Divorce Jon and Kate Style
By: Martin M. Shenkman, CPA, MBA, JD
Money Matters Radio
Jon and Kate Plus 8 Divorce
By:
News Flash: Jon and Kate Gosselin are getting a divorce. Papers to initiate the proceedings were filed in
√ Reality Check Here’s the moral lesson that everyone can learn going through divorce. If you really wanna due a Jon or Kate wannabe, buy some Crazy Glue and liberally apply it to your lips. Your kids deserve it.
√ Reality Check Hire a lawyer that specializes in matrimonial law and get professional guidance BEFORE taking actions on your own (like emptying a bank account, denying visitation, etc.). Seek marriage counseling especially if you know it is over in order to find the least traumatic way to divide and separate. Divide and conquer does nothing but enrich the experts (lawyers, accountants, appraisers, etc.). See mediation with the guidance of your lawyer to endeavor to resolve appropriate issues in a non-combative manner.
Bad Boy: Jon has been partying with college girls, and has a girlfriend according to rumors. There was video of him sneaking out of her house. Jon’s cheating was written into the contract according to some pundits!
Bad Girl: Rumors are that Kate had an affair with the couple bodyguard.
Ain’t So Special: Divorce is divorce. The only thing that makes this different is that John and Kate have more notoriety than your cousins who divorced. But the shenanigans, and real planning implications, aren’t all that different. √ Reality Check Too many divorces get ugly and dirty. Celebrity divorces aren’t any different, just more media and decimal points.
Rumors Fly:
- One party supposedly wiped out a large bank account and leaving the other with little cash. √ Reality Check This is waste of marital assets. No court will look happily at the perpetrator.
- One of them supposedly wasn’t permitted to share in the children's birthday party. √ Reality Check Great, make a difficult situation more impossible for a child to assure they are scared for life.
- One of them was quoted about how he "despised" the other spouse. √ Reality Check No, they’re getting divorced because they are in love!
- Visitation has been interfered with. √ Reality Check More kid pain. Bad for all.
What Kinda Parents are These Folks?
Why certain dirty laundry is aired in such a public way where the kids (or their friend, classmates, etc.) may be able to see it either now or in the future. Some of this may be unavoidable because most divorce filings are public records available for anyone to see. That said, one wonders if there is not a better way. Is the prolonging of the 15 minutes of fame worth it?
√ Reality Check Keep it private. Courts don’t look favorably on any parent who bashes the other parent in front of the children. If the parent does this in the media, the child will be assumed to see it all.
What They Want
Kate is requesting child and spousal support as well as the funds totaling $230,000 that Jon improperly withdrew from their joint account. As for Jon he wants Kate to fess up about the $100,000 she supposedly withdrew and where the money went exactly.
√ Reality Check – the legal fees will cost more than what is involved. No one ever benefits from this kind of nonsense.
√ Reality Check This is all bologna!! The real deal is the rights to the future book and TV appearances and …… All the slime that the public will pay for.
√ Reality Check Since all of this is at the expense of the children perhaps a court will get sufficiently disgusted to appoint a guardian from the court, called a guardian ad litem, to protect the kids. Perhaps all the profits from Jon and Kate’s stupid and immature exploits will be seized by a court. If the antics continue to harm the children, perhaps the court appointed guardian ad litem will monitor Jon and Kate’s own involvement with the children regulated. How could any parent want that?
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