Britney Spears is finding, like the rest of us, that divorce can be expensive. Not only emotionally, but financially.

To resolve her custody dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline, the belly-baring singer had to pay her attorney $466,000 and his lawyers $250,000. Those bills are enough to give anyone a major bellyache.

Federline was granted full custody of their two sons but she does get overnight visits.

Spears and Federline married in 2004 and divorced last July. She is one of a growing number of women who pay "manimony" — Federline gets $20,000 a month from Spears.

But considering her immature antics, irresponsible behavior, and two hospitalizations, most saw Federline as a better alternative to parent.

However, news reports say that Spears is now expected to contest part of the legal bill as being too high.

According to Us Magazine, the largest bill comes from attorney Stacy D. Phillips, who says in court filings that she is owed nearly $407,000 for four months of work. Phillips claims she has written off another $125,000 in fees.

Phillips states in court documents the case was made more complicated because Spears is under the temporary conservatorship of her father, James. He took control of his daughter's personal and financial affairs after a series of high-profile incidents of erratic behavior and two hospitalizations.

Any payments will have to be approved by a Los Angeles court commissioner, and attorneys representing Spears' and her father's interests indicated last week in court they intend to contest Phillips' bill.

Diana Mercer, a California attorney who specializes in mediation, says she is sympathetic to Britney Spears’s lawyer.

Good news for would-be adulterers in South Korea!

The country’s Supreme Court ruled this week that people who are in the process of a mutually agreed upon divorce won’t get arrested for having sex outside of marriage.

Previously, those who had sex with someone other than their spouse before their divorce was finalized were considered to have committed adultery. Adultery is kind of a big deal in Korea. Like, criminal act with two years of jail time big deal.

The ruling came after a 57-year-old man in the process of divorcing his wife was arrested for having sex with, wait for it, a barmaid. (It’s always the barmaid.) After 25 years of marriage, the man who is only identified in the media as Chung, decided to pack his bags. After a bit of stewing, his wife agreed to the divorce, and they set up separate households while they figured out their finances and he got on with screwing the barmaid.

Mrs. Chung got wind of the liaison and decided to call the fuzz. Apparently, Chung got off. Get it?

With over 11,000 couples filing for divorce each year and citing infidelity as their platform, there are a lot of potential criminals hanging out in the bars of Korea. Last year alone, more than 1,200 people were indicted for sleeping around.

What I want to know is, what’s the charge for sleeping with the spouse you decided you were divorcing? Because in this writer’s opinion, sleeping with the ex leads to more problems than going home with the barmaid.

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Hulk Hogan's wrestling days may be behind him, but as E! News so aptly stated, he can still avoid being pinned.

Judge George W. Greer of Florida released the pro wrestler from a commitment to purchase a $4.2 million Las Vegas condo, a property he agreed to buy with estranged wife Linda Bollea back in 2005.

The commitment on the condo, in a sinking Las Vegas real estate market, has been a sticking point in their ongoing legal dealings, with Bollea just last month seeking to get her ex held in contempt of court and jailed for failing to pony up his share of the condo’s purchase price.

Her Miami lawyer, A.J. Barranco, Jr., said that the condo would be a good investment, even if other condo values have gone down, because Linda Bollea believes that their properties sell at a premium.

And if they walk away from the condo, they stand to lose much of their $840,000 down payment.

For Bollea and Hogan, divorce has become a spectator sport, and an example of what not to do. Some observers believe that it will be more than a year before the divorce is final. The divorce was started in 2007.

“We are thrilled that the judge did not require us to continue to engage in the folly of purchasing a $4.2 million condo at a time when we should be considering other matters,” Hogan's attorney, David Houston, told E! News.

Houston added that, in addition to his client getting off the real estate hook, a stipulation outside of court allowed Hogan the right to reside in a beach house that had previously been awarded solely to Linda.

Perhaps this was the judge's way of penalizing Linda Bollea for wasting the court's time. But she also gained some traction too.

Phil Collins isn’t having Another Day in Paradise this week, because he will be paying his third wife, Swiss-born Orianne Cevey, around $47 million in their divorce case, the largest payout ever by a British entertainer.

