The researchers studied over a thousand couples and individuals over the course of a year using questionnaires, daily diaries, and follow-ups, to assess things like ambivalence, relationship satisfaction, and relationship outcomes.
And based on their findings, objective and subjective ambivalence were significantly (and negatively) associated with both personal and relational wellbeing. The same findings were not seen with implicit-explicit and implicit ambivalence, which didn’t show strong associations to wellbeing.
“Indeed,” the study authors write, “the present findings suggest that it is primarily the awareness of conflicting feelings (i.e., subjective ambivalence) that is especially associated with people reporting negative outcomes, at least for relational well-being.” They add that in romantic relationships, “people may be most threatened by the awareness of their ambivalence given the strong desire to see their partner positively and the potentially relationship- and life-altering implications that acting upon one’s evaluations may have” (i.e. breaking up).
But when the ambivalence is more subconscious (AKA implicit), the study authors explain that the impact on relationship and individual wellbeing isn’t significant.
In a variation on the gray divorce trend, de Blasio and McCray said they’re not currently planning on divorcing and intend to still live together, at least for the time being. More surprisingly, though, they’re both OK with each other seeing other people.
In an in-depth interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, de Blasio, 62, and McCray, 68, said they’ll both stay in the Park Slope townhouse where they raised their two children, now in their 20s, while they figure out their new normal.
They told reporter Matt Flegenheimer that they’re both happier now than they have been in some time ― and have established ground rules for “what’s cool, and what’s not cool, and whatever else.”
“I can look back now and say, ‘Here were these inflection points where we should have been saying something to each other,’” de Blasio said, reflecting on what led to the separation. “And I think one of the things I should have said more is: ‘Are you happy? What will make you happy? What’s missing in your life?’”
“I never anticipated ever doing anything with hair color,” he said of his newer darker-hued close-crop, admitting to the Times that the shade may be a little too dark than he intended. “But I like feeling what I feel.”
McCray told the New York Post that she hopes that the pair can serve as a “model for how couples can communicate honestly about what their needs are and to conduct themselves when they find it’s time to move in another direction.”
Is this do-able? Here’s what experts say.
Do arrangements like the one McCray and de Blasio are attemptingwork, and if so, for how long? Marriage therapists and divorce attorneys we spoke with said it’s challenging, even for the most amicable of exes.
“If they can make this work, more power to them,” said Karen Covy, a mediator and a “recovering lawyer,” she joked.
“What’s puzzling to me is why they’re doing this,” Covy told HuffPost, noting that the divorcing couples she sees to do this are usually under financial constraints or still raising young children.
“We don’t know enough about the details of their situation to speculate about what’s really going on with them, but I can say that if they have a strong enough reason to make this kind of arrangement work ― and money, career and politics can be very strong reasons ― I’m sure they can pull it off, at least in the short term,” she said.
“They’re putting the best spin on it, but no matter how you slice it, it is the end of a relationship, or the end of the marital relationship, and there is really no good way to make it easy.”
– Randall Kessler, a high-profile divorce attorney in Atlanta, Georgia
Kurt Smith, a therapist in Northern California whose counseling practice specializes in helping men, noted that it’s usually men who propose these arrangements rather than their wives.
Things tend to get thorny when one partner starts dating, he said.
“It’s just too hard not to be negatively impacted emotionally and mentally, despite the good intentions,” he said. “Sure, people can deal with it for a while, but eventually it becomes too much, and in the case of exes, unnecessary.”
Randall Kessler, a divorce attorney based in Atlanta, Georgia, who’s represented a few “Real Housewives” stars, and Cardi B, among others, said de Blasio and his wife’s efforts sync up with a cultural shift toward kinder, more gentle divorces.
Think: Conscious uncoupling, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin were proponents of, or “nesting,” where the parents alternate use of the marital home while the children are there full time.
Kessler said that sometimes pre-divorcing couples stay living together as an eleventh-hour attempt to see if the marriage can work, though that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
“I think their approach is unique to them,” he said. “Being public figures, the mayor and his ex are trying to deal with this head on.”
Yana Paskova via Getty Images
De Blasio and his wife pictured at a press conference in front of Gracie Mansion on Sep. 20, 2019. De Blasio was announcing his decision to drop out of the 2020 U.S. presidential race. In her interview with the Times, McCray said she thought the run was “a distraction” from thinking about their post-City Hall life.
“They’re putting the best spin on it, but no matter how you slice it, it’s the end of a relationship, or the end of the marital relationship,” he said. “There’s really no good way to make it easy for the children, although this is much better than most.”
This type of arrangement isn’t as uncommon as you’d think.
Divorced people we spoke to who’ve tried to split in similar fashion ― dismantle the marriage, keep the household ― had a more positive outlook on the mayor and his wife’s plans: Most felt that if there’s still residual love and respect, it’s worth giving it a shot. (And certainly if money is an issue, as it was with every one of them.)
Kate Warren, an actor in New York City, separated from her husband in January 2016 for all the expected reasons: “There was a loss of love and passion that turned to a ‘roomie’-type relationship,” she said.
That said, she didn’t end up moving out of their 1,000-square-foot rental apartment in Greenwich Village until 2022.
They chose to do so for their three kids’ well-being, but mostly because they couldn’t possibly afford two apartments in New York City. (The yearslong cohabitation ended up inspiring “Messy,” a dark comedy web series created by and starring Warren.)
In the beginning, Warren’s ex was relegated to the couch.
“Then when our eldest child went to college, he took our son’s room and went back to the couch on breaks when my son came back,” she said. “We managed living like this until 2022. He traveled a lot and on long trips so that eased the strain and stress, for sure.”
Navigating dating was full of hiccups, she said.
“The subject of dating again came up during our ‘breakup’ conversation, and it wasn’t me who brought it up,” Warren admits. “I was a bit stunned, to be honest. Furthest thing on my mind.”
After some time ― and some gentle nudging from friends who swore to her that online dating apps weren’t that bad ― Warren decided to get back out there, too. Naturally, there were some awkward experiences.
“My family, mainly the kids, definitely noticed how ‘fancy’ I looked when I was going out,” she said. “They were used to a lot more casual mom-wear.
“She also accidentally sent some texts meant for dates to her ex, which was pretty cringey: ‘The kind of texting was quite different than what I’d usually send him,’” Warren said.
The actor’s advice for the mayor and his wife or any other couples navigating a similar arrangement?
“Keep family dinners intact, and if dating, err on the side of caution,” she said, and don’t bring people home until you’re confident the relationship has legs.
“Also, some advice for the mayor: Don’t send explicit pics to your date,” she joked. “We don’t like that.”
For Jo, who asked to use her first name only to protect her privacy, it was less of an outright decision to stay under the same roof with her ex-husband and more of a “let’s wait and see what happens while not having sex” situation.
The couple separated in 2016 after 12 years of marriage, and finalized their divorce in 2021, but they’re both still living in the same family home in Minnesota.
“It’s just so much easier for us financially and as parents in one household,” Jo told HuffPost.
