedure could prevent childhood obesity?

Oh, nope, scientists don’t really know precisely which gene(s) and/or DNA segment(s) cause childhood obesity. There are over 50 different genes that appear to be involved in obesity.

Read more in this:

1. BBC News Health article: MPs say yes to three-person babies
2. CNN News Health article: UK lawmakers approve ‘3-parent babies’ law
3. Fox News Health article: Britain votes to allow world’s first ‘three-parent’ IVF babies
4. NPR News the two-way article: ‘3-Parent Baby’ Law Moves Forward In Britain
5. Wired Science article: How It’s Possible for a Baby to Have Three Parents
6. LA Times World article: Britain moves toward allowing creation of babies from DNA of 3 people
7. CDC Public Health Genomics: Genomics and Health, Genes and Obesity
8. CDC Overweight and Obesity: Basics About Childhood and Obesity
9. ScienceNordic: Seven new genetic causes of obesity identified

New Jersey Wife has domestic violence restraining order against Husband.

Husband and Wife are also in the middle of a divorce.

Husband is representing himself in the divorce.

At a divorce hearing, Husband is allowed to cross examine Wife.

In his examination, Husband refers to text messages he sent to his Wife … after entry of the domestic violence injunction.

Unfortunately for Husband, whatever he may have had in mind, it backfired on him. What Husband did was broadcast directly to the judge that Husband had violated the domestic violence restraining order.

As a result, Husband was arrested on the spot for violating the domestic violence injunction.

Husband was then confined in jail pending bond of $2,500.

Husband could have benefited, at the very least, from some legal advice and counsel prior to his divorce hearing …

Read more in this Hunterdon County [NJ] Democrat article: Restraining order allegedly violated by questioning at divorce hearing in Hunterdon

Marriages break up for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes seemingly for no particular reason, at least none that either spouse can really zero in on and articulate.

Frustration at their inability to articulate a “justification” sure to satisfy friends and family may, strangely enough, give rise to some of the rather unlikely sounding reasons published in a virtual Ripley’s Believe It or Not of Divorce Triggers.

They are:

1. Not liking a certain film.
2. Possession by a genie.
3. Breakage of an, uh, enhancing prosthetic.
4. Insatiability.
5. Assigning unflattering nickname in phone contacts.
6. Cheating, according to … parrot.
7. Adopting 550 cats.
8. Excessive cleaning.
9. Kissing a horse.
10. Having an affair … sixty or seventy years before.

Read more in this Huffington Post piece: His Penis Extension Broke — And 9 More Crazy Reasons People Divorced

Wealthy elderly Husband, a Malaysian national living in the UK with his Wife, are in the middle of a divorce in the UK.

Husband and Wife have amassed a fortune worth roughly 440 million pounds.

UK family court has ordered Husband to pay Wife roughly US $75,000 per month in spousal support and alimony.

But Husband allegedly does not pay. At all.

Instead, absenting himself from the UK. And seeking to have the divorce case transferred to Malaysia. On grounds unknown.

While past due spousal support has reportedly risen to 440,000 pounds.

At the same time, since the most recent spousal support order was entered, Husband’s stock portfolio has reportedly appreciated by 20 million pounds.

The presiding divorce court judge is not happy with Husband’s conduct – nor with the outrageously high 3 million pounds of legal fees and costs in this case so far. The judge finds himself in the unusual position (for a judge) of attempting to contain the spouses’ legal expenses.

For his part, Husband is apparently now objecting to what may be characterized as excesses, such as Wife’s 1,000 pairs of shoes. But it is not clear that Husband objected prior to the divorce.

Read more in this BloombergBusiness news article: Malaysian Millionaire’s Wife Seeks $330 Million in Divorce .

The end of January is a great time to refresh everyone’s recollection of some of the key tax impacts with divorce. Forbes magazine obliges with:

Filing status: You can still file a joint return for 2014 as long as you were still legally married on December 31^st. If you divorced during the year, you can still file as single head of household for greater tax savings.

