13 ways to insure a miserable divorce.

• Author: Florescue, Leonard G.

A Divorce isn't fun or pleasant, so why not try to make it even more miserable? There are 13 steps you can follow to ensure that your divorce will be a misery for you, your soon-to-be-ex-spouse, and your children, relatives, friends, and attorneys. If that is what you want, just follow these simple rules, usually against your lawyer's express advice or better judgment, and I almost can guarantee that your divorce will last longer and be more bitter than it otherwise might be, with acrimony that can be continued for years. (In the following examples, spouses are identified arbitrarily as "he" or "she." The rules, though, can apply to either sex.)

The damnation of spouse. Your husband has left you and fathered two children with his mistress without benefit of divorce, or your wife has run off with your best friend. Who wouldn't be furious? We all know the Biblical adage: "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." Rule 1 is to disagree with Him. Your spouse's sins -- real, imagined, or both -- must receive retribution in this life, and your attorney and the courts must arrange for the damnation.

Not the least of the problems with this approach is the fact that the civil courts are not very good at dealing with the indignities spouses inflict upon each other. Most states have no-fault divorce, and courts almost never will exact any financial penalty simply for being a wayward spouse. Run-of-the-mill fault, such as adultery, will not raise any judicial hackles.

In New York, for instance, the standard for economic punishment is "uncivilized behavior," and the courts have held that adultery is not uncivilized in this context. Beyond that, judges are not terribly interested in hearing about fault, hardly surprising since that opens up a Pandora's box of embarrassing charges and counter-charges and has hardly any legal significance.

If you insist on litigating these points or demand that your spouse be punished economically for these transgressions, you will spend a lot of money and not get any of it back. Moreover, you stand a good chance of convincing the judge that you are unreasonable, and that will redound to your detriment in a myriad of other contexts.

Revenge is everything. Rule 2 is simple. If you truly are going to follow Rule 1, all else must be subordinated to your revenge. Don't even try to negotiate a settlement because. If you do. the judge never will hear what a louse your husband is and order that public flogging for him. If you do settle, your spouse's egregious behavior never will be laid out in official court records and, more important, he never will get to read your papers...