You can get a quickie wedding, so why not a quickie divorce? That's the logic behind the Divorce Hotel, where you can check in as a couple, and check out in two days as singles:

In the Netherlands a weekend break can become a weekend break-up for couples hoping for a swift and cheap divorce.

It is a concept called the 'Divorce Hotel' and helps husbands and wives to arrange all the necessary legal documentation to end their marriage over the course of just two days.

They meet a mediator and series of lawyers behind closed doors who will split assets, agree alimony payments and arrange visitation rights - all for a fixed fee.

It is the brainchild of entrepreneur Jim Halfens, who said he spotted a gap in the market in a country where the average divorce can easily run into five figures and take months to complete.

"When they leave the hotel, all work is done," he told Sky News.

"The only thing that happens then in Dutch law is that they have to show the agreement to a judge in the Netherlands and that takes a couple of weeks.

"They walk divorced out of this door and to make it official takes a couple of weeks."

If you're wondering, the couples mostly choose to stay in separate rooms: Link

Previously on Neatorama: The Increasingly Rapid Decline of Marriage

If you’ve ever been truly dedicated to a particular collection, then you know just how heart breaking it would be to lose it after putting in so much time and money. Now just imagine your collection transformed your entire apartment into a Star Trek ship only to risk losing it in a divorce. That’s what very well may happen to Tony Alleyne, whose wife wants to convert it back into a “normal” dwelling and sell the property to a presumably “normal” buyer. Read all about the sad news over at The Sun.

Link Via BoingBoing

Divorcing a spouse due to marital infidelity is sadly not uncommon. But what is newsworthy is how a 99-year-old Italian man divorced his wife after learning of that she had an affair ... 60 years ago!

The Italian man, identified by lawyers in the case only as Antonio C, was rifling through an old chest of drawers when he made the discovery a few days before Christmas.

Notwithstanding the time that had elapsed since the betrayal, he was so upset that he immediately confronted his wife of 77 years, named as Rosa C, and demanded a divorce.

Guilt-stricken, she reportedly confessed everything but was unable to persuade her husband to reconsider his decision.

She wrote the letters to her lover during a secret affair in the 1940s, according to court papers released in Rome this week.

The couple are now preparing to split, despite the ties they forged over nearly eight decades – they have five children, a dozen grandchildren and one great-grand child.

Link (Photo: Shutterstock)

Dividing homes, cars, and kids in a divorce is oh-so-last year. The new trend in divorce today is handing over each other's Facebook passwords.

That's what a judge in Connecticut has ordered:

At the end of September, Judge Kenneth Shluger ordered that the attorneys for Stephen and Courtney Gallion exchange “their client’s Facebook and dating website passwords.”

Everyone knows that evidence from social networking sites comes in handy for lawsuits and divorces. Attorneys usually get that material by visiting someone’s page or asking that they turn over evidence from their page, not by signing into their accounts. But judges are sometimes forcing litigants to hand over the passwords to their Facebook accounts.

Link - via TIME (Photo: Ahmad Faizal Wahya/Shutterstock)

In the 1860s nearly all women managed to get hitched. Today, with a better gender ratio, only 22% of adults aged 18-29 are married and only 44.9% of adults in all adult age groups have ever been married. The median ages for first marriages have moved way up as well–from 23 for men and 20 for women in 1960 to 28 and 26, respectively, today. Divorce is hovering at the 50% rate.

‘Major attitudinal shifts’

Bolick notes that for women, marriage is now “an option rather than a necessity,” citing a dwindling pool of educated, committed men, a new majority of women in the workplace, a tanking economy, IVF and adoption, the rise of non-traditional families and marriage arrangements, and a dissipating “spinster” stigma.

Bolick represents the intentionally single thirty- or forty-something. The newest generation eschewing nuptials is the tech-savvy and generally liberal Millennial. With education leveling the playing field, opportunities to earn something beyond the MRS might just be higher on a girl’s list of priorities. Likewise, the responsibility of career, house and family (married or not) is what Sex at Dawn co-author Christopher Ryan calls “swimming upstream.” It’s perhaps inevitable that fewer women take it on.