Catherine Falls Commercial via Getty Images
“Keep family dinners intact, and if dating, eron the side of caution,” said Kate Warren, an actor in New York City, who separated from her husband in January 2016 but didn’t end up moving out until 2022.
Th exes slept in the same bed, platonically, for about a year, though they eventually stopped doing that. Now, they’re back in the same bed.
“We’ve become a lot more comfortable with each other as the years have gone by, and at some point in the past year we started to sleep in the same room again,” the 41-year-old said. “There is still nothing physical between us, but I think we both feel comfort and security being together.”
When it comes to dating, they initially had a provisional “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but that was almost impossible to maintain, Jo said.
“We both actually found out accidentally, and I would say it was very painful for both of us,” Jo said. “Once we were able to openly discuss it and be honest with each other, things were a lot easier and less awkward.”
Neither parties are publicly (or Instagram-officially) dating anyone. Jo said that wasn’t a discussed choice, but more of a logistical and emotional consideration, given their close proximity.
“I don’t want to cause the other person any heartache that wasn’t necessary,” she said.
“Really, the only thing missing from my life is sex and romance, and I have realized I’m OK being without that part for the time being ― and of course, plenty of people that are still married are also living without those things,” she said.
Jo likens her arrangement to ethical non-monogamy where they’re each still “deeply considering each other’s feelings.”
The couples we spoke to said they tried to keep dating on the down low, to various levels of success.
What do others think, especially their dates?
“The person I was seeing had complete knowledge of my situation, had been through a really difficult divorce himself and wasn’t looking for a ‘traditional’ relationship per se,” she said. “I never met his children even though we saw each other for several years, he didn’t meet my family, we didn’t go out much publicly in our town or spend holidays together.”
Their close friends know about the divorce, but many of their acquaintances just figure they’re another married couple in town.
“Honestly, we probably seem to get along better than many married couples, so in our community we’ve faced very little awkwardness,” she said.
Ultimately, Jo said, she couldn’t care less if anyone has the record straight: “Married or not, other people don’t really have to know what goes on at anyone’s home or bedroom.”
David, a divorced man in Northern California who also asked that his last name not be published to protect his privacy, is still living with his ex-wife as well. They separated in 2008, after about eight years together and raising his ex’s two kids from an earlier relationship together.
It wasn’t just finances that kept them under one roof initially; at the time, David’s ex was dealing with some undiagnosed mental health issues, and he wanted to be there to help. (“I was also incredibly self-centered and almost wholly disconnected from my emotions at the time,” he told HuffPost.)
David’s ex was the first to start dating, but only because she was more successful at it, he said. The exes even tried to take a stab at their relationship again at some point.
“When that didn’t work, I tried to date again, but I wasn’t clear in my ending things with my ex,” he said. “She was devastated when she found out I was trying to date while she was still hoping we could make it work.”
When she found out, the couple got into a shouting match that was so loud, the neighbors called the police on them.
“It was an ugly mess that I still regret to this day,” David said. “It reached the point that I went to live at a friend’s for six months instead.”
“I assumed [our living arrangement] would be a huge red flag for women, but as it turned out, the first couple of women I went on dates with were in the same situation.”
– David, a divorced man in Northern California who still lives with his ex after separating in 2008
Therapy ― and plenty of emotional growth on both their parts ― followed, and after those six months, the former couple moved back in together, now just to save money.
Fifteen years later, they’re still living together. They mulled going their separate ways, but then COVID happened. “It’s funny how clarifying the pandemic was in a lot of ways, because shortly before it hit, we were talking about selling the house and either getting a better place or going our own ways,” he said. “But then it turned out going through lockdowns, distancing, and all the rest was a lot easier with someone else in the house.”
His ex-wife is now in a relationship with a guy who David thinks is great. David dates here and there, too: “I assumed [our living arrangement] would be a huge red flag for women, but as it turned out, the first couple of women I went on dates with were in the same situation,” he said.
David’s advice to Mayor Bill and his wife is simple: Communicate, early and often.
“Not just talk, but communicate,” he said. “You have to be able to have the difficult talks, and you need to be able to not just set your own boundaries, but respect theirs, too.”
While arrangements like his may seem unconventional ― they certainly don’t get spoken about often ― David thinks such scenarios will be a growing trend.
“Until housing is stabilized in the U.S., I think a lot more people are going to end up in this situation, and society is going to have to adjust to it whether it wants to or not,” he said.
Exes will have to adjust, too, and the best way to do that is to try to excavate the friendship at the root of a marriage.
“My first therapist said that what happens in a lot of relationships is that people lack the self-awareness or self-honesty to own their own mistakes,” he recalled. “So when the relationship fails, they blame everything on their ex and end up hating them.”
You’re exes for a reason, David said. “But if you’re willing to own your own shit and show grace towards their mistakes, you can find a way to leave [the negativity] in the past.”
Not in a “just bury it and don’t think about it kind of way,” either, he said.
“You really have to acknowledge the hurt you both gave and received, while also recognizing how you’ve both grown, too,” he said.
Before we get into how to breakup with someone you love, let’s first focus on the why. All relationships need to be nurtured in order to sustain them, after all, so how can you recognize when it’s just not working anymore?
Firstly, you want to ask yourself if you’ve really given the relationship a fair shot. You might opt to take a break from the relationship and realize that you don’t want to breakup after all, or perhaps one of you is going through a temporary tough time that will pass. Maybe you’re actively working with a couple’s counselor, things are improving, and you both want to save the relationship.
To that end, according to licensed marriage therapist Weena Cullins, LCMFT, your overall wellbeing is the most important factor to consider when assessing whether to end the relationship.
“While all intimate relationships are subject to experiencing rough patches at different times, choosing to remain in a relationship that consistently causes you stress or compromises your physical, emotional, or mental health isn’t the best choice,” Cullins previously told mindbodygreen.
And as licensed psychotherapist Babita Spinelli, L.P. adds, it’s entirely possible to know that someone isn’t a healthy fit for you, even if you love who they are.
That said, if you can’t see a future with this person, they’re weighing you down more than lifting you up, or you’re holding out for them to change, it’s probably time to let the relationship go. (Here’s our full guide to knowing when it’s time to breakup for more information.)
Now, if you’re sure that it’s time to part ways, here’s how to do it.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Many newly divorced people receive advice from loved ones and friends to “get back out there” and date right away, advice that is rarely beneficial. Since the fear of not finding a person with whom to spend one’s life is real, dating advice makes sense to many people. It also may seem to be a good way to alleviate the myriad of emotions floating around in the mind and heart, like loneliness and uncertainty.
But entering the dating scene immediately is not the right decision when it comes to healing post-divorce. There is a reason why second marriages have a higher divorce rate than first, so do yourself a favor and don’t rush into dating before working on yourself. Let’s look at some ways to get ready for dating post-divorce.
Getting ready to date after divorce starts with tuning deeply into the heart to recognize and feel all of the feelings. It is ok to get mad, cry, scream and feel sorry for oneself for a time… but then those feelings need to be replaced with positive action — planning a new life and envisioning what it will look like.
