What a Site!

by Mary Astell | Comments

I was Googling around yesterday (when I should have been working), and stumbled upon a website that I'm not quite sure what to make of. It's called divorce360 (), and it's like a dumping ground for everything, and I mean everything, related to divorce. Most of it is serious and helpful—guides to divorce laws in different states, links to mediators and lawyers and marriages counselors; Q&A's with experts; financial calculators; checklist after checklist for before, during, and after a split: A virtual boatload of terrific resources. And there seems to be a lot going on on the community section of the site, where people can cyber-share their experiences and advice. I can see how the blogs and chatrooms and such would be invaluable for someone who was feeling very alone while in the throes of a split.

But the site also features a few things that really floored me, which I thought I would share here. I have a pretty twisted sense of humor, so I found some of this weirdly amusing:

1) A marriage calculator, designed to figure your chances of getting divorced based on a handful of personal facts such as gender, education, and age at which you tied the knot. Of course I plugged in my own info, and got a "10 percent," meaning ten percent people with my exact same background are already divorced. I'm no statistician, so I really can't tell if that means my chances are higher or lower than average. (And besides, what does it matter? If things continue as they are the chances I'll get divorced are 100 percent regardless of what any other woman with a college degree who's been married for 13 years, got hitched after age 31, and has kids has done or will do.)

2) Divorce e-cards. Seriously. These little gems feature visuals like diamond rings in which the stone has fallen out of the setting, severed balls-and-chains, a cartoon high-heeled foot kicking a cartoon husband in the butt, dreamy images of greener grass and solitary beach chairs on sandy shores. My personal fave, though, is of a cute pooch sitting in a suitcase, with the caption: "The dog and I have moved." Now that I might be tempted to send along to a few special friends.

3) A tool for spying on a (presumably) cheating spouse: Track Your Lover Now, it's called, and the caption reads "Do you know if your lover is cheating on you? Find out their exact geographic location right now!

Okay, admittedly that last one is actually an ad, not a real service offered up by the helpful curators of divorce360, but its presence on the site certainly made it colorful.

I didn't join divorce360; I don't feel a need to indulge in anyone else's anger or sorrow, and I don't need another place to spew my own (I've got this blog!). And besides, I'm lucky to have a great circle of supportive friends and family. Most of all, I'm happy that I haven't lost my sense of humor. Otherwise, the mere existence of a website devoted to divorce would probably sink me.