Today’s women are professionally and financially more established, so they should be all that more appealing to males. They are, generally, but not in a “find The One and keep her” way. Men are also opting to remain single as long as they are happy. “If you have four quality women you’re dating and they’re in a rotation, who’s going to rush into a marriage?” asks Ralph Richard Banks, author of Is Marriage for White People? In response, Rod Dreher at the American Conservative lays it out: “Throw out traditional morality for an ethic of libertinism and you get men being what biology has programmed them to be. In this way, feminism, whatever its benefits for women, has hurt them.”

Changing expectations

Dreher’s insistence that being unmarried is a ‘hurt’ to the purposely single woman is debatable. But it’s clear that the expectations of marriage have changed rapidly over the last half-century. Women are not expected to be June Cleaver, and men are not expected to shoulder the full financial burden alone. And they can even cohabitate now without the nasty rumors that haunted earlier generations.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that healthy relationships are, or the desirability of the pair bond are declining. One could argue that without the legal constraints, the odds of finding a working, healthy relationship increase. Add to this the growing presence of nontraditional family groups (friends and extended family as family) and relatively commonplace single-parent household, and what you get is a less strict idea of what normal relationships are.

In Mexico City, in a move to counter high divorce rates, lawmakers have proposed a two-year marriage license. The trial-by-marriage would give newlyweds “an easy exit strategy” by allowing them to mutually decide whether or not to renew. Whether this is better than having never married at all is a completely different debate, but points out how marriage is not what it once was.

Tradition? Buck tradition.

Marriage as we know it is a relatively new concept. It wasn’t until marriage was used to procure and maintain land-ownership that the couple was limited in breaking that bond without permission. And when your husband or wife is chosen for their respective acreages, affection is an afterthought, if a thought at all.

And yes, a certain non-zero percentage of the population is still denied marriage by (most) state laws. Typically it’s argued that this denial of rights is to protect traditional marriage, but clearly marriage before the last century and since is not what we would call “traditional.”

Bolick’s article makes several major points that aren’t included here. But given that gender parity and economic downturn and the changing boundaries of social acceptance have come together to throw a wrench in our standard American Marriage, Bolick might be onto something.

Do you think that the declining marriage rates in the US are a problem, or is it just a shift in expectations from relationships and adulthood? Or, if you prefer: Is less marriage better, or worse?

Sources:

• All the Single Ladies
• The Atlantic‘s ‘Single Ladies’ cover story: 6 takeaways
• NBC Celebrates ‘End of Traditional Marriage,’ Perpetual Female Singlehood
• In U.S., Proportion Married at Lowest Recorded Levels
• Decline of men, decline of marriage
• ‘Til 2013 do us part? Mexico City mulls 2-year marriage

Couples thinking about going through the Divorce Hotel process have to start with a set of extensive interviews. If they decide they can settle their differences quickly, with a mediator instead of lawyers, then they choose a four or five star hotel.

Over three days, the mediator and other specialists – notaries, even psychologists – are on hand to help the couple.

“If the marriage can be saved, we always tell people they are at the wrong address at the divorce hotel,” said Marie-Louise Van As, a lawyer who works as a mediator at the Divorce Hotel.

She notes that the three-day hotel stays are not a vacation. There are checklists, homework she calls it, that the couples have to do ahead of time.

But, Van As says, it’s worth it for many couples.

“In Holland to get divorced usually lasts six to nine months,” Van As said. “A bad divorce, a fighting divorce, can last five to 10 years. And cost 50,000 Euros or more.

The Divorce Hotel process costs about 5% of that. So far, participating couples have booked separate rooms. Link -via Fortean Times

With this ring, I thee wed .... and with this one, I thee ... divorce?

That's right - jewelers Spritzer and Furman created this symbolic ring to commemorate the ending of a marriage. At $3,200 it's a cheap price to pay for saying goodbye to someone you (used to) love. (It's something to add to your Divorce Registry!)

Link - via The Week

Previously on Neatorama: Guillotine Divorce Ring

Lariviere owns an excavation company. He said he used one of his own front-end loaders to transport the rock through the town streets in the wee hours Saturday.[...]

During the delivery, he was stopped twice by police who asked him for identification and questioned what he was doing.

