Posted on 06/12/2004 11:46:05 AM PDT by NotchJohnson
Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh announced Friday that he and his wife, Marta, are divorcing.
The Limbaughs "mutually decided to end their marriage of 10 years" and have "separated pending an amicable resolution," according to a statement released by Limbaugh's publicist.
The couple shared a $24 million oceanfront mansion in nearby Palm Beach, from where Limbaugh often broadcast his daily three-hour show.
Spokesman Tony Knight said the matter was personal and declined further comment.
It was the third marriage for both Limbaugh, 53, and his 44-year-old wife, who were wed May 27, 1994, at the Virginia home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas officiated the ceremony.
The past several months have been difficult for the politically and socially conservative Limbaugh, who announced in October that he was entering drug rehabilitation because he was addicted to prescription painkillers.
At the same time, West Palm Beach prosecutors announced they were investigating whether Limbaugh illegally went "doctor shopping" to obtain the pills. The practice refers to visiting several doctors to receive duplicate prescriptions of controlled narcotics.
Limbaugh, who has not been charged with any crime, has repeatedly fought back against the charges and negative publicity he's received over the matter.
Last month, he took out full-page ads in two Florida newspapers to attack prosecutors for mounting what he called a politically motivated investigation. He also regularly lashes out against prosecutors and reporters and defends himself during his show.
The criminal case against Limbaugh is on hold pending a decision from a Florida appeals court. It will decide whether the seizure of Limbaugh's medical records, which were taken by investigators in November, violated privacy laws.
Prosecutors say they need the records to determine whether to bring charges against Limbaugh.
I hope she takes the damn cats with her.
Try a really obscure search, like "limbaugh". Lo and behold - there it is! Almost 900 comments.
And you missed it?
Yes, thank you for the correction. Unfortunately, I go to a subsriber page on your link. Perhaps you could give a brief synopsis?
I had my one big Marriage Experience a few years back.
At this point, it would take one hell of a woman to beat "no woman at all".
I'll simply have a series of tawdry affairs, each more tawdry than the last.
Hi, Rush. My prayers are with ya, big fella.
Don't forget to get to meetings and work the Steps, 'k?
Who knows? But there are many things much less severe than drug addiction that can still preclude one from being able to have a successful marriage.
And who's to say that the addiction itself caused the end of the marriage? Generally, those who become addicted want the little vacation that the painkillers provide in order to escape some aspect of their lives. It's just as possible that the marriage was in trouble for some time, and being free of the addiction enabled Rush to see a little more clearly what wasn't working in his life.
LOL! I had the same thought.
Check post #34. I guess the alimony thing is different in each state. On a Federal level, she can get his social security when she turns 62 for life, but that won't be more than $1500 or so a month.
Yes but he was opposed to it before he supported it.
Netscape is saying that Rush "dumped" his wife.
Iceholes
Without question. These sort of failures are often the product of many core weaknesses. Seldom is one party or the other completely to blame. I'd say physical abuse is one such caveat to that, but those are relatively rare in todays very abuse-conscious America.
We'll never know what truly transpired between Marta and Rush. I'd prefer not to judge either, but proclaim them human and incompatible, forgive them, and move on.
"Both my parents have been married and divorced twice. Believe you me, it did not happen because they were virtuous, nor innocent."
You can't lie to the children. They know the truth. I hate when the parents say, "WE love you, just not each other anymore". Such bull. If they loved the children they wouldn't divorce. The kids know who is at fault and why. Divorce is a moral failure. Sorry you had to go through 2 divorces.
Inside sources say that she is leaving with a mere $150 million dollars, and the gardner Raul.
Someone also needs to tell him that "adult beverages" are a no-no. I hope he is working some kind of program, especially with all that is happeing around him.
Thanks for that data on Florida law. I'm surprised she didn't wait two more years.
We have to give her credit for having a very positive affect on Rush. He has lost a lot of weight, thanks to her encouragement and support. Now at least, he's in much better health, and hope he stays that way.
Divorce
Court in the act
May 27th 2004
From The Economist print edition
England's a bad place for rich people with wobbly marriages. It may get worse
HERR X was a rich man before he married his English wife, and when he moved to London with her some years later, he got a nasty shock. She filed for divorce—and whereas in Germany that means sharing out only the assets accumulated during the marriage, in England, everything is potentially up for grabs. Facing ruin, Herr X moved fast, apologising convincingly for his infidelity. His wife withdrew the divorce petition. The couple then moved back to Germany—where Herr X then filed for divorce again, but this time under rules that saved his fortune.
Globalised lifestyles create plenty of scope for this sort of regulatory arbitrage. Germany and most continental countries ring-fence pre-marital property. England usually tosses it all in the pot. English judges can wholly ignore pre-nuptial agreements; elsewhere they can be binding. In France and other Mediterranean countries fault plays a role: infidelity can mean losing out financially. But in northern European countries, conduct short of the mad or murderous is excluded. Judges in England now look very kindly on wives' needs, especially after long marriages during which their earning power may have been eroded. In most of Europe long-term maintenance is very rare; women are expected to work just like men.
London is already the worst jurisdiction in Europe for rich spouses (see table). It may soon overtake America's fiercest: New York. Currently the cases of two couples—one husband rich from football, the other from accountancy—are being heard jointly by the Court of Appeal. In both cases the wives are arguing that a share of the assets is not enough: they want a fair slice of their husbands' future income.
That would chime with American thinking. The wife who scrubs floors to put her man through law school deserves a share of his future legal earnings, argues Marjory Fields, a retired New York judge who is now a consultant with a London law firm. New York courts calculate the present value of a high-flying spouse's future earnings and add it to other assets similarly built up during the marriage. That total is then split, either with a one-off payment or by instalments.
Many English lawyers support this, noting that capital and income are two sides of the same coin. It is “ludicrous”, according to John Cornwell, a top London divorce lawyer, that the law pays so little attention to future income. “You could find the assets are divided 50-50 but the disparity is huge because the wife will be living on investment income only and the husband is on £500,000 a year,” he says.
If the appeal court judges rule along those lines, it will complete England's journey to the top of the league table of generous (for the poorer partner) divorce locations. In the past, it was at the bottom: judges worked on the basis of the “reasonable needs” of the poorer half (in practice, usually the wife). That has already shifted, in a landmark case in October 2000, to the idea of an “equal division” of property—and now, maybe, of income too.
Discontented spouses in mobile marriages are quick to pick up these trends. As English judges became more wife-friendly, rich Americans stopped coming to London to dump their spouses. Women married to Arabs have started coming for just the same reason, notes Pauline Fowler, a partner in a specialist London firm. For most husbands, continental Europe will offer a much better deal than England. “If I have a French client living in London with his beautiful wife, I tell him ‘if you have the chance, file in France immediately',” says Véronique Chauveau, a Paris-based international lawyer. Louise Spitz, a London lawyer, has seen “a significant increase” in international clients since October 2000 and predicts a further rise in future.
The European Union has tried to tidy things up with a measure known as Brussels II, in force since 2001. This says that six months' residence in any signatory country is enough to start divorce proceedings there; once launched, they can't happen anywhere else. That sounds admirable, but the effects have been mixed. Expensive jurisdictional disputes are fewer. But there's a big incentive to be the first to go to law, penalising trust and patience in a troubled marriage. “It's awful because parties issue sooner than they want,” says Kerstin Beyer, a German lawyer at a specialist London firm.
Copyright © 2004 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
Now that's funny!
I'm sorry, Hank, but the world just doesn't revolve around you.
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