Our brains are programmed to present more of what we focus upon, so if we fall into a victim state (a negative state where we believe things happen TO us and don’t recognize we have control over our own lives), our brains will continue to bring more negativity. To attract the “right” person — the one who best compliments the new version of us — we must first work on ourselves and create a plan for moving forward from divorce. In other words, we need to discover the new “me” before we can again become “we.” This is the only way to give any new relationship a chance to succeed.
Stop blaming and accept what IS
Divorce can lead to a build-up of negative energy, which can easily push one into a victim state. From here, it is common to blame both the ex-spouse and oneself for the marriage’s demise and any ramifications. Still, both have some level of responsibility as marriage involves two people. Accept that there is no blame — it just IS.
As the past cannot be changed, focusing on the present will help tweak the mindset to get out of the victim state, and these big weights, once lifted, will pave the way toward a new love relationship when the timing is right. Try to catch yourself every time you blame or judge your former spouse or yourself, then come back to the present moment and focus on moving forward.
Truly knowing ourselves and what we want is how energy is shifted. A positive mindset is key to changing energy levels and creating a new existence after divorce; it leads to self-love, which is necessary before one can truly love another. When the mind is positive, happiness prevails, and it is easier to get through temporary bouts of frustration, sadness or stagnation — which do happen along the journey (since we are human).
A few fun ways to start feeling more positive are to journal feelings and experiences throughout the healing process, get outside in nature and move the body daily, eat healthily, listen to inspirational music, cut out television, laugh as much as possible and find the right support network.
Knowing when it’s time to date
As you do the healing work (keeping in mind that healing oneself is never truly “done”), there will come a time when you will feel infinitely better, stronger, more focused and excited about life and the future. Most importantly, you will own your self-worth, know how the new life will look, and feel energized to take steps toward it. A lightness from within will be felt, which comes from shedding negative beliefs, people and situations that do not serve your new life goals. It will be easy to notice the change in energy, and others may even comment on it. It is around this time that it will be clear one is ready to date.
At this point, it’s smart to list qualities one desires in a mate. The list can be short or long and divided into “must” and “would be nice” qualities if desired. Really listen to intuition and your heart in creating this list. Use visualization to see the person you envision — picture yourself doing things you enjoy together and having conversations where you and your partner-to-be can communicate and share feelings openly.
If you are not a fan of online dating, that is ok, but you need to get out and do things with friends so you are exposed to potential people to date. You also can sign up for classes — but not online! It is imperative to physically go to the classes. There you will meet like-minded people. If you can find something active to do, that is usually a great place to meet people you may decide to date.
This can range from participation in sports or lessons to Meet-Up groups, classes and local community events like beach/nature cleanups or charity events — the list is endless. The only rule is to choose something you enjoy or want to try.
Whether one decides to use dating sites or meet people organically, the changes made within oneself will attract people who are different from that one may have attracted before healing, so the new relationships will have a higher chance of lasting and bringing joy. Love with a partner after divorce can be magical when patience is exercised at the beginning of the journey. Taking time to heal and establish self-love and a plan for moving forward from healing can lead to a beautiful love connection with another person, one filled with mutual respect, support, vulnerability and truth.
Make a commitment to work on healing after divorce before dating. It will enable you to define the new you, design a beautiful new life and understand what you desire and need from a partner so you can attract the right person and a sustainable, mutually beneficial relationship.
PHOENIX — Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic defector turned independent who’s been criticized as too closely aligned with Wall Street interests, took credit Thursday for helping broker legislation that would target executives of failed banks.
Sinema, who has not said whether she will seek a second-term in 2024, cited the bill approved this week by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee as an example of the bipartisan dealmaking she says is often lacking from Congress.
Her steadfast support for across-the-aisle negotiations fueled her divorce from the Democratic Party last year and is complicating her potential path toward reelection in one of the most closely watched Senate campaigns.
Sinema described her role to The Associated Press in facilitating a deal between the committee chairman, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and the top Republican, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
“My job was helping them understand the differences between them and helping them find some of that common ground,” Sinema said.
Spokespeople for Brown and Scott said they worked with Sinema and other committee members to incorporate their ideas.
The measure responds to the collapse this year of Silicon Valley Bank, the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, followed by the demise of Signature Bank and First Republic Bank.
The Senate bill would make it easier for regulators to claw back compensation from executives at failed banks. Sinema said she pushed to include a provision requiring the Federal Reserve to report on efforts to improve bank oversight.
After the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Sinema took heat for supporting a 2018 bill that loosened requirements for “stress tests” of banks with $100 billion to $250 billion in assets, including Silicon Valley. The Fed blamed the collapse on poor management, watered-down regulations and lax oversight by its own staffers.
Sinema said her support for increasing regulators’ power is not a response to pressure on her. Critics, she said, “don’t serve on the relevant committees, don’t understand the issues and aren’t involved in the day-to-day work of ensuring that we have a healthy and strong economic and financial system in our country.”
She said the Fed retained power to appropriately regulate banks even after the rollback and that the central bank had indications that Silicon Valley was in trouble but did not act with urgency.
“The mistake that they’ve made in the past is to operate at the speed of old business, not the speed of new business,” she said.
Sinema, who is known for minimizing her contacts with reporters, has stepped up her engagement with the media this year as she mulls her political future. She is raising money for a potential reelection campaign but has not announced whether she will run, saying she is focused on her job in Congress.
She would be in a challenging and unpredictable three-way race.
U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Marine veteran and Sinema critic, is the only major Democrat in the Senate race. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is the only major Republican candidate, though former television anchor Kari Lake is considering a run.
Arizona will play an important role in Democrats’ quest to maintain their slim Senate majority, given that the overall electoral map favors Republicans in 2024.
Sinema has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for a bipartisan White House “unity ticket” being considered by No Labels, a group seeking ballot access in several states to run an alternative candidate “if the two parties select unreasonably divisive presidential nominees.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn., June 21, 2023 (Newswire.com)
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Kelly Ripa is not a chill bride. She’s not out here insisting that she just wants you to wear whatever you feel comfortable in, or that the best thing about your bridesmaid dress is that you can totally wear it again, or that she said mauve and that is clearly greige. She’s not bothered about whether the rosemary in her poached chicken breasts is overpowering, or whether Auntie Diane’s gout is going to be a problem when she gets up to do the traditional great aunt-baby cousin first dance.
That’s partly because she’s been married to Mark Consuelos for 27 years, after they eloped in Las Vegas on May 1, 1996, and partly because she and Consuelos insisted on Thursday that they’d never ever renew their vows, so if all goes as planned, she won’t be walking down that aisle ever again.
On Live! With Kelly and Mark, the couple-slash-cohosts said that when they get an invite to a vow renewal, it’s less “here comes the bride” and more “here comes the divorce.” In fact, they called the tradition a “pre-divorce.” And “the kiss of death.” And that it should “come with divorce papers.” Tell us how you really feel.
“We are very superstitious about vow renewals,” Ripa said, as if that wasn’t totally clear.
Consuelos agreed, saying that vow renewals come after a husband has “really messed up.”
