Because pain makes you self-centered, we have divorce stories where a man wants his kidney back from his soon-to-be ex-wife and an ex-wife spikes her daughter’s teddy bear with a listening device to spy on her ex-husband.

Yes, folks, this is the reality of what happens in divorce — but not often to this extreme. While the media is delighting in these tantalizing morally depraved morsels of family splits and fits, and many divorced parents can privately say, “Well, I wasn’t that bad,” — these stories do serve the purpose of being a cautionary tale.

Having counseled divorcing couples, I try to remind people that the injustice of a divorce is that you are required to muster the strength to be a mature adult at a time when your impulses regress to wanting to be childlike and vindictive. It is why counselors — the good ones — make feuding parents put a picture of their children on the table so they can see what is at stake during the negotiations. There has to be a blinking light that switches on in your head reminding you that you will not make the best decision because of the stresses you’re under and to proceed with caution.

It is also why I repeat the mantra to one and all that you have to love your children more than you hate your spouse

As my friend Dr. Mark Banschick, the creator of the Intelligent Divorce course says, betrayal can blind you and turn normally nice people into thoughtless monsters.

Therefore we have these two stories.

In New York, Dr. Richard Batista, gave one of his kidneys to his ailing wife Dawnell while they were married. Now getting divorced — over her alleged affair with her physical therapist — the Long Island surgeon wants his kidney back, or more precisely, is demanding $1.5 million in compensation for what the organ is worth.

Patricia Arquette has filed for divorce from her husband, actor Thomas Jane. The two married in June of 2006 and have a daughter, Harlow Olivia, who was born in 2003. Turns out that their courtship lasted longer than their marriage. Though one doesn't want to believe that for Arquette marriage was "Flirting with Disaster," the name of one of her movies. More likely, they drifted apart as her career soared with the success of NBC's "Medium."

Arquette was married to Nicolas Cage in 1995, but they separated after only nine months. They didn’t divorce until 2000. She also has a son, Enzo, from her previous relationship with musician Paul Rossi.

Arquette filed for divorce from Jane on the grounds of "irreconciliable differences." Surely, her sister-in-law Courteney Cox must be saddened by the news. She recently declared that she would never divorce David Arquette, Patricia's brother, and do everything in her power to keep the marriage intact.

Most people work hard on keeping marriages together — especially when there are young children involved. However, there are effective ways to tell the kids that you are spliting — as well as many of examples of couples who have remained friendly after their divorces such as Robin and Marsha Williams as well as Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.

Carefully and thoughtfully managing a divorce creates the best outcomes because while you are breaking up, you are simultaneously rebuilding a new family structure.

It has long been known that January is the month that most people divorce. With that in mind, lawyers in London actually picked a specific date for D-Day — as in, divorce day: The first Monday after children return to school. In England, that will be January 12th.

In the U.S., according to some experts, divorce filings will see a dramatic spike this week — the first full week of January.

Why wait until January vs earlier?

Logic is that no one wants to ruin a child's Christmas and if you divorce over the holidays, the holidays will then be always associated with a traumatic event.

Although some in the U.S. believe that the crumbling economy and falling housing prices will delay divorces, a lawyer in England thinks otherwise.

"Many are concerned that divorcing when house prices are plummeting means they’ll lose a great deal of money from what they view as an inevitable sale, says Shelley Hesford, a solicitor in Cheshire who spoke with the London Telegraph. So instead of waiting for prices to rise, which could take years, some couples will opt to cut their losses sooner vs. later. The estimate is that every 10 percent drop in housing prices leads to a 4 percent rise in divorce.

Tight money over the holidays may reinforce that thinking.

In addition to sticking it out over the holidays for the sake of the children, there are other factors contributing to early January being D-Day time:

This is not gossip but truth: Kelly Rutherford, who plays scheming Lily van Der Woodsen on the oh-so-hip Gossip Girl, has filed for divorce from her husband of two years, Daniel Giersch.

Okay, you have to wonder what is really going on here. What provokes someone to get a divorce when you are three months pregnant? His baby is growing inside you for the next six months — clearly limiting your dating options — and you also have Hermes, your two-year-old son who carries the same man’s genes. Was it that he wiggled into someone else’s jeans and was unfaithful? It has to be pretty bad for Rutherford to want out at this moment of time. She certainly could have waited until she delivers her baby six months from now.

When she filed for divorce, Rutherford cited “irreconcilable differences,” according to TMZ. Some have wondered about the timing of this announcement. After all, her character on the hit series is a serial divorcess.

Will Rutherford now have the same complicated personal life as Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards?

It is so sad when children are involved in divorce — especially at such a young age.

Rutherford, who is 40, can also look on the bright side: at least she will have a sibling for her son Hermes. After a certain age, it is harder to get pregnant, and it’s not as though life partners are as plentiful as Prada sales at Saks. But obviously something has triggered her wanting a divorce from her German entrepreneur husband.

Rutherford is expected to be on the Gossip set in New York on Tuesday.

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo was a loner. A quiet man whose wife, Sylvia Pardo, asked for a divorce in March. They had met in 2004, and married in 2006. She brought three children into the relationship, two grown, from a previous marriage, as well as a 5-year-old daughter, who lived with them.

Together they had an Akita named Saki, which Pardo walked every day. They both worked, and in a short time had $88,000 in their savings account.

And then Sylvia Pardo found out that her quiet husband, a church usher who attended Mass every Sunday, had been listing a Matthew as a dependent on his income taxes, a son he had never told her about.

Moreover, Matthew was disabled because, when he was 13 months old, he fell into a swimming pool while Pardo, who was babysitting, watched TV. The baby was not discovered until his mother, Pardo’s girlfriend, returned from grocery shopping.

If Pardo felt guilty, and he must have, he nonetheless did not see his physically handicapped and brain-damaged son once he got out of the hospital, and he never supported him in any way. But he did list the 9 year old as a dependent on his taxes.

Was that enough to lead his wife to ask for a divorce? Probably not. She also told friends that he had drained their joint bank account down to $17,000. He liked his toys: a Hummer in the driveway, a little Miata.

Sylvia Pardo filed for divorce, saying the marriage was irretrievably broken.

According to the divorce papers, when she told her husband she wanted a divorce he said she would have to move out, because the house was in his name. In the court papers she said that while she was at a family birthday party, he moved all of her belongings, and her furniture, into the driveway.