Fidelity is the spoken and unspoken rule of most marriages. There are the vows at the beginning of the marriage. There are ongoing promises of fidelity. Fidelity is required by the culture of marriage, especially here in the United States.

Spouses fear infidelity, and for good...

They say miracles don't happen anymore. Miracles were in the Bible, like Judah Maccabeus, and the candle that burned without oil for eight days and eight nights.

A few of years back, around the time of Hanukkah, I experienced a miracle (actually two of them, back to back) with my...

I have been thinking about the Seven Deadly Sins lately. I'm not sure why. Perhaps my pondering on repentance during September led me to think of the sins that I've committed during the past year.

The Seven Deadly Sins are not in the Jewish religion, but I remember hearing...

I have recently been using a term for a certain type of fast and easy divorce -- "surgical divorce". This type of divorce is actually quite frequent among my divorcing clients.

What I call a "surgical divorce" is the kind of divorce where the spouses do not want to...

Lawyers often use idioms rather than legal terms to explain concepts and strategies in divorce law to our clients. Somehow, these idiomatic terms are more descriptive and powerful in describing the dynamics and techniques that are present in a divorce than any other type of language. Lately, I have been...

As I get older, I become more nurturing of younger people. I commute by subway, and generally, I (at the tender age of 65) am the oldest person on the train. I look at the younger people -- so full of life and activity. And in spite of being an...

In the first part of this article, Prenups -- Don't Lawyer Up, Mediate! -- Part I: "The Problem", I discussed the dangers in doing prenups the usual way -- lawyering up and making it like an adversarial business deal. This usually results in a very bruising and destructive...

There have been many articles on The Huffington Post and elsewhere touting the benefits of prenuptial agreements, such as, "Why Engaged Couples Should Sign a Prenup." These articles typically talk about how resolving and clarifying money issues prior to marriage is a good thing. However,...

The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") has two main parts. Section 2 of the act states that states need not recognize a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of other states. This means that if I'm married in Massachusetts...

I watched "How to Train your Dragon" on Netflix this weekend. It's a DreamWorks animated film about an adolescent boy who chose to communicate with a dangerous dragon, rather than slay it. Like most modern animations, it has deep meaning. In the case of "How to Train Your Dragon," it...

This past week, a colleague in the collaborative practice community, Chris Chen, a CDFA (Certified Divorce Financial Analyst) in Waltham, Massachusetts, told me about a company offering divorce insurance. As someone involved in the business of both divorce and marital mediation I was intrigued. I couldn't resist taking...

As a divorce lawyer and divorce mediator, my divorce clients describe problems that led to the failure of their marriages. These problems seem to be universal. There might be anger and frustration about sharing household duties and creating income for the family that finally caused a breakdown. Some marital failures...

Alimony is a highly-charged word.

Discussions of alimony generally get the strongest reactions from both men and women when working out the terms of a divorce. Believe it or not, it's generally more contentious than custody disputes over children or property division.

Men (the typical gender of the alimony provider)...

In the US, every state has a different set of divorce laws about distributing assets between ex-husband and ex-wife. So if you get divorced in California you may end up with a very different financial settlement than if you had divorced in Massachusetts.

"Community Property" laws v. "Equitable Property" jurisdictions

In India, only one out of every hundred marriages fails. But the divorce rate is rising, especially in big cities, due to changing lifestyles, urbanization, women's economic independence, and growing prevalence of "western" attitudes towards marriage. Though the divorce rate is low compared to most developed countries, it has reportedly...

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

If you don't follow baseball news, the McCourt case is the epic divorce battle for ownership of the $800 million Los Angeles Dodgers after a 30 year marriage. After wading through the 100 page court opinion of the case^*, I've come to some surprising conclusions about postnuptial agreements. The key...

Almost every married couple I know experiences conflict when driving in the car. One of them is a backseat driver. One of them drives too fast, or too slow, or too dangerously, or just plain badly. Nerves get frayed. Tension rises. The relationship in the car may reflect the darkest...

You have embarked on a divorce, selected a lawyer, and now are ready to begin the process.  Be careful of the many pitfalls as you work with your attorney.  Here are some things to avoid as your divorce wends its way through the legal process:
 
1.  The...