“And I’m not talking about ‘left the toilet seat up.’ I’m talking about messed up.”
Consuelos and Ripa, both 52, have been married over half their lives after meeting on the set of the soap opera All My Children and getting hitched soon after. They have three children together, not counting the TV show, and both posted smoochabooch photos to Instagram to celebrate their recent anniversary.
So if you’re thinking about inviting Mark and Kelly to your vow renewal, just know: They seem the type to show up impeccably dressed and with a tasteful yet generous gift, all smiles, but, as Ripa said, when they see that off-white embossed card land in their mailbox, they’re thinking, “It’s like, ‘We’re not getting along… I know what we should do!’”
But, um, congrats? Here’s to many more years of happiness together. And, hey, we bet they can refer you to a really excellent lawyer if you need it. Just in case.
The new owners of Jolie’s share demanded access to “documents [that] would allow Nouvel to seek redress in France for Pitt and his allies’ mismanagement.” To Pitt, as spelled out in a memorandum, it was a blatant ploy to “intimidate them into surrendering the business they built.”
On March 4, 2022, Miraval was under siege.
Two court officers and an IT expert, armed with the French equivalent of a search warrant, drove through the gates and down the 2.5-mile road to Miraval. They had been dispatched by Nouvel’s new owners to conduct what French law, translated literally, calls a “spontaneous interpellation.”
To Pitt and his partners, it was nothing short of a raid, although the Stoli Group disputes that characterization. “It was not a raid,” the spokesperson says, but rather a “bailiff’s mission…precisely and narrowly foreseen by the judge.”
Lawyers for Shefler’s wine division had petitioned a commercial court in Provence to invoke article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which enables businesses to enter the premises of their adversaries and seize evidence of suspected malfeasance. The filing before the court cited “mismanagement,” “misuse of corporate assets,” and a “blocking mechanism” by its other 50 percent shareholder, Mondo Bongo, the company that held Pitt’s Miraval shares, in conjunction with two associates at the winery.
“Given the existing links between the different protagonists, it is to be feared that they will consult each other in order to conceal” evidence, the petition read. It went on to say that only a “spontaneous interpellation, without the recipients of it being notified in advance,” would enable the court to collect the relevant evidence.
When their first request was denied, the lawyers petitioned the court again. In February 2022, the bailiff granted an order to proceed. Now the court’s emissaries entered the offices of the historic wine estate. They seized Miraval’s files and copies of “contracts, invoices, correspondence (including emails),” and turned it all over to the court, which would investigate and decide whether or not to pass the materials on to Nouvel. Neither Pitt nor Perrin were at Miraval at the time.
In March of this year, the president of the commercial court issued a ruling to “retract the order” for the search and ensure “the restitution of the documents.” Nevertheless, Miraval’s records remain in the hands of the court, as yet unopened. “This procedure is pending before the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence,” says a Stoli spokesperson.
In the years since the plane incident, Jolie has shifted her focus, according to a source familiar with the matter: “In addition to continuing her global humanitarian work, she began advocating for survivors of domestic violence. She spoke before members of the Senate and House and campaigned on behalf of the Violence Against Women Act; the Justice for All Act, which protects the rights of crime victims; and Kayden’s Law, also known as Keep Your Children Safe From Family Violence. She also partnered with Amnesty International to write a book for young people called Know Your Rights and Claim Them.”
Pitt and Jolie’s Vista Jet.BACKGRID.
Coverage of Jolie’s account of the plane incident prompted an outcry on social media as fans of both parties digested the shocking details. And yet, in Hollywood, Pitt remains golden. In 2019, he reteamed with Quentin Tarantino in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, costarring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio as a handsome, aging stuntman trying to make sense of the swinging ’60s. Pitt’s laid-back charm earned him critical acclaim and an Oscar for best supporting actor.
The battle rages on. On June 1, Pitt filed an amended complaint against his ex-wife and Nouvel’s new owners, continuing his campaign to have Jolie’s sale to Shefler’s company reversed. That kicked off another round of headlines, with Jolie’s attorney telling CNN that Pitt “has never publicly denied” the accusations of assault on the plane. (“Brad has owned everything he’s responsible for from day one, but he’s not going to own anything he didn’t do,” says Pitt’s attorney Anne Kiley.)
“This case has been covered as a celebrity divorce; it is really a story about abuse,” says a source familiar with the matter.
For some, it’s simply a human tragedy. “I hope you’ll give some grace to somebody who had a breakdown,” says one person who knew the family. “Everybody was shocked by the eruption on the plane, because Brad is not an abusive person. But even more devastating was what came afterwards: Brad being alienated from those he loves most—his children.”
In May, Miraval was named the “Most Desirable Provence Rosé Wine in the World,” number one in a Le Figaro magazine ranking of 33 top Provençal vineyards. And while the family that created modern-day Miraval is gone, signs of the happy life they lived here remain in an all-white bedroom with furniture designed by Pitt.
“This is for the kids. Everything was for the kids and the family,” says someone in the château, leading the way into the magical bedroom, located inside a building where the children were privately schooled by teachers who traveled with them from the US. Three of the children are now over 18, but the rest live with their mother, and Pitt shares custody and visits them. But their memory remains in this room, with its circle of white bunk beds adorned with teddy bears and other reminders of another time. Six bunk beds now lying empty where six kids once slept. None have returned to Miraval since they left in September 2016.
In her essay, Tendler shared many of Petunia’s quirks, like her tendency to obsessively guard items that she considered hers and an animal communicator’s message, after communing with the dog, that “Petunia thinks she is a star and a queen, so I’m not sure she is going to respond to anything about her being left out simply because she’s a dog.” After her hospitalization, Tendler became one of those guarded objects, greedily and jealously protected by the Frenchie that she describes as “a lemon, but she was my lemon.”
Tendler also detailed the dog’s 200-plus page vet records and many “medical calamities” before describing making the painful decision to put her to sleep.
Among them: “Five entries on pneumonia, chronic ear infections, not one, but two nose surgeries due to her face being literally concave, even a run-in with a snapping turtle who leapt into the air to snap her cheek. Until that day, I had no idea turtles leapt. She had degenerative disc disease in her spine. She had a heart murmur. She had permanent scarring on her lungs. She was allergic to almost everything. Her vet bills were exorbitant.”
But through it all, Tendler describes a companionship that, though now ended, was steadfast.
“She was my constant through marriage, four moves, graduate school, a career change (or two), a mental health crisis, a divorce, and finally a reinvention,” Tendler wrote. “Now, she sat in my lap as Dr. Emily and Kate facilitated her peaceful passing.”
But also, Tendler warns, lest your heart be too warmed by her essay and you consider tracking down a Petunia of your own, “Let this be a disclaimer to any person who is lured to Frenchies by their expressive faces and silly personalities: if you are considering getting one, don’t. They are a breed that persists only through human medical intervention, and ethically, that is not a type of dog that should exist.”
