Warren Buffett, the world's richest man, admits he made a poor choice. No, not that he didn't invest more in Google than Microsoft, but that he didn't work harder on his relationship with his late wife, Susie, the mother of his three children.

"The biggest mistake I ever made was letting her walk out the door," he says.

As with many separations, Susie was driven to it.

Buffett, 78, who spent hours and hours talking with the author Alice Schroeder for the book The Snowball, regrets that he gave Susie so many reasons to leave, say Rush & Molloy in The Daily News.

One was Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post, and Newsweek. Buffett was 46 when Graham, then a 59-year-old widow, became smitten with him. They spent time at her Martha’s Vineyard home and traveled widely.

What is surprising is that Graham's own marriage was ruined by her husband’s infidelity. And who knew before this book that Katharine Graham was one of the early cougars? (While we at FWW approve of dating someone who's fabulously younger and cute, it is verboten to date a married man no matter what his age.)

Graham, it turns out, was pretty open about the affair with Buffett, and was seen tossing her house key to Buffet at parties. Schroeder writes that Susie "made it plain to several friends that she was furious and humiliated," but reports that she sent Graham a letter granting her permission to date her husband.

"Kay showed the letter to people as though it let her off the hook," Schroeder says.

Naturally the humiliation at home marinated into resentment.

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Canadian resident Gerald Moore says something's suspicious about his step-daughter's winning lottery ticket, namely, that it's his, says the Ottawa Citizen.

The 81-year-old claims his 59-year-old wife, Patricia Moore, medicated him to the point of incoherence, swiped a winning ticket off his nightstand and handed it off to her daughter, Bobbie-Jo. Shorty after, Patricia filed for divorce.

Gerald discovered his step-daughter was the recipient of $3.5 million when he read it in the newspaper. Hmmm...now that seems a bit suspect.

Patricia denies the allegations, stating that they all regularly play the lottery, and the winning stub was her daughter's. And what a generous daughter Patricia has: Bobbie-Jo gave her mother $1.5 million.

Patricia says Gerald's nine children are at the root of the allegations, looking to get their hands on the cash, and plans to counter-sue her husband for "character assassination."

Patricia and Gerald should take a lesson in civility from the Brititsh lottery winner who gave a portion to her ex.

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.

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As we reported earlier specifically in reference to the U.S., divorce has decidedly slid into "luxury" status. Filed alongside indulgences, such as second homes and exotic vacations, legally disbanding a marriage is now something reserved for those with the financial power to do so, reports The Guardian.

The recent article details the money woes of Spanish citizens now forced to remain in unhappy marriages, or if couples do divorce, are forced to take up roommates or shared housing situations.

We're all feeling the crunch right now, from skyrocketing gas prices to a plummeting housing market. Maybe it's, in fact, time to take a cue from countries like Australia and China and allow the government to come to the people's aide?

The attorneys’ fees were bad enough, but $655 in emergency in-house photocopying! In a 21-page petition filed in the California Superior Court last week, Britney Spears’s lawyers requested the approval of their legal fees. The hearing will be September 25 at 1:30 in Los Angeles County.

Any woman afraid to open an envelope from someone whose name ends in an Esq. will appreciate that this is one time when it’s good to have your dad running your life.

Since February, when Britney went off to a mental hospital for the second time, her father, James P. Spears, has been the Temporary Conservator of her person and a Temporary Conservator of her estate.

Her person seemed to be in fine shape over the weekend when she shined in silver while picking up three Video Music Awards. But her father, along with the lawyer Andrew Wallet, is also responsible for her estate, which means her money and her assets and her bills.

So her father has to paw through all the legal charges associated with her child custody issues as well as business matters. The lawyers fees for the entire divorce and custody battle will surely add up to one of the largest ever in the US. (There is always that case in Connecticut a year ago that ran up $13 million in legal fees. And a Canadian couple recently topped $1 million in legal fees.)

The petition that was just filed in the Spears case lists $248,625 for February through August already paid to the court appointed attorney Samuel D. Ingham.

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The Australian government has just committed to spending $17 million on programs to help traumatized children from divorced families, and it's about time.

This new initiative is part of a divorce related spending spree, and the government has agreed to spend nearly $40 million over the next four years. Money will go to programs for the children themselves, as well as programs to teach divorced spouses how to parent after the split.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this. The commitment to spend this kind of money is clearly an indication that the government of Australia is concerned about the welfare of the children involved.

On the other hand, while that's a lot of money, there are a lot of children being affected, and one wonders how far the money's going to go. A parenting class here and there certainly won't hurt, but I hope the money won't be spent for nothing.

The good news is that Australia has had the biggest single year drop in divorce rates this year, down six percent from 2007. Marriages are also on the rise, spurring some commentators to say that the country is experiencing a "marriage renaissance".

Hopefully, between an influx of funding to help children of the divorced and the rates of separation on the way down, the money will end up helping the kids who need it most.

Recent revelations by Heather Mills’s former publicist may make it more difficult for divorcing women everywhere to bring charges of spousal abuse into the courtroom.

