On Sunday, October 5, there’s a marathon rebroadcast of the miniseries The Starter Wife, and for any woman going through divorce, this is a delicious way to spend a Sunday morning. The two-hour premier is at 9 am on the USA channel.

The premise: a stay-at-home Hollywood wife gets dumped by her weasely movie-producer husband. Then there are four more episodes, taking you right up to 2 pm and through shock, denial, tears, anger, resignation, and oh yes, having two men fighting over you while you live in a gorgeous Malibu beach house. The actual series begins at 9 pm and midnight (East Coast) on October 10, and you can get up to speed earlier that day asso you need to get up to speed. (And there go Friday nights.)

Debra Messing plays the wife, so you can kind of understand two men fighting over her. But what is it with fictional romances that feature a woman caught between two men? I mean, how often does a divorced woman have two men to choose between? Ok, Nancy Lee seems to have all the men she wants.

But the rest of us?

We can see it on screen, from Philadelphia Story, to Pillow Talk, to Jules and Jim, to Sleepless in Seattle, to Moulin Rouge, and The Notebook. Just this year, in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it was a woman choosing between two guys; in Mamma Mia! it was a woman choosing between three men.

This must be the ultimate female fantasy, a wealth in choice of mates, like superheroes are for men.

Debra Messing as Molly has to choose between a wealthy powerful studio head, and a penniless (but hunky and soulful) beach bum. And this is before she and her husband have even negotiated the terms of the divorce!

Of course it’s a gimmick, but it got our attention. If you’re divorced, and headed for marriage No. 2, you probably don’t want to go through the whole formal wedding deal a second time, nor do you want to pay for it.

Now comes “Elope for Obama.”

For all weddings in October, the Brooks Hill Historic Church in Portland, Oregon, will donate the entire rental fee to the Obama presidential campaign. In fact, you’re told to make a check out to Obama for Change.

You can have up to 50 guests. The nondenominational church is on a hillside 20 minutes from downtown Portland. You can choose from any wedding on their website, with rentals from $395 for an intimate two-hour wedding to $695 for a four-hour wedding. Use of the baby grand is included. Local ministers, usually $200 to $300, will pronounce the vows (religious or secular), also at no charge, in support of Barack Obama. Or you can bring your own minister. Everything, of course is subject to availability. And you need to be in Oregon four business days in advance to get your license. Other than that, party on!

What can we say... Portland is that liberal a place. Cindy Lou Banks, the owner of the church, feels that Obama, if elected, would bring a new beginning to the country, and said, “What better way is there for couples to support his election than eloping in October and forging their own new beginnings?"

How does Banks make money from this? Volume!

Oh, and if you reserve the chapel ($150 deposit) and don’t show up for the wedding, they keep your deposit.

We will now give equal time to any lawyer offering a free divorce in honor of John McCain.

It’s one of those good news-bad news kind of things, especially for women going through divorce who have chosen to hit the chocolate aisle in the supermarket rather than the liquor store. It has now been conclusively proven that dark chocolate prevents heart attacks. The bad news: it doesn’t take that much.

The study, reported in the September “Journal of Nutrition” and in “Science Daily,” traced the amount of C-reactive protein, which indicates a chronic inflammatory state, in 20,000 Italians. The protein, which can be found with a simple blood test, is a marker for the risk of cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction and stroke.

“People having moderate amounts of dark chocolate regularly have significantly lower levels of C-reactive protein in their blood,” said Romina di Giuseppi, the lead author of the study. “In other words, their inflammatory state is considerably reduced.”

The beneficial effect is due, she said, to the antioxidants in dark (but not in milk) chocolate, in particular the flavonoids and other polyphenols. Decreasing the C-reactive protein level, she added, would reduce cardiovascular disease for women by one-third and for men by one-quarter.

The Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, which sponsored the study, said that while chocolate has long been assumed to be heart healthy, this is the first time it was proven conclusively in a population study.

So how much is good for you? Let’s put it this way: maybe it’s better to eat dark chocolate as a reward for filing a set of papers, rather than as a way to get through filling out those papers. To achieve maximum effectiveness, women should consume about 3 ½ ounces a week. There is no further benefit (other than pleasure) after that.

A PhD student in psychology at the University of Montreal believes she has proven that a certain personality type is prone to infidelity. A husband with “avoidant attachment” style, she found, is likely to have multiple sexual partners and to cheat as a way of distancing himself from any relationship. And adultery is the No. 1 reason behind divorce.