“I told them the truth — that I was delivering a gift,” Lariviere said. “They weren’t able to stop me because what I was doing wasn’t illegal.”

Link -via Lowering the Bar | Photo: Paul Chiasson/Canada Press

wyliewalcyzkracing doesn’t go into much detail, but he links the loss of his beloved Chevrolet Camaro with his upcoming divorce. This is tragic because the car, he asserts, has superior features and performance to his wife. He goes into great detail on this point:

Read the rest of his comparison at the link. Link -via MArooned

Kest Schwartzman of Vagabond Jewelry made this cheerful wedding ring. If you want to end the marriage, there’s a price to be paid.

Link | Vagabond Jewelry

A staggering 80 per cent of divorce lawyers have also reported a spike in the number of cases that use social media for evidence of cheating.

Flirty messages and photographs found on Facebook are increasingly being cited as proof of unreasonable behaviour or irreconcilable differences. Many cases revolve around social media users who get back in touch with old flames they hadn’t heard from in many years.

Facebook was by far the biggest offender, with 66 per cent of lawyers citing it as the primary source of evidence in a divorce case. MySpace followed with 15 per cent, Twitter at 5 per cent and other choices lumped together at 14 per cent.

Link

In the original 2003 research on the topic, economists Gordon Dahl, from the University of California-San Diego, and Enrico Moretti, at UC Berkeley, found that couples with a first-born girl were about 5 percent more likely to divorce than parents of a first-born boy. When there are as many as three daughters that difference spiked to 10 percent.

Researchers don’t know the cause, but have proposed many possibilities, from the presence of daughters making a mother more likely to leave an abusive husband to the idea that a man is more likely to marry a woman who is pregnant with his son. In any case, the statistics do not necessarily reflect the odds for an individual marriage. Link

(Image source: Clipart for Free)

Attorney Steve Miller doesn’t hold back. If you want be “on your way to getting rid of that vermin you call a spouse”, he’s apparently the man to go to.

via Urlesque

Click. And there it was, the stuff of nightmares for any spouse, cuckolded or not. Wedding photos. At Walt Disney World, no less, featuring her husband literally dressed as Prince Charming. His new wife, a pretty blonde, was a glowing Sleeping Beauty, surrounded by footmen.

“I was numb with shock, to tell you the truth,” says France, an occupational therapist from Westlake, a Cleveland suburb. “There was like an album of 200 pictures on there. Their whole wedding.”

France began divorce proceedings after the discovery. So remember, Facebook is no place to practice bigamy. Link -via reddit

Technically, the two are married. They file joint tax returns; she’s covered by his insurance. But they see each other just several times a year. “Since separating we get along better than we ever have,” he said. “It’s kind of nice.”

And at 58, he sees no reason to divorce. Their children have grown and left home. He asked himself: Why bring in a bunch of lawyers? Why create rancor when there’s nowhere to go but down?

“To tie a bow around it would only make it uglier,” Mr. Frost said. “When people ask about my relationship status, I usually just say: ‘It’s complicated. I like my wife, I just can’t live with her.’ ”

Pamela Paul of The New York Times has the story: Link

Mr Chhalotre had complained the impotence accusation “rendered him unmarriageable and sullied his prestige”.

The amount of the fine far exceeds the annual income of millions living in India.

One supposes that a charge of cruelty or adultery might have been better for his ego, if not his reputation. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Flickr user Jo Christian Oterhals)

Kevin Cotter was devasted when his wife of 12 years moved out last July. She packed up the car with all her possessions but she left one thing in her closet. “What do you want me to do with that?” he asked her.  “Whatever you #@$%# want,” she replied, and left.

To help himself cope with the trauma of divorce, Cotter set up a website called “My Ex-Wife’s Wedding Dress” and decided to invent 101 uses for the dress.  So far he has documented 23 uses, including pasta strainer, skipping rope, barber smock, dog bed, camera lens cleaner, Christmas tree skirt, coffee filter and barbecue cover. Kevin demostrates its use as a dog toy, above.

He has asked for help from readers to think up more uses so he will reach his goal of 101. Cotter’s website has attracted lots of fans and his ex-wife is not happy about his project.