Dependents and Deductions: If your children lived with you for more than half of the year (or, regardless, if you and your spouse agreed to it), you can claim the child dependency tax deduction. You and your spouse can negotiate who gets child related deductions and credits, and it doesn’t always have to be the same parent.

Alimony: By default, a spouse who pays alimony gets a deduction for it and the receiving spouse must include the alimony as income. But, remember, this too can be negotiated.

Child Support: But child support is tax neutral, neither deductible nor includible.

401(k)s: Transfers between spouses as part of property division in a divorce will not trigger early withdrawal penalties IF incorporated into a special court order called a QDRO, or Qualified Domestic Relations Order.

Capital Gains on Sale of a Home: If there has been very substantial appreciation on homes during the marriage, you should check out the capital gains sales tax breaks.

Mortgage Interest Deductions: Mortgage deductions are allocated the same as title. It doesn’t matter who actually lives in the home.

Read more in this Forbes article: Getting Divorced? 8 Things You Must Know About Taxes

Some marriages never stand a chance. Here are some reasons why failure may strike fast.

1. Cheating practically out of the gate.

2. Dramatic personality change immediately after the wedding.

3. The marriage was nothing more than a means to an end, such as having a child, right now … and it doesn’t happen right now.

4. Latent substance abusive tendencies come to the fore shortly after wedding bells ring.

5. They develop a new fascination with someone else.

6. They begin to act as though you are chattel and must do as they wish.

7. Unrecognized incompatibility of needs and ways of interacting.

8. Youth and ignorance about what they wanted.

9. Multiple unrelated stresses flare contemporaneously.

10. They rushed into the marriage because of logistical issues.

This list is not without overlap and duplication.

Read more in this Huffington Post piece: 10 Reasons People Divorce After Less Than A Year Of Marriage.

That is the question spurred by proposed changes to the US Census survey.

Specifically, the Census Bureau has concluded that questions pertaining to marriage and divorce provide “low benefit and low cost”.

But not everyone agrees with their assessment.

Some experts believe that marriage and divorce data have important implications, including practical ones for Social Security benefits planning and more academically for broad-based socio-economic research – and the census may be the only viable source of such data.

It turns out that states may not report this data, or may not do so accurately, anyway. Who knew?

At this time, the Census Bureau’s proposed changes to the Census survey are inviting comments – and receiving quite a few highly opinionated ones

Time will tell the outcome of this vigorous debate.

Read more in this CNN Money piece: Should we stop tracking the divorce rate?

Every state in the union now recognizes no-fault divorce and allows for simplified uncontested divorces. But it was a long time coming, with New York State being the last holdout.

But that doesn’t mean that every couple everywhere has a legal right to a no-fault, uncontested divorce. On the contrary, every couple does not have a right to any kind of a divorce.

For example, in the Phillipines, divorce is not permitted. At all. Period. Really.

If a couple satisfies the fairly strict and narrow grounds for it, a marriage may be annulled. But it’s not easy, fast or inexpensive. And it doesn’t necessarily permit remarriage.

Ironically, divorce was allowed in the Phillipines, among the native tribes, before the country was colonized by Spain, and briefly, circa 1917, during a brief Japanese occupation. But no longer.

At least not for the predominating Catholic population there.

Ironically, it is reportedly less expensive to have your spouse eliminated than to obtain an annulment.

Many claim that the virtual impossibility of disentanglement from an unhappy marriage has served as a disincentive to marry in the first place, encouraged abandonment of spouses and children, and actually led to a large so-called illegitimate children population with multiple mothers per father. Probably not the desired consequences of the divorce-rejecting political / religious lobby.

Read more in

1. this Yahoo News via AP news article: Divorce ban shows Catholic church power in Philippines and
2. this Foreign Policy news article: The Last Country in the World Where Divorce Is Illegal