The publicist, Michele Elyzabeth, says she launched vicious rumors against Paul McCartney on Mills's orders and now — surprise, surprise — regrets it.

What Elyzabeth also surely regrets is that Mills has stiffed her for her $295,360 payment. Thus her new title “former publicist” and her tendency to call Mills a “pathological liar, a witch, a bitch and gold-digger who married Paul McCartney for his money”.

In The Daily Mail in London, Elyzabeth, who is based in Los Angeles, now says the accusations against McCartney in the divorce battle were all lies. And she also tattled that Mills’s promised contributions to charity have not happened.

Elyzabeth worked for Mills for four years before their relationship unraveled in a screaming phone call.

One admission in the Daily Mail story resonated with me. Mills realized that horrible lies about McCartney — including claiming physical abuse — would eventually wear him down and give her a more favorable settlement.

But hurling the charge of abuse is dangerous. Moreover it is disrespectful to all women who have actually experienced it.

Now that Elyzabeth has revealed it was all a lie, it may make it easier for others to question the validity of claims in future cases.

According to Elyzabeth, Mills claimed of having a video where Sir Paul was abusive and threatened to sell it to a US TV station for a million dollars. But, in fact, the publicist saw it and "all she had was home movie footage, which showed nothing more than normal family life."

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Popular socialite Blaine Trump, whose work includes supporting the New York City ballet, will be giving no more charity to her ex-husband Robert Trump.

Although separated for 3 years, she has now hired Robert Cohen, the pitbull lawyer who represented Christie Brinkley in her recent divorce, to get what she deserves.

Trump, the brother of Donald, had been having an affair with a woman he worked with at his real estate office. Despite the affair lasting several years, Blaine still wanted to work it out since the couple had been married for 25 years.

But then Robert moved in with the woman who broke up their marriage. The woman, who left her husband and two kids to be with Robert, decided that she too wants to be in the tony environments of her predecessor. As part of the separation agreement, Blaine kept the Millbrook country house which she considered her sanctuary. As she told Post columnist Cindy Adams, "it is where I consider home."

So what does the homewrecker do? She tells Robert that she wants to move to Millbrook, a town that consists of only several blocks and a post office.

At first, they looked at a house within three minutes of Blaine's treasured home. As friends shared with me, this meant that Blaine couldn't jog her beloved route without worrying about running into her ex and his paramour.

Blaine begged him to move elsewhere. His family told him not to do it either. Blaine had been a devoted loving wife to him who also had married him when he had hardly anything.

It's not as though there are not many other places like Millbrook near New York City.

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The Washington Post recently reported on Japan's declining marriage rate. Short story: Men are looking to wives to take over maternal roles, and that scenario isn't very appealing to most single Japanese women:

"There is the rarely stated but almost universal expectation of Japanese men to be fed, clothed and picked up after. 'I am willing to take care of and give comfort to a man whom I care about, but that does not mean I want to be his mother,' she said."

In fact, WaPost found that women who had married were less likely than their male counterparts to remarry after divorce. The article states that post-divorce, men are unhappy and remarry quickly, while "the women are relatively happy and often delay remarriage." Perhaps it's the "burn me once" theory?

In addition to the lack of women looking to take on the mommy role, a stalled economy and a posh home life are keeping adult children in their parents' homes. A Calgary Herald piece from early August reported that Japanese parents — fed up with housing, feeding, and taking care of their single adult children — were taking matters into their own hands and organizing events exclusively for parents to find mates for their children.

"A government report from 2005 showed 71.5 percent of men aged 25 to 29 were unmarried, compared with 47.1 percent in 1990. For women, 32 percent from 30 to 34 years of age were single, compared with half that number in 1990."

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Football great Michael Strahan has been granted a Giant relief. A New Jersey state appeals court has ruled that he didn't have to pay $18,000 a month in child support of his 3-year-old twin daughters as part of his divorce settlement with his ex-wife, Jean.

But Jean isn't going to be shopping at the Dollar Store any time soon. In their bitter divorce, where nasty accusations flew like fumbling footballs, she caught a $15.3 million settlement, slightly more than what was specified in their prenuptial agreement. Strahan paid around half of that, and they recently settled a dispute over the remaining $6.5 million.

The court sent the child support case back to a lower court in Essex County and ordered it to recalculate the amount. Judge Lorraine Parker, one of the three judges involved in the decision, wrote, “Both parents have a shared obligation to support their children.”

In the decision, Judge Parker said that “as a healthy, educated, 41-year-old, [Jean Strahan] is capable of earning her own income.”

Perhaps Jean Strahan overstepped when she made certain claims for her daughters’ expenses, including $30,000 a year for landscaping, designer handbags, and $22,000 for baby pictures.

The three-judge panel also ruled that Strahan doesn’t need to pay for his wife’s lawyers, nor does he need to get a multi-million dollar disability policy.

Strahan announced yesterday that he has not accepted a request from the Giants to return to the team. Vacationing in Greece, he said he preferred to stay retired. It would have been his 16th season of professional football.

His salary would have been $8 million a year.

Instead he will receive a $2 million salary working for Fox Sports pregame Sunday show covering the National Football League.

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