If you need emotional support or are in crisis, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
They may have to add a few pages to Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady’s kids’ passports, based on the stamps they’ll rack up this summer. When Vivian, 10, and Benjamin, 13, pass around their yearbooks to their pals, they will gaze upon their friends’ signatures telling them to HAGS—that’s “have a good summer,” for anyone who’s never been a school-aged child—and scoff. They know they’re going to have a good summer because, according to Brady, their break begins with a visit to the Magic Kingdom.
In an interview with People, Brady said that first on the summer vacation docket was a post-last day of school celebration at Disneyland. “I’ve got my little calendar right here,” he said. Then, the kids will go with Bündchen to Brazil, with plans to head to Europe with Brady later.
“They got lots of good plans,” he said. “These kids have a really good summer lined up.”
“It’s tough because you imagine your life was going to be a certain way, and you did everything you could, you know?” she said. “I believed in fairy tales when I was a kid. I think it’s beautiful to believe in that. I mean, I’m so grateful I did.”
Brady even managed to throw in what some Bostonians may take as a dig while enthusing about all the outdoor beach activities the kids can do now at one of their parents’ many beachside homes (Bahamas, Brazil, Costa Rica, Florida, you name it, they beach house it).
“It’s very different than being in the Northeast for all those years where we just didn’t have a lot of those types of activities,” he told People. Sick burn.
Bündchen herself told VF in her April cover profile that she was living her dream in her Costa Rican casita. “If I never went to another city again, I’d be perfectly happy,” she said.
And as for Brady’s summer? He didn’t get too specific about his plans beyond the Europe of it all, but prayers up that 2023 is the year this man leans into his cheeseburger era.
When reached for comment, Johnson responded with the following statement via her personal attorney, Rachel E. Juarez:
“Last November, my client Liz Johnson made the extreme decision to seek protection for herself and her three dogs from her partner Will Aghajanian. Over a decade together, what began as a deep love for him had deteriorated into an unsafe, abusive, and isolated environment for her.
She chose to do this in silence and secrecy—fleeing her home without alerting anyone as to what she was doing. It is and has always been Ms. Johnson’s intention to maintain the privacy of this situation, and to get through this as quickly as possible.
What we are witnessing publicly play out is what Will has done behind closed doors for years. Exercising control over Liz through humiliation and confusion. We otherwise will not comment on his actions and ask that you respect her privacy as she continues to heal.”
Horses opened in late 2021 to glowing reviews. A New York Times headline declared it “A Hollywood Hangout Where the Food Is Actually the Point”; last January, the LA Times called it “a new modern LA institution.” VF featured the restaurant in our annual Hollywood issue, citing the legacy of its building: Between 1934 and 2007 the space was home to the British pub Ye Coach & Horses, frequented by Richard Burton, Alfred Hitchcock, and Quentin Tarantino. Under Johnson and Aghajanian, celebrities from Will Ferrell to Chrissy Teigen dined at the restaurant; in late 2022, Jeff Bezos and Jay-Z were photographed there together on a typically closed Monday night. In meteoric time, Horses became the kind of hard-to-book table favored by a particular set of industry insiders, for which having a contact to text for a reservation garnered cache. The rumors and reported divorce filings have thus been met with tantamount, if morbid, interest.
In a metatwist of one whisper, A24 supposedly secured the rights to an as-yet-unpublished feature about these reports. Untrue, according to a spokesperson for A24: “can confirm not us!” “This is an emergency episode,” said Jason Stewart, cohost of the “bicoastal elite” podcast How Long Gone, in Friday’s installment. “AI is going to replace us creatives,” he joked, alluding to the episode’s content. “I’m just kidding, it’s [about] Horses.”
The couple’s rapid ascent in the food world had not been without controversy. In March 2020 the couple suddenly departed their posts as head chefs at Nashville’s acclaimed The Catbird Seat, which they had held for a year. “While it’s true the restaurant itself is defined as a chef incubator intended to develop young chefs and give them their own eventual restaurants, this stint seems curiously short, especially given the recent national spotlight,” Eater wrote at the time of their departure. Johnson, now age 32, and Aghajanian, 31, had been co-nominated for the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year only a week before. (In Aghajanian’s complaint, his friend Sam Burchett alleged that Johnson physically abused Aghajanian at the restaurant. The Catbird Seat did not respond to VF’s questions by press time.)
In August 2022, Eater reported that Ken Friedman had done the walkthrough of the Horses space with Johnson and Aghajanian. Friedman, in one of the restaurant industry’s earliest #MeToo-era shakeups, left the Spotted Pig following an investigation by New York’s attorney general that found he had sexually harassed 11 staff members. (Per the New York Times, Friedman agreed to pay $240,000 and a share of his profits to former employees.) Horses denied Friedman’s involvement in its business, but Friedman maintained that he held a twenty percent stake in the restaurant, telling Eater, “People know, the word’s out. Why should I hide it?”
Earlier last year, in April, the New York Times reported that Johnson and Aghajanian had tapped another controversial figure for their newest venture, Froggy’s, set to open in New York: Thomas Carter, the former Estela co-owner whose partner Ignacio Mattos bought him out of the restaurant following a report of toxic workplace behavior. Former employees alleged that he made comments about his genitals and was prone to calling various staff members, at various times, a “fucking retard.” (A statement to the Times approved by both Carter and Mattos confirmed his departure but did not comment on allegations.) Johnson told Eater in April 2022 that she had hired him “because we were seeking someone whose expertise would complement the vision for the project, and would help lighten the load from a business perspective,” but that “Thomas will not be present on the floor day-to-day.” This week, Carter confirmed to Eater that he is not “a managing partner” nor involved in the restaurant’s future plans.
On Wednesday night the restaurant posted a message to their Instagram account: “Will Aghajanian has been on a leave of absence from Horses as of November 2022, and since then he has not been involved in the day-to-day operations of the restaurant. Under the guidance of Chef Liz, our incredible front and back of house teams are working to continuously make Horses what she had always intended it to be – a place of joy and celebration. Horses has no further comments outside of this statement.”
Hello and welcome to Financial Face-off, a MarketWatch column where we help you weigh a financial decision. Our columnist will give her verdict. Tell us whether you think she’s right in the comments. And please share your suggestions for future Financial Face-off columns by emailing our columnist at lalbrecht@marketwatch.com.
Wedding season is upon us. Couples across the land are probably obsessing right now over wedding-day details like the seating chart and first-dance song. Unfortunately, many couples don’t pay nearly as much attention to their finances prior to marriage: Almost half (49%) don’t discuss how they’ll handle their money before they tie the knot, according to one survey. Only 41% tell their salaries to each other and just 36% say how much debt they have.
Not being open and honest about money can be a sign that you don’t trust your partner, a relationship killer if there ever was one. It can also mean unpleasant shocks — surprise, your soulmate has a 530 credit score — that stand in the way of those dreams you cooked up together when you were just two crazy kids in love.
One big decision couples face when they form a household: Should they merge their money into joint accounts, or keep separate accounts?
