Divorce has only been legal in Ireland since 1997. Now that a decade has gone by since it became an option, that nation is beginning to come to grips with it and a funny thing is happening. Life is still going on, and as counterintuitive as this seems to be, the marriage rate has actually risen by more than seven percent.

But more than that, there seems to be a new, progressive attitude about marriage and relationships that is taking root in Ireland. Adults under age 35, especially, are at the forefront of the changes. A recent survey found that 57 percent said it's acceptable for a couple to live together without being married. When the couple in question have children, 49 percent said they were okay with it when the couples had kids — a smaller number, but still pretty impressive considering the short lifespan of divorce in Ireland.

Of course, there is still a debate over whether changing the law has led to a breakdown of family values. But a column I read the other day astutely pointed out that people aren't anti-family, they're simply pro-choice. They want for there to be options, and for a "family" to not be so tightly defined. And they want for those who are so supportive of marriage and family to soften their stance and support "the quality of family life, regardless of what shape or form it comes in."

The column is a good read. You should check it out.

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Late last week brought an end to an ugly story of divorce and murder in Nevada. A 46-year-old Reno man was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his ex-wife and shooting the judge who presided over their divorce. The judge has since recovered from his injuries.

Every time I hear about one of these situations — and there are many horrific stories like these that arise out of divorce cases — I wonder about the legal process. Are all of the people who apparently are driven to this kind of violence by divorce just plain crazy? Or is there something about the nature of a divorce proceeding — the adversarial bitterness of it — that sends otherwise sane people over the edge?

I don't know if there's ever been any research on that topic, but there should be. It's bad enough to go through a divorce that can't be settled out of court, or without significant legal intervention. But to experience that and then also end up being impacted by a violent crime... well, it's more than I'd be able to handle. I know that much.

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With Valentine's Day coming up, every form of media is full of images of people getting engaged or married and the jewelry stores are obviously doing big business. But for the large segment of the population that is divorced, it's an entirely different thought process when it comes to wedding and engagement rings. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an interesting story on Friday about the question of what should happen to your rings once your marriage is over.

The accepted protocol on engagement rings seems to be that you get to keep it. Legally, it's not considered part of the marital assets because it was a gift given to you before you were married. And aside from that, a guy would have to really be a greedy bastard to ask to have it back. I can see a guy doing that, though, if the ring was a family heirloom. I think I'd have a hard time holding on to the engagement ring if it had belonged to my ex's grandmother, or something like that.

The wedding rings are a whole different story. Some people attach a lot of emotional meaning to them and choose not to part with them. Some people have them melted down and made into other pieces of jewelry. Some women sell both the wedding and engagement rings to pay for lawyers. One man quoted in the story said his wife sold her rings so she could get a boob job.

I think it's all a matter of personal preference. And it's probably a function of how amicable the breakup is, too. If it was angry and bitter, you might be more inclined to get rid of the rings, along with everything else in your house that had anything to do with the guy. One woman said she wanted both of the wedding rings to be kept together after her divorce, just because it seemed to her like the right thing to do. Her ex didn't see it that way, so it didn't happen.

So let's hear from all of you. What happened to your rings?

There's a strange set of laws in Japan that are making things difficult for children who are born within 300 days of a divorce and their mothers.

I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of Japan's divorce laws or its "child registration" laws, but from what I can tell, if a child is born within 300 days after a divorce, the child is legally considered the offspring of the mother's former husband. As you might imagine, that could cause all sorts of problems.

A news report I read about this issue cited one example where a couple split up and the woman conceived a baby with her new boyfriend. But the ex-husband didn't make sure that the divorce papers went through in a timely manner. Because of the delay, the baby was born 155 days after the divorce was finalized, and now there's a dust-up over who the child's father is, according to the law.

Wow, this whole thing seems really silly. So many times, when I read about these antiquated, overly complicated family laws in other countries, I'm not sure what surprises me more — the fact that any of these laws are still on the books or the fact that anyone cooked them up in the first place. What possible purpose does a law like this serve?

One order of common sense for the folks in Japan, please!

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With his presidential campaign seemingly going nowhere and rumors of its demise becoming louder every day, it almost seems irrelevant to spend much time discussing Rudy Giuliani's personal life. But Stacy Schneider offered up a nice take this week on Huffington Post. In fact, she pretty well nails it when she asks how Rudy can have the hubris to run for president and not expect his personal life to dog him every step of the way.

It's so interesting, the expectations we have of our leaders. We are an imperfect society. Our divorce rate is, what, about 50 percent? Nobody's life is perfect. But we go crazy the second a public figure or politician has an affair or splits up. People will never stop making Monica Lewinsky jokes at Bill Clinton's expense. And Rudy's missteps — his mistreatment of his ex-wife and his children — are just as fair game.

On one hand, it's unfortunate that we get bogged down in these things and pay more attention them than we do to a politician's ideas. But I think that what goes on in a politician's personal life can tell you a lot about what kind of person he or she is. It speaks to the question of integrity. How can you trust someone who would cheat on his own wife? Wouldn't it be great if, in one of the many debates there have been over these last months, somebody would have asked Rudy that?