“Nothing about divorce is pleasant or easy and I will share some of my experiences and at the same time lighten them up with some creative uses for this dress I was stuck with.”

Link to story. Link to website.  -via Arbroath

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

The two are in a bitter divorce battle, and the question of what faith their child should be raised in is pushing the boundaries of child custody arrangements.

Reyes’ decision to baptize his daughter without his wife’s permission resulted in what some are calling an extraordinary court order: The Hon. Edward R. Jordan in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., imposed a 30-day restraining order forbidding Joseph Reyes from, according to the document, "exposing his daughter to any other religion than the Jewish religion. …"

Link

Love is dead ... No, no. Not Brangelina splitting up. We're talking about a pair of swans at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre at Slimbridge, England.

Swans are famous for mating for life, but this year a male swan named Sarindi (the cad!!!) turned up in an annual migration from Arctic Russia with a new female. Perhaps not to be outdone, Sarind's ex Saruni also showed up with a new mate:

Julia Newth, wildlife health research officer at Slimbridge, said the situation had taken staff by surprise.

She said swans tended to have "real loyalties to one another" and long partnerships.

"As long as they are both still alive, they will try to stay together. If they have a change of mate it is perhaps because of mortality, not necessarily through choice," she said.

In this case, however, both swans and their new partners are now over-wintering in close proximity on the lake at Slimbridge.

Ms Newth said the old pair had not acknowledged each other with any signs of recognition or greeting - even though they are occupying the same part of the small lake.

Oh well, it's not like they have 8 kids together or anything ... Next stop for the swans: Divorce Registry! Link

CNN has the story: Link

They decided to separate after nearly 20 years of marriage in January 2009.

Mr Jones said: "We had a lot of problems, like money problems, me working and Jan doing all the work at home, relying on friends to help take the children to school. We tried to make it work but we couldn’t. We thought we would get divorced and see what happened. I moved out and got a room and I was coming around seeing the children every time I could."

The pair stayed amicable for the sake of their kids and were in constant phone and text contact.

Mr Jones said: "I’m used to the children and Jan being around me and being on my own was like something was missing out of my life. We were texting each other and ringing and I was coming around all the time. It was the worst time of my life."

Link

No, seriously. The study found that marrying smarter and younger women results in less fewer divorces and greater marriage bliss:

The researchers studied interviews of more than 1,500 couples who were married or in a serious relationship. Five years later, they followed up 1,000 of the couples to see which had lasted.

They found that if the wife was five or more years older than her husband, they were more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.

If the age gap is reversed, and the man is older than the woman, the odds of marital bliss are higher.

Link (Image: a Halloween costume from BuyCostumes)

The woman in question, a teacher, had gone to use the facilities at the airport before boarding a flight back in Saudi Arabia.

Quite how long she stayed in the toilet remains unclear. What is certain is she emerged to discover her husband had vanished without trace. The woman, who had paid for the holiday, began a desperate search of the airport and grew increasingly concerned that something terrible had happened to him. [...]

When he arrived at his destination, he calmly told relatives his new wife was still in Malaysia. His bride was not so calm about his behaviour. She has demanded an immediate divorce.

Link

Millions of people use it every day to pass on harmless snippets of gossip to friends and family. But the message Emma Brady’s husband posted on Facebook could not have been more devastating.

It read: ‘Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady.’

Mrs Brady, a 35-year-old conference organiser, claims she had no idea he even wanted a divorce, and only found out when a friend, who read the post on the social networking website, rang to console her.

To make matters worse, she discovered someone else had commented on the site that her husband was ‘better off out of it’.

Link (Photo: Manchester Evening News Syndication)

Previously on Neatorama:

• Divorced Couple Sawed House in Two
• Divorce by SMS (This Time in Egypt)

The doctor claims his wife began having an affair sometime after the transplant.

“We were in a million-dollar home, I was a full-time surgeon, full-time father and a dedicated husband. And I saved her life, and there’s nothing bad about what I did, I’d do it again. But the pain is unbearable,” the doctor said.

The unnamed doctor will, however, settle for $1.5 million. Link -Thanks, Gigi1!

Update: Here’s a link with more information on the story.