Why it matters
How couples manage their money isn’t just about making sure the water bill gets paid on time. Discussions about money can get fraught fast and sometimes become proxy battles for bigger issues in the relationship, like who wields more power, whose career is more important, and who does more domestic labor. Money and how we spend it is also an expression of our values. And if you’re not on the same page about your values, then why are you in this relationship?
The verdict
Share the wealth. Use a joint account.
My reasons
The No. 1 reason to share your money is that joint accounts appear to lead to a happier marriage. That lessens your chances of divorce, which can be financially devastating.
There’s been research suggesting that couples who share their accounts are happier than those who don’t, but the link was only correlational, so it wasn’t clear whether “joint accounts make you happy or if happiness makes you open a joint account,” said Scott Rick, a University of Michigan associate professor of marketing. He co-authored a new study that is the first to find a causal relationship between joint accounts and happier marriages.
Rick and his co-authors tracked 230 newlywed couples for two years. One group of couples had to open a joint account, one had to keep their accounts separate, and a third could do whatever they wanted. Researchers checked in with the couples every few months to ask them how their relationships were going. The couples who kept separate accounts or did whatever they wanted (most of whom kept separate accounts) saw the “typical decline” in relationship satisfaction, where they were happiest at the start of their marriage and satisfaction dropped after that honeymoon phase, Rick said.
But the joint couples stayed at the initial level of happiness, and if anything, their relationship satisfaction “seemed to increase a tiny, tiny bit over time,” he told MarketWatch. “By the end of two years, the joint couples looked a lot better than the ‘separate’ couples and the ‘do what you want’ couples,” Rick said. “Part of that is because the joint couples got on the same page in terms of money matters, it prompted some discussions. They started to see things more eye to eye.”
“You want to get away from score-keeping, which couples can fall into: ‘I did this yesterday, so it’s your turn today,’” he added. “With separate accounts, you really get into score-keeping: ‘Well I paid this, and you paid that.’ You want to get away from ‘his’ money and ‘her’ money and you want to get into ‘our money.’”
The couples with merged accounts “reported higher levels of communality within their marriage compared to people with separate accounts, or even those who partially merged their finances,” said study co-author Jenny Olson, an assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “They frequently told us they felt more like they were ‘in this together.’”
If that’s not enough to convince you, consider the fact that there can be financial benefits to having joint accounts. Keeping all of your money at one bank could help you avoid minimum-account-balance fees, or make you eligible for a higher tier of customer rewards. “Combining assets provides greater ease of management for bills, for planning for the future, and for emergencies,” said Woody Derricks, a certified financial planner with Partnership Wealth Management in Towson, Md., who specializes in same-sex couples. If one person suddenly lands in the hospital, it’s harder for the other to act on their behalf financially if money is in separate accounts, Derricks said.
There’s also the estate-planning aspect, said Kelley Long, a certified financial planner with Financial Bliss in Oro Valley, Ariz. “When you have joint accounts, if something happens to your spouse, your life is so much easier financially. Everything automatically is yours. You don’t have to walk around with a death certificate and go everywhere to claim everything. They always say joint accounts are the poor man’s estate plan.”
Another point in favor of joint accounts is that sharing money can help control spending. “You might restrain yourself a bit if you know you’re being watched, so it might tamp down some more extravagant spending,” Rick said.
Is my verdict best for you?
On the other hand, keeping separate accounts just works better for some couples. Long’s parents have been married 51 years and have never shared money, she said. They’re both financially responsible, but they have opposing money personalities. One loves to spend and the other hates it, and they also have a disparity in their incomes. Keeping separate accounts was “a loving decision” that let them “maintain maximum happiness in their marriage without having to change their personalities,” Long said.
It can also be helpful to keep separate accounts if you meet later in life and have long-established financial habits, or have children from a previous marriage, financial planners said.
Another reason for later-in-life couples to keep finances separate is to preserve a step-up in basis for highly appreciated assets, Derricks said. “If someone owns an investment for decades that has appreciated nicely, they may want to keep that in their own name so that if they’re first to pass away, their spouse or partner receives it with a full step-up in basis and can liquidate it after death and not have to pay capital-gains taxes,” he said.
Couples can also try a happy medium between joint and separate, with one shared account for household expenses, and separate accounts for individual spending on things like expensive hobbies, Rick said. “Everyone needs a room of their own, so to speak, and space,” he said. “Joint is definitely better than pure separates, but if you have the time and energy, I would say attach some separates to the joint.”
Tell us in the comments which option should win in this Financial Face-off. If you have ideas for future Financial Face-off columns, send me an email at lalbrecht@marketwatch.com.
Actor Shannen Doherty has filed for divorce from her husband, Kurt Iswarienko, after 11 years of marriage
LOS ANGELES — Actor Shannen Doherty of hit shows “Charmed” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” has filed for divorce from her husband, Kurt Iswarienko, after 11 years of marriage, her representative says.
“Divorce is the last thing Shannen wanted,” publicist Leslie Sloane said in an emailed statement Saturday. “Unfortunately, she felt she was left with no other option.”
In early 2020, Doherty, now 52, announced that she was battling a recurrence of breast cancer that had progressed to stage four, calling it “a bitter pill to swallow.”
“I definitely have days where I say, ‘Why me?’ And then I go, ‘Well, why not me? Who else? Who else besides me deserves this?’ None of us do,” Doherty told “Good Morning America.”
The actor first revealed she had breast cancer in 2015 and has charted her battle with the disease on social media.
Doherty did not refer to the divorce development on Instagram, but in a post Friday wrote: “The only people who deserve to be in your life are the ones who treat you with love, kindness and total respect.”
In October 2021, a federal jury in Los Angeles awarded Doherty $6.3 million in a lawsuit alleging that State Farm, her insurance carrier, failed to pay sufficiently for damage to her house in a 2018 California wildfire. The jury found the failure to pay policy benefits for Doherty’s Malibu home “unreasonable and without proper cause.”
In her statement, Sloane, Doherty’s publicist, suggested contacting Iswarienko’s agent for elaboration, whom she identified as Collier Grimm. Grimm did not immediately reply to a message for comment.
Reese Witherspoon and her husband say they are divorcing after nearly 12 years of marriage
LOS ANGELES — Reese Witherspoon and her husband say they are divorcing after nearly 12 years of marriage.
The actor-producer and her husband, Hollywood agent Jim Toth, announced their breakup Friday in a joint statement on Instagram. Their wedding anniversary is Sunday.
“It is with a great deal of care and consideration that we have made the difficult decision to divorce,” the post said. “We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with deep love, kindness and mutual respect for everything we have created together.”
Witherspoon and Toth have one son together and they said he remains their biggest priority, asking for privacy.
The statement’s authenticity was confirmed by a Witherspoon representative. No records of a divorce filing could be found in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Witherspoon was previously married to actor Ryan Phillippe, with whom she has two children.
Reese Witherspoon and her husband say they are divorcing after nearly 12 years of marriage
LOS ANGELES — Reese Witherspoon and her husband say they are divorcing after nearly 12 years of marriage.
The actor-producer and her husband, Hollywood agent Jim Toth, announced their breakup Friday in a joint statement on Instagram. Their wedding anniversary is Sunday.
