Once bitten, twice shy? Not the Insider…
Readers of NLJ wise to the fact that the above is the name of a US organisation of born-again virgins might want to stop reading now. This column does not concern hordes of youngsters across the US (and, increasingly, here) who are wearing a silver ring on their wedding finger to signify their commitment to celibacy before marriage. A large proportion of them came to this idea rather late, having sampled the pleasures of the flesh and presumably found them wanting when compared to Church meetings and, even as a committed Christian, I have to say—what are they on?
After being married for seven years (and divorced for seven more, huzzah!) I can safely state that I do not qualify for the Silver Ring Thing without adverse comment. However, if there were such a thing as the “once bitten, twice shy” club of Great Britain, I could probably claim gold medal membership status, and from the recent media I am not alone in this.
circling crows
The press, particularly The Daily Mail and associates, has been publicising the break-up of fortysomething columnist Liz Jones from her errant younger husband Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal in a manner more than slightly reminiscent of carrion crows picking over the corpse of a dead warthog. Having followed this saga for several years, and for the last four months or so shouted at the newspaper—a family trait, my mother often shouts at the radio, especially if Tony Blair is talking about being honest—telling Jones to kick him out, at last it seems she has heard.
For those of you with no interest in popular culture, gossip or scandal—you there in the wig and gown—Jones used to edit Marie Claire magazine and is a successful fashion editor, which basically means she gets paid humongous sums of money and sent tons of free stuff to tell us why acid yellow leggings and cheesecloth smocks are so a good look.
Dhaliwal, according to her columns, is a ne’er do well, staying at home to write his novel, which did not achieve JK Rowling heights (JR Hartley more like) but gave him enough independence to travel to India and “find himself” which seems to have involved exchanging bodily fluids with as many nubile specimens as he could get his hands, and indeed other portions of his anatomy, on.
Jones has now, rather belatedly, hoofed him out of the family home and is—according to her column—divorcing him for adultery. Apparently sack loads of supportive letters have arrived at The Daily Mail which duly put together a two-page spread of same, but according to my mother—for all this happened while I was in Italy—nobody has focused on what I thought of immediately: he’s bound to come after her for every penny he can.
obvious and gross conduct
I am not a divorce expert, but I’ve been through one and when they let me out of the padded cell I could still remember most of the significant issues.
It matters not who is putting it about and exposing the other to the risk of STDs—nothing to do with subscriber trunk dialling or Buzby, unless you are some kind of budgerigar fetishist. Conduct, to be of significance in ancillary relief, must be “obvious and gross”—the example given in law school was of the wife who murdered her children, served her time and then tried to sue the father for alimony. Remember we belong to the profession that was prepared to run that, and breathe slightly more easily when you hear that the judge dismissed it. Generally, however, a spouse can be the sorriest piece of dung that ever wore shoe leather, and still walk away with the bulk of the shared assets.
The fact that the wife has earned more than the husband—or that he has earned nothing at all—is equally irrelevant; it may tend to work against, rather than for, her. The argument is: Jones is a vibrant and successful woman; she will no doubt continue to earn high wages and will within a short space of time replenish her ransacked bank accounts. Dhaliwal, on the other hand, has yet to set the world afire, and when the rash of “my side of the story” puff pieces dies down, will be entirely dependent upon the wheelbarrows full of zlotys that we can shake her down for at this juncture, m’lud.
Worst of all in my initial view was that Jones’s columns, which are bound to end up as exhibits one through 400-odd, make it clear that her husband’s serial adultery has been known to her for more than six months. Not only has she found it tolerable to live with him, she actually made over half the house to him in a sickening display of self-abasement, apparently to show him she was committed to the marriage. Whereupon he promptly went out and bedded someone else, which luckily lets her off the hook under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 2(1) as it is this most recent adultery upon which one assumes her petition will be founded.
Small comfort is to be had from the knowledge that, while making over half her house to him is the dumbest thing since George W Bush, the likelihood is that Dhaliwal would come in for something of that order anyway; I would be surprised if his initial negotiation position is not to ask for two-thirds of the pot.
Second time lucky
What has all this to do with the silver ring? Well, despite having been badly burnt by marriage number one, when the Italian—who HATES being mentioned in this column—took me to the Belvedere Principessa di Piemonte in Ravello on Saturday and got down on one knee in the pouring rain and squelchy mud to ask for my hand in marriage, I said yes. As we are awaiting delivery of The Ring, I am sporting a plain silver band for the time being, and have no wish to be accused of “passing off”.
Jennifer James is the Insider