But at least the 57-year-old singer-songwriter has had a Groovy Kind of Love in the past few years with WCBS-TV anchorwoman Dana Tyler, a divorced woman, 49, who at least is closer to his age.

The two met when Tyler interviewed him in 2005 and they realized there was something In the Air Tonight.

Cevey acknowledged in a later interview that the couple had grown apart in 2005, and were leading Separate Lives. “We really got on well and then we realized our interests were not the same anymore,” said Cevey, 35, who met the singer when she was 22.

But she says, he will always Be in My Heart since she is looking on the “positive side.”

He has agreed that That’s Just the Way It Is, and, frankly, I Don’t Care Anymore.

Collins will keep a home in near Lake Geneva, in Switzerland, near their two young sons, Nicolas, 8, and Matthew, 4, as well as a bachelor pad in New York and a home in England.

But this is shaping up to be a far more amicable divorce than his previous two. Maybe he has learned from experience.

To end his relationship with his second wife, Jill Taverman, after he met Orianne, Collins gave her the heave-ho via fax. Apparently he couldn’t wait One More Night.

(The fax maneuver was worthy of the Artful Dodger.)

However, he still was generous in his divorce settlement, which at the time was more than $34 million for a 14 year relationship. They had a daughter, Lily, together.

Collins also had an earlier marriage to Andrea Bertorelli, which ended in 1980, and produced two children, Simon, 28, and Joelyi, 33.

Women's rights activists are in an uproar in Malaysia this week after their national court upheld Muslim Sharia law and allowed a husband to divorce his wife by text message. We've discussed divorce by text message here before, and it's still just as disgraceful as it ever was. Unfortunately there's nothing new to report there except that another country is jumping on the bandwagon.

But — and there's always a but — when I read this article, one particular thing caught my eye. The reporter mentioned that under Sharia law, a man simply needs to announce that he wants to divorce his wife and whammo, they're done.

I knew this. I also knew that a woman seeking a divorce, no matter what the provocation, has an uphill battle of red-tape and gender discrimination ahead of her.

Until today, though, I didn't know how bad it was.

"If a woman wants a divorce, she must go before a court … and she must prove her husband has an inadequacy - usually impotency or extended absence." (Emphasis mine.)

Let's play a little imagination game here. Let's imagine that a woman has decided to divorce her husband, and let's imagine she's doing it because he's impotent. Now let's imagine that her husband is Muslim as well, and he knows that proving his impotence is one of only two ways she can get out of the bonds of holy matrimony.

Exactly how can a woman prove her husband's impotence in a court of law?

Do you think hubby's going to pack up the car and head down to his local urologist and say, "Hey doc, let's see how Captain Winky's doing!"? Do you think he's going to show the gentleman of the court so they can see for themselves?

This system is set up for women to fail. Way to go, Malaysia, for doing your part to repress the rights of women. Rock on.

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New York is considered a progressive state, but it has always been a bit backward in its divorce law. The state that was home to “Sex & the City” is the only one in the U.S. that doesn’t accept no-fault divorce.

As a result, in order to get divorced in New York State, couples have to play the blame game, which can escalate the nastiness and destroy the possibility of rebuilding the family post-divorce.

Judges have realized this is counterproductive. Families have realized it is counterproductive. Even some lawyers acknowledge it is counterproductive.

In interviews conducted by New York Newsday, more than a third of Long Island state lawmakers from Long Island say they favor a process allowing couples to split without blaming each other.

Many point to the Christie Brinkley spectacle, with its pricey lawyers and tales of infidelity, as the motivation for change.

Assemblywomen Michelle Schimel (a Democrat from Great Neck) and Ginny Fields (a Democrat from Oakdale) have co-sponsored a no-fault divorce bill by Assemblyman Adam Bradley (a Democrat from White Plains).

"I think we have intelligent people in New York that once they make up their minds that they don't want to be married anymore, let them be unmarried," Fields said.

Bradley said he has the necessary sponsor in the State Senate and will reintroduce the bill next year.

"All we do right now with this fault system is throw gasoline on an already flammable situation," Bradley told Newsday.

The New York Bar Association, Women's Bar Association of the State of New York, New York City Bar Association and New York Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers all support no-fault divorce.