Her work expands on the theory that a person who seeks attachment feels
• Secure that the relationship gives him or her a base
• That the relationship provides a safe haven
• That it is important to maintain proximity
• That separation leads to distress

Someone with an avoidant attachment style, on the other hand, is uncomfortable with intimacy. He or she probably did not have a close relationship with parents. As adults he or she may be unwilling to share thoughts and feelings. And he or she invests little emotion in social or romantic relationships. Incidentally, there appear to be just as many women as men with avoidant attachment style.

In her four studies, Geneviève Beaulieu-Pelletier, looked first at 145 young adults and than at another 270 adults, finding in both cases that those who avoided attachment were much more likely to cheat or think about cheating. When she followed up with two more studies to ask the cheaters their motivations, she found the No. 1 reason was the will to distance themselves from commitment and from their partner.

In other words, it’s not that the partner’s behavior drove them to cheat; it’s that their own makeup makes them push away from being in a couple.

“The act of cheating helps them avoid commitment phobia, distances them from their partner, and helps them keep their space and freedom,” she said.

Research by a marketing company in England shows that nine out of ten women “cheat” in some way to look better. Cheat? That’s a bad word around here, but this is what the Telegraph newspaper in London meant: here’s what women do when weight loss (women in Great Britain are losing weight, while men are gaining), facials, and makeup aren’t helping.

• Some 50 percent of the 1,300 women interviewed wear push up bras and 10 percent used “chicken fillets” to help elevate their attributes.

• Women deploy “shapewear,” like Jennifer Lopez, right, in what the English call “Magic Pants.”

• They put Vaseline on their eyelids to look more chipper, and use hemorrhoid cream to relieve puffiness and circles under the eyes.

• Another 40 percent wear oversize pants to hide bumps and bulges.

• When in doubt, one third of the women seek dark corners or dim the lights.

The survey was carried out at the giant Lakeside shopping center just east of greater London, a shopping destination with offerings ranging from Costco to Mercedes Benz. The survey also listed the women’s pet peeves: visible panty lines, the need to deal with hairy legs, streaky fake tans, lipstick on the teeth, and runny mascara.

So, once these women have donned their pushup bras, squeezed into shapewear, and used under-eye cream that is meant for somewhere else, what do they think they should wear in order to attract men?

The women suggested a classic black dress or tight jeans.

Men, who were also interviewed, had a different perspective. They wanted to see women in short skirts and low-cut tops... stiletto heels optional, we assume, for the full Barbie look.

Was Chris Kattan just being polite? Or did his wife’s filing for divorce surprise him as much as John McCain cancelling the debate surprised Barack Obama? His soon-to-be ex, Sunshine Tutt, rushed divorce papers into the court system just a matter of weeks after the two announced their separation but said they had no plans to divorce.

Granted, there aren’t many divorce papers filed in California that show “Statistical Facts,” part C, as date from marriage to separation: 0 years 2 months.

The rest of the paperwork was pretty much as expected. Respondent (Tutt) requested dissolution of marriage based on (1) irreconcilable differences (although “unsound mind” and “incurable insanity” might have looked tempting, considering Kattan prances around in tights and sticks his crotch in people’s faces as Mango the monkey boy on SNL — probably not the person you want to relax with on a Sunday morning).

Page two declares that there are no community or quasi community assets or debts to be disposed of.

What about those wedding presents, huh?

But there is a check mark in front of “property rights to be determined,” and “spousal support and equalization if the parties do not reach a settlement.”

You know what that means: prenup.

It’s hard to imagine what kind of drama happened in the marriage’s two short months, but Kattan can be sure that a courtroom will hear about it if the terms of the prenup are not upheld.

As we remind lovebirds over and over, discuss finances, put it in writing, and commit to a prenup before getting married. You never know, when things are going well, how quickly they can go wrong.

It’s too bad their names were kept secret, because an English couple in Gloucestershire has had a doozey of a divorce. The husband, an investment banker who worked in the City, was worth a bundle. They were married 11 years. There were no children, although she miscarried in 2001. But there were three horses, including a foal her husband gave her in 2004.

The husband and wife separated in 2005, with $4.5 million in marital assets. In 2006, a judge decided that the wife should get $148,000 a year in maintenance, including $93,000 a year for the upkeep of her three horses, and a one-time payment of $1.7 million so she could buy a home with enough grazing land for her horses.