“It is with a great deal of care and consideration that we have made the difficult decision to divorce,” the post said. “We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with deep love, kindness and mutual respect for everything we have created together.”
Witherspoon and Toth have one son together and they said he remains their biggest priority, asking for privacy.
Messages to representatives for Witherspoon and Toth were not immediately returned. No records of a divorce filing could be found in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Witherspoon was previously married to actor Ryan Phillippe, with whom she has two children.
The leader in co-parenting technology has modernized its look to better align with its mission of helping families living separately thrive.
Press Release –
Mar 15, 2023 08:00 CDT
MINNEAPOLIS, March 15, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– OurFamilyWizard, the world’s leading provider of co-parenting technology, announced today that it is launching a brand refresh. The company is changing its external look and feel to align better with its internal mission: to help families living separately thrive.
With a modern logo, a peaceful color palette, a friendly voice and tone, and sleek fonts, OurFamilyWizard is updating its marketing appearance to reflect its commitment to continual modernization. The brand regularly updates its app with enhancements and new features, and now its public appearance is heralding even bigger things to come via an updated brand look and feel.
“We’re investing heavily in the app,” says Nick VanWagner, CEO, “because we’re dedicated to supporting co-parents and family law professionals, even as their lives change and their needs evolve.” The more modern brand elements reflect the organization’s forward movement, just as the new logo’s arrow points upward to symbolize that co-parenting families can move forward pragmatically and positively.
Since 2001, more than one million co-parents and family law practitioners have trusted OurFamilyWizard’s co-parenting platform to reduce their stress by making co-parenting easier. In 2020, Spectrum Equity invested in OurFamilyWizard, allowing the company to expand its workforce significantly so that it could reach and serve even more families. OurFamilyWizard’s acquisition of Cozi in 2022 created yet another avenue through which the brand can support families as they organize and coordinate family life.
About OurFamilyWizard
OurFamilyWizard is the world’s leading co-parenting communication platform, offering tools for families to support more seamless and successful parenting across separate homes. Since 2001, more than one million parents and family law practitioners have trusted OurFamilyWizard’s co-parenting platform to help divorced or separated families effectively manage shared calendars, expenses, messaging, files, and other critical family information. These tools can reduce the risk of parents going back to court.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Union leader Ursula von der Leyen are set to hold face-to-face talks, with expectations high they will seal a deal to resolve a thorny post-Brexit trade dispute.
That would mark a breakthrough after months of bitter wrangling that has soured U.K.-EU relations, sparked the collapse of the Belfast-based regional government and and threatened to set back Northern Ireland’s decades-old peace process.
In a joint statement on Sunday the U.K. and the EU said European Commission President von der Leyen will travel to Britain on Monday so the leaders can work towards “shared, practical solutions for the range of complex challenges around the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.”
Sunak’s office set out a tightly choreographed agenda for Monday suggesting a deal is all but done. It said the leaders’ lunchtime “final talks” would be followed by a meeting of the U.K. Cabinet, then, if there is a deal, by a joint news conference and a statement by Sunak to the House of Commons.
U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said earlier Sunday that the two sides were on the “cusp” of striking an agreement over trade rules known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member, the Republic of Ireland. When the U.K. left the bloc in 2020, the two sides agreed to keep the Irish border free of customs posts and other checks because an open border is a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Instead there are checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. That angered British unionist politicians in Belfast, who say the new trade border in the Irish Sea undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
The Democratic Unionist Party collapsed Northern Ireland’s Protestant-Catholic power-sharing government a year ago in protest and has refused to return until the rules are scrapped or substantially rewritten.
Relations between the U.K. and the EU, severely tested during years of Brexit wrangling, chilled still further amid disputes over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The British government introduced a bill that would let it unilaterally rip up parts of the Brexit agreement, a move the EU called illegal. The bloc accused the U.K. of failing to honor the legally binding treaty it had signed.
The mood between London and Brussels improved after Sunak, a pragmatic Brexit supporter, took office in October, replacing more belligerent predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Striking a deal would let Sunak “get Brexit done” in a way that eluded Johnson, who won a landslide election victory on that very slogan in 2019, three years after British voters narrowly opted in a referendum to leave the bloc.
Johnson did lead the U.K. out of the now 27-nation EU in 2020, but with a divorce deal that left Northern Ireland still bound to some EU rules and standards in a way that caused headaches for businesses and upset Northern Ireland’s delicate political balance.
U.K. and EU negotiators have been inching towards a solution during weeks of intense talks, but any deal with the bloc carries political risk for Sunak. Hints of compromise towards the EU have sparked opposition from hard-line euroskeptics in Sunak’s governing Conservative Party, including Johnson.
The DUP also has warned it will oppose any deal that does not meet its demand for “significant, substantive change.”
A deal is likely to remove customs checks on the vast majority of goods moving between the U.K. and Northern Ireland.
The thorniest issue is the role of the European Court of Justice in resolving any disputes that arise over the rules. Britain and the EU agreed in their Brexit divorce deal to give the European court that authority, but the DUP and Conservative Brexiteers insist the court must have no jurisdiction in U.K. matters.
Sunak insisted a deal would meet unionist demands.
“As someone who believes in Brexit, voted for Brexit, campaigned for Brexit, I want to demonstrate that Brexit works and it works for every part of the United Kingdom,” he told the Sunday Times.
“There’s unfinished business on Brexit and I want to get the job done.”
___
Joanna Kozlowska in London contributed to this story.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of Brexit at https://apnews.com/hub/brexit and of British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/british-politics
LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Union leader Ursula von der Leyen are set to hold face-to-face talks, with expectations high they will seal a deal to resolve a thorny post-Brexit trade dispute.
That would mark a breakthrough after months of bitter wrangling that has soured U.K.-EU relations, sparked the collapse of the Belfast-based regional government and and threatened to set back Northern Ireland’s decades-old peace process.
In a joint statement on Sunday the U.K. and the EU said European Commission President von der Leyen will travel to Britain on Monday so the leaders can work towards “shared, practical solutions for the range of complex challenges around the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.”
U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said earlier Sunday that the two sides were on the “cusp” of striking an agreement over trade rules known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member, the Republic of Ireland. When the U.K. left the bloc in 2020, the two sides agreed to keep the Irish border free of customs posts and other checks because an open border is a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Instead there are checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. That angered British unionist politicians in Belfast, who say the new trade border in the Irish Sea undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
The Democratic Unionist Party collapsed Northern Ireland’s Protestant-Catholic power-sharing government a year ago in protest and has refused to return until the rules are scrapped or substantially rewritten.
Relations between the U.K. and the EU, severely tested during years of Brexit wrangling, chilled still further amid disputes over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The British government introduced a bill that would let it unilaterally rip up parts of the Brexit agreement, a move the EU called illegal. The bloc accused the U.K. of failing to honor the legally binding treaty it had signed.
The mood between London and Brussels improved after Sunak, a pragmatic Brexit supporter, took office in October, replacing more belligerent predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Striking a deal would let Sunak “get Brexit done” in a way that eluded Johnson, who won a landslide election victory on that very slogan in 2019, three years after British voters narrowly opted in a referendum to leave the bloc.