Robert Ross, supervising judge of Nassau County's divorce courts, was part of a commission in 2004 that listened to concerns about divorce throughout the state.

On the subject of gay marriage, Kinky Friedman — a Texas musician and wannabe politician — said “I support gay marriage. I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us.”

For one lesbian couple in California, his prediction of misery was dead on.

Adelita Guajardo and Theresa Ramirez, residents of Fresno County, California, pledged their troth on June 27th of this year. Three days later they called it quits and are now going down in pseudo-history as the first same sex couple to file for divorce in the state of California.

Although their landmark achievement is noteworthy from a novelty standpoint, area legal experts suggest that their divorce will not hold legally significant consequences. It’s a simple divorce and, let’s face it, they didn’t exactly have a lot of time to rack up joint property or get pregnant.

While in other states a three-day lesbian marriage might turn heads, let’s be honest. California is home to both San Francisco and Hollywood. In a state where Britney Spears was married and subsequently unmarried in the time it takes the average person to change their underwear, I’m surprised it even made the news.

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Half of all Yemeni girls are married by the age of 18. Nujood Ali (right), didn't really have a fighting chance at making it through her teens without a husband. By the age of 10, Nujood had, in fact, been married off — and divorced.

Nujood in one of a handful of landmark cases of child divorce in the Middle East. Fortunately, Saudi Arabian officials and child advocates are looking to end child marriages before there's ever a need for a dissolution.

The Associated Press has reported that the Saudi government is putting pressure on families to hold off on adolescent unions and arranged marriages, such as one 11-year-old boy who was passing out wedding invitations in class (he's to marry his 10-year-old cousin), the article describes, as a young boy would do with birthday party planning.

The Human Rights Commission has stepped in to aide the minors, and, along with clerics who also oppose the marriages, is urging Saudi government to pass legislation setting the minimum age for marriage.

No one can deny that this is a much larger issue than a "way of life." There are politics, religion, and money at stake, as well as a perspective that Western cultures will never have the capacity to understand. Fortunately, there is someone who is chipping away at the rules, the traditions, and most importantly, the inequality.

China. Always been a stickler for rules, regulations, keeping its citizens in line. Now it's barring divorces? Well, sort of.

Due to the tsunami of marriage applications hitting the civil affairs bureau of Zhengzhou, Henan Province, for 8/8/08, divorce applications have been suspended for the day, reports web site china.org.cn. Other cities around the country have suspended divorce proceedings, as well.

In addition to the throngs of couples hoping to pick up a little extra luck by tying the knot on the triple-eight date ("Eight is the most auspicious number among Chinese people, who believe it brings fortune and happiness," says the article), August 8th is also the opening day of the Olympic ceremonies.

The obsession with the nuptial date is an international one; from Asia to the U.S. to Eastern Europe. Moscow has also reported a spike in 8/8/08 nuptial planning, according to international news web site dawn.com.

But there's also a rise in divorces from last year's 7/7/07 marriage boom: A Moscow city official said up to a quarter of those who married on July 7th last year had already divorced. Maybe not so lucky, after all?

Evangelist Juanita Bynum made headlines again this week, as her ex's attorney claims she has yet to hand over $10K due to his client, reports The Atlanta Constitution-Journal. The lump sum is only the first of four installments that are due to ex Bishop Thomas W. Weeks III to pay his legal fees accrued during the divorce.

To refresh your memory, Weeks did not pursue spousal support from his ex-wife, with whom he built the Global Destiny Church, in their tangled divorce proceedings; he did, however, ask that she cover his $40K legal bill.

Bynum isn't heading to prison just quite yet; Bishop's attorney has threatened possible jail time or a fine for missing a July 8th deadline to turn over the money.

Also coming Bishop's way? A Land Rover, which Bynum has yet to relinquish. But just as Weeks taketh, he giveth: He has also ordered that Bynum remove some items from their home, as well, including assorted antiques, a sculpture, and a harp. Guess the harp doesn't really scream "bachelor pad"...

If there's anything these settlements reveal, it's the odds and ends that celebrities value (heavy emphasis on the "odd"). Lest we forget David Hasselhoff's victorious claim over the antique barber chair, while his ex claimed the Michael Jackson photograph.