It seems like every time I turn around, I’m writing about rising divorce rates in the UK. More people got divorced leading up to the holidays. Then more people got divorced on the first Monday back to work after the New Year. Valentine’s Day was a tragedy for marriage. And now summer holidays are taking their toll on the institution of marriage in merry old England.

After divorce experts warned us that the divorce rate would be at its highest in January, July divorce petitions slashed expectations at 150% of last year’s numbers. Why the spike? Apparently vacations are stressful. Really, really stressful.

The spokesman for one London lawyers office says couples are “thrown together for two weeks solid with a spouse they wouldn’t normally see for more than a few hours a day. Throw in alcohol, travel delays, bickering kids and a hotel or apartment that’s tiny or not up to scratch, and it all becomes a pressure cooker just waiting to blow.”

Maybe if they’d known they’d be getting divorced afterwards, they wouldn’t have splurged for the couples massage. One commentator on the website for The Sun, known as Lolly1010, summed it up nicely, I think. “If a marriage can't survive a 2 week holiday, it's not very strong in the first place.”

Experts predict August or September are only going to get worse, so watch this space. If the divorce rate keeps skyrocketing we’ll start seeing divorces between people who weren’t married in the first place.

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I do not consider divorce an evil by any means. It is just as much a refuge for women married to brutal men as Canada was to the slaves of brutal masters.

--Susan B Anthony

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.

This is no laughing matter. After just eight weeks of marriage, "Saturday Night Live" alum Chris Kattan and his wife, model Sunshine Tutt, have split.

"Separated for the moment. No plans for divorce at this time," his rep told Us Magazine.

Kattan, 37, and Tutt, 31 — who began dating in 2005 after meeting at a birthday party — tied the knot this past June 28th in Yosemite Valley, Calif. Kattan popped the question at Tutt's grandmother's home in Gainesville, Texas, on Christmas Eve, 2006. He gift wrapped the ring in a present, added Usmagazine.

"She is so kind, sweet and very beautiful. She's also very funny which always is a great thing. She's also very much like me," Kattan blogged on his Website in August 2005.

"She makes me very happy," he went on. "It feels real and honest and I have more of a continuous smile than I have ever had before."

Apparently the smile quickly turned upside down, as often happens to celebrities soon after the wedding.

Any therapist or religious leader will say that the first year is the toughest as people adjust to each other’s habits and routines. But that hasn’t stopped many celebrity couples from divorcing each other after less than a year.

Jennifer Lopez and dancer Chris Judd were married and divorced in less than 10 months, Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney in less than four months, Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage in less than three months.

However, there is hope for lasting unions. Jennifer Lopez subsequently married Marc Antony on June 5, 2004, and they have now been married four years... almost a lifetime for a Hollywood marriage.

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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After a lengthy separation, New Kids on the Block star Donnie Wahlberg and his wife Kim Fey are set to divorce.

Fey, who has cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split, is seeking sole custody of the couple's two children, 15-year-old Xavier and seven-year-old Elijah, with visitation rights for Wahlberg.

A representative for Wahlberg told People Magazine: "The couple has been separated for some time now and remain friends."

Wahlberg and Fey, who separated last January, have been married since August 1999.

But some split-ups do reconcile.

While Wahlberg’s marriage is kaput, he reunited with his band. New Kids on the Block, which sold 70 million albums in its heyday and inspired such boy bands as 'N SYNC and Backstreet Boys, broke up in 1994.

They got together this year and released a new CD called “The Block" and are on tour internationally.

With so many distractions, it is unlikely Wahlberg will be singing the blues.

Michael Phelps proved that children of divorced parents can achieve swimmingly.

With his record 8 gold medals for the Beijing Olympics, the 23-year-old Phelps is considered the greatest Olympian in world history.

The tribute goes to his mom Debbie, a school administrator, who diligently drove him and his two sisters, Whitney and Hilary, to swim in their hometown of Baltimore. As a single mom, she also helped him through his ADD and proved to be a loving, supportive parent — and a smart one too.

Since Michael’s father Fred, a retired state trooper, was an invisible presence in their lives after the 1994 divorce, Debbie realized that swimming was a great release for her young son.

When he was 11, Michael Phelps bonded with swimming coach Bob Bowman, who became a surrogate father figure to the young boy. This often happens when a father figure is absent. A smart mother often tries to find another male figure, either in a relative such as an uncle, or perhaps a coach.

Only 9.2 percent of households are run solely by single moms and the challenges often result in higher high school drop-out rates and behavioral problems. However, with the right parenting, focus, and outlets, children are less impacted and can learn other lessons from the experience.

When asked about his father in interviews, Phelps has said that they occasionally “email” but shrugs his big shoulders when asked how it impacted him. He always refers to the love his mother Debbie gave him and his sisters.

But a philosophy of coping did emerge from this experience. Although a fierce competitor, Phelps is known to take the rare defeats in stride or even the pressure of constant competing. His famous saying is, “Whatever happens, happens.”

It is no surprise that a boy who didn’t have a father throwing baseballs, going to swim meets, or playing lacrosse with him had to find ways to make sense of this disappointment.

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.

I would like to tell you that I was once married to Che Guevara, but that would be a lie. (Your first clue is that Che died in 1967, one week after my mother turned 11.)

Since the revolutionary with a modern-day cult following couldn't have me, he had to settle for Hilda Gadea, who has written "My Life With Che", a book chronicling her tumultuous marriage to — and subsequent divorce from — the rebel with a very real cause.

The book is being billed as the history that starts where “The Motorcycle Diaries” left off.

Gadea, who met Guevara in 1953 at the tail end of his motorcycle tour across Latin America, was not initially impressed. "He seemed superficial, egotistical and conceited." As they swooned over poetry and a mutual love of the Guatemalan government, though, she changed her tune and they got married in 1956, six months before their daughter Hildita was born.

It seems Gadea wasn’t the only one with doubts about the romance. A few days before their marriage, Che wrote in his diary, "For someone else it might be one of the great moments in their life, but for me the whole business is rather painful. I'm going to be a father, and in a few days I'm going to marry Hilda. For her, this decision was a dramatic one; for me it was hard. She's finally getting what she wants, though only for the time being as far as I'm concerned, even if she hopes it'll be for good."

Che was right, and when mother and baby Hildita joined him after an extended absence in January 1959, he greeted her with the news that he had met someone else and wanted a divorce. He married his second wife a few days after the ink was dry and was still married to her when he died eight years later.

You'll be happy to note that he still found the time to father another child out of wedlock a few years before his death.

Your mother was right. If he does it with you, he'll do it to you.