Johnson did lead the U.K. out of the now 27-nation EU in 2020, but with a divorce deal that left Northern Ireland still bound to some EU rules and standards in a way that caused headaches for businesses and upset Northern Ireland’s delicate political balance.
U.K. and EU negotiators have been inching towards a solution during weeks of intense talks, but any deal with the bloc carries political risk for Sunak. Hints of compromise towards the EU have sparked opposition from hard-line euroskeptics in Sunak’s governing Conservative Party, including Johnson.
The DUP also has warned it will oppose any deal that does not meet its demand for “significant, substantive change.”
A deal is likely to remove customs checks on the vast majority of goods moving between the U.K. and Northern Ireland.
The thorniest issue is the role of the European Court of Justice in resolving any disputes that arise over the rules. Britain and the EU agreed in their Brexit divorce deal to give the European court that authority, but the DUP and Conservative Brexiteers insist the court must have no jurisdiction in U.K. matters.
Sunak insisted a deal would meet unionist demands.
“As someone who believes in Brexit, voted for Brexit, campaigned for Brexit, I want to demonstrate that Brexit works and it works for every part of the United Kingdom,” he told the Sunday Times.
“There’s unfinished business on Brexit and I want to get the job done.”
___
Joanna Kozlowska in London contributed to this story.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of Brexit at https://apnews.com/hub/brexit and of British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/british-politics
What advice would you give to a widow and widower considering marriage on how to manage finances — and deal with adult children?
We are both 60 years old and plan to work a few more years, mostly for health insurance. We both have about $1.5 million in retirement savings accounts. Our spouses’ 401(k)s and IRAs rolled into our accounts.
I have another $500,000 in a brokerage and he has almost another $1 million. We both own homes with $300,000 mortgages. Mine is worth $500,000, Paul’s (not his real name) home is worth $1 million. We have no other debt.
We both have one married, and one unmarried child that we help. We both have two grandchildren.
We should be set up very well. Here’s the concern: His married, well-off daughter is very aggressive about inheritance. She wants the family home retitled in a trust. She wants all life insurance and brokerage beneficiaries in her name. Her brother has had drug-addiction problems, so she’s cutting him out even though it seems he’s the one who will need help.
“‘She wants the family home retitled in a trust. She wants all life insurance and brokerage beneficiaries in her name.’”
The daughter isn’t thrilled about our relationship and suggests we just live together. For religious reasons, I would never do this. Grandma shacking up? What example would I set for my grandchildren?
As a widowed couple, we are realistic enough to plan for the time one of us is left alone. Paul has diabetes, high blood pressure and already sees a cardiologist. What if he has a heart attack? Stroke? Or if he dies?
What’s a fair way to mingle finances and allow security for me should he predecease me while allowing Paul’s daughter to ultimately inherit?
By the way, my children have never raised money as an issue. After we both cared for spouses through cancer, they know life is short and just want us to be happy.
Happy to Have Found Love Again
Dear Happy,
She is overstepping the line, and overplaying her hand.
The first rule of inheritance is that it’s not yours until the decedent’s money is sitting in your bank account. Your fiancé’s daughter can make all the demands she likes, but the only thing your fiancé has to do is say, “You don’t need to be concerned. My affairs are all in order. I’ve always taken care of my own affairs, and I am not changing now.”
How your fiancé decides to split his estate is entirely up to him, and can be done in consultation with a financial adviser and attorney, taking into account each of his children’s individual needs. For instance, if you move in together, he could give you a life estate, allowing you to live in the home for the rest of your life, and dividing the property between his two children thereafter.
Given that you have your own home, however, you may decide to rent it out, and move back there in the event that he predeceases you. There are so many ways to split an inheritance. You could look at the intestate laws of your state, and follow them. In New York, the spouse inherits the first $50,000 of intestate property, plus half of the balance, and the kids inherit the rest.
“Paul” may decide to set up a trust for his son, so he can provide an income for him over the course of his life. If he has or had issues with addiction, this will help him while not putting temptation in his way with a lump sum of money. The best kind of trust is the one that deals with any recurring issues directly, and takes into account the person’s circumstances.
Martin Hagan, a Pennsylvania-based estate-planning attorney who has practiced for four decades, writes: “First, it would authorize distributions only if the beneficiary is actively pursuing treatment and recovery. Second, it would limit distributions to paying only for the expenses incurred in carrying out the treatment plan that will have been developed for the beneficiary.”
You have $2 million collectively in a retirement and brokerage account and $200,000 equity in his home, and you can use these next seven years or so to pay off your mortgage, while your fiancé has $2.5 million and $700,000 in equity on his home. You are both well set up for retirement, and let’s hope you have many years to spend together.
The financial services industry has many opinions. You should, advisers say, have 10 times your salary saved by the time you’re 65 years old. You don’t mention your salary, but I would be surprised if many people in America had that much money saved, especially given all of the unexpected events — divorce, illness, job loss — that can occur in the intervening years.
You also have other priorities than dealing with an aggressive daughter/daughter-in-law. AARP suggests that most people should look into long-term care insurance between the ages of 60 and 65, around the time most people are eligible to qualify for Medicare. If you do it earlier, it can serve as a savings account in the event that you never need long-term care, AARP says.
As retirement columnist Richard Quinn recently wrote on MarketWatch, everybody’s circumstances are different. “Living in retirement isn’t about averages. It isn’t about what other people do or the opinions of experts, especially online instant experts who don’t know anything about you and have yet to experience many years of retirement themselves.”
Don’t give too much oxygen or power to your future daughter-in-law. Her father should give her a stock answer, and be firm. If she persists, he can say, “The subject is closed. I need you to respect the decisions I make about my own life, respect my privacy on these matters, and it would be nice if you would be happy for us, and support us in our marriage together.”
You can’t change people. But you can change wills.
You can email The Moneyist with any financial and ethical questions related to coronavirus at qfottrell@marketwatch.com, and follow Quentin Fottrell on Twitter.
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Perhaps there was a time in your relationship when they would have dropped anything to be with you. Now, they almost seem uninterested in your life and more involved in their routine and schedule. When you ask them out to hang with your friends or see your family, they may shrug you off as they prioritize their own life, friendships, and career. Their attitude has changed, and it’s impacting the relationship. You feel like they’re too busy for you, which may leave you feeling needy and insecure.
It could be a positive sign that your boyfriend is nurturing an interdependent life within the relationship, but be wary if they’re leaning into their own thing without including you in the conversation. If they’re making room for their own life, work, friends, self-care rituals, goals, and new hobbies without you, the decreased desire for connection may be a sign of infidelity and that someone else may be in the picture.
Studies2 show there are a huge variety of reasons men cheat: While sometimes it’s simply about craving variety and having an opportunity presenting itself, oftentimes infidelity is a symptom of a bigger problem in the primary relationship, such as feeling a lack of emotional or physical connection, lingering anger at your partner, or a core incompatibility.