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Divorce is hard enough when it's just between two people. It's even more complicated when there are children involved. But what happens if you and your soon-to-be ex own a business together?

I saw that question posed in a tax advice column the other day, and the answer provided something valuable, beyond the simple X's and O's of how the assets are shared.

Sure, there was the standard discussion of the tax implications — the issues to consider if you or your ex wants to sell off your share of the business, or if both of you want to sell. But then there's the other possibility: Nobody sells anything and the two of you continue to operate the business together. And that's the part of this that I found most interesting.

No matter how much we talk about collaborative divorce and co-parenting through a divorce, it's easy to assume that two people who split up are so eager to be rid of one another that they're never going to talk again once the divorce is final. But increasingly that's not the case. For every acrimonious divorce, there are plenty of divorced couples who spend holidays together with their kids. And if your business is your child — or one of your children — there's no reason to believe you shouldn't co-parent it as well.

Is it easy? Of course not. But guess what? That's life. Or that's post-divorce life, I should say. None of it is going to be easy. But it's what you've got. You adapt, you learn to work with it and you continue to live your life.

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Leave it to Dr. Drew to get this whole Britney Spears thing figured out.

Drew Pinsky — the guy who hosted "Loveline" on MTV and who now hosts "Celebrity Rehab" on VH1 — was quoted recently by US Magazine saying that Britney's emotional and addiction problems and her divorce simply were unavoidable. He says that having a parent with an addiction — which Britney does — puts you at a significant risk of developing a similar problem. And the fact that Britney had an unstable home life as a child goes a long way toward explaining what we've seen from her in the last couple of years.

Of course, Dr. Drew may just be angling to get the pop princess booked onto "Celebrity Rehab." Tell me that doesn't scream ratings bonanza. Who needs Hollywood writers when there's Britney and cheaply made low-brow reality programming?

In all seriousness, the guy does give a lot of insightful answers and it's worth reading through the Q & A he did with US Magazine. One of the big points you take away from what he says is that when parents have a messy relationship, there's a really good chance the kids are going to struggle emotionally, both in the short term and in the long term. If you have kids and your marriage is ending, at a certain point you have prioritize their well-being.

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So here's a question for those of you who've been through a divorce: How did things go the first time you got intimate with some else?

I'm sure we can all have a long conversation about that topic. I saw a letter to a sex columnist that raised this issue, and it was interesting to me because it came from the male perspective. The writer was a 35-year-old divorced "bloke" (it was in a British publication) who said his girlfriend left him because he couldn't keep an erection. For the moment, we'll look past the fact that this must not have been much of a relationship if that was really the reason she left him. The guy is wondering if the remaining emotional weight of his divorce is somehow making it tough on him in bed.

And that's something a lot of divorced people probably face. It's not uncommon at all. A lot of sexual dysfunctions, especially in younger people like this guy, have more to do with the mind than they do with the body. If something like this happens and it's a consistent problem, it's probably worth taking to a therapist who specializes in sexual matters. It goes without saying that making such an appointment for yourself is a daunting step, especially if you're doing it alone. But a divorce can impact your mind in so many ways that you're not consciously aware of. A little help with a problem like this isn't too much for anyone to ask.

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Here's a problem few of us have encountered, or at least I assume it's few of us. A Florida woman ended up with a waterfront home with boat docks after her divorce. And now she's being sued by neighbors who say the docks jut out too far into the water and make it dangerous for them to sail their boats past her house.

Whatever will these people do if they can't sail their boats!?! What a horrible situation! And you want to know how much larger these docks are than what they're supposed to be? Five feet. Wow, some people really have too much time on their hands.

I'd find this awfully frustrating if I were stuck in this situation. You go through a divorce and end up with what must be a really nice house in a great location. All your neighbors have their own boats, so we're obviously not talking about the low-rent district. And now you've got people bickering with you about this nonsense. I'd lose my patience for this in a hurry. And I'd probably head outside one afternoon with a saw and a tape measure and settle this myself.

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We do a lot of writing here at FWW about how to navigate through a divorce and then move beyond it. And there's no shortage of advice on the topic. I read a lot of these types of "tips" articles, quoting one expert after another, all of them pretty much saying the same things. Like anything else repetitive, it begins to lose its meaning after a while, particularly since the advice always seems like it's being offered in a vacuum. There's only so much "divorce theory" you can read before you wonder how much of the so-called insight really holds any water in practical application.

Well, I saw a piece in the Vancover Sun about a book on divorced couples compiled by a radio producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Each chapter is an essay about a divorced couple that has managed to put aside their own differences and sometimes go to extreme measures to keep life on an even keel for their children. The writer, herself, is divorced and shares a house with her ex husband. He lives on one floor, she lives on another, and their kids have both parents under one roof, so to speak.

It sounds like this book might offer a lot of real-world solutions for families that are breaking up. Of course, there's no such thing as one size fits all, and what these people have done may not work for you. But maybe some variation on the solutions they've come up with will prove useful to you. And maybe reading their stories can offer a little bit of hope that it can all work out for the best.

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