Turns out, the wife was passionate about the sport of Eventing, which is a kind of triathlon for horse and rider.

The sympathetic judge noted that before the marriage the wife had worked part time in the City, London’s financial center, but she had given that up to become an interior decorator and part-time book-keeper. “In any event,” he said, “the wife does not want a 9-to-5 job, because this would not give her enough time with her horses.”

It was another recent trial in which pets became a major battleground in a divorce.

The tabloids must feel that Nancy Shevell is the Sarah Palin of girlfriends… someone you’d never heard of, and now, as Paul McCartney’s squeeze, she’s everywhere. But she may be more like a Camilla Parker-Bowles, Prince Charles’s true love, who was introduced only gradually to the public as his girlfriend.

They were first spotted together 10 months ago in the Hamptons and, despite a gazillion pictures of them smooching and holding hands, she said they were “just friends.”

As of last week, and next, the McCartney-Shevell relationship is all out in the open. They made a very public appearance last week at a fashion event in London for McCartney’s daughter, Mary, after which Shevell joined the McCartneys for dinner. His family likes her a lot, he said.

McCartney raved that night about Shevell and their American cross-country trip on Route 66 in his 1989 Ford Bronco: “Brilliant,” he said.

That’s not a trip you take with “just a friend.” They drove from the Hamptons, to Illinois, to Santa Monica, proving that traveling with a former Beatle means the whole world is like a small town full of gossips. Numerous people along the way, including a man who gave them a parking ticket, seemed flummoxed to find Paul McCartney in a vintage Bronco, making a pit stop at a gas station, or checking into a hotel.

The tabloids kept up breathless coverage, and began discussing marriage. (Technicality: she’s still married.)

McCartney put the brakes on those rumors somewhat by saying, “It is still early days, but we are very much together.”

Bad news for Las Vegas: one luxury condo will never get the “celebrity bump” expected from once having been a home to Hulk Hogan or his estranged wife, Linda Bollea.

Vegas has already had enough bad real estate news. Foreclosures are everywhere. There is an eight-month inventory of existing homes. Some 60 percent of the homes sold in July were owned by banks.

Into this scene came the brawling Hogans. When things were going better for the couple, and for Las Vegas, they had made a 20 percent down payment on a $4.2 million penthouse in a boutique condo hotel known as the Palms Place. In other words, before the building was completed, they put down $840,000 as a deposit to butt into a building that was being touted as a Vegas home to “hot young celebrities” like Eminem and Jessica Simpson — adding Hulk Hogan to that might seem to some people like a nightmare list of neighbors, rather than an incentive to buy. But this is Vegas, baby, Vegas.

Then the Hogan/Bolleas filed for divorce. Hulk Hogan wanted to get out of the Vegas condo rather than come up with the remaining $3.36 million. (They already had two homes in Florida.) Linda Bollea, on the other hand, wanted to go ahead.

The boring part: two courts, one in Florida, one in Nevada. Blah blah blah. One said they should go ahead, one said not.

The knockout blow: Hulk finally won. So no Vegas condo.

But it’s not like the Hogan/Bolleas will be getting the $840,000 back. Instead the Palms Place is keeping $640,000 as “liquidated damages.” Or in colloquial terms, “the price of changing your mind.”

That’s pretty much the standard in real estate deals gone bad. If there is no fault on the seller’s part, the buyer loses the down payment.

A recent poll of church-going Catholics in England and Wales found that the majority believed a couple should separate or divorce if they are not happy or compatible.

Nonetheless, last Sunday the Pope, speaking in in Lourdes, emphasized his disapproval of “irregular unions,” which is to say Catholics who divorce and remarry without getting a church annulment.

"Initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted," he told the French bishops. The Catholic church holds that marriage is irrevocable and indissoluble because, the Pope said; that’s the way it was instituted by Christ.

Catholics who remarry after divorcing their spouses will not be allowed to receive communion unless the second marriages are unconsummated.

Yes, that’s right. The Catholic church is not against remarriage. The church that reveres the Holy Virgin Mary is against sex.

As Benedict put it last year when he was explaining the church’s views, Catholics cannot receive communion if they remarry because then they would be committing adultery.

The Church, he said, "encourages these members of the faithful to commit themselves to living their relationship ... as friends, as brother and sister."

Now that kind of defeats the whole idea of the honeymoon, doesn’t it?

We hope these kinds of rulings don’t make the difficulty of divorce even harder for some to take. For simplified information on annulment in the Catholic Church, go here.