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Despite the messages of peace on earth and goodwill to all men, Christmas and New Year can be a time of high stress and family arguments. The festive season may be a cause for celebration, but for many people the extended time spent with their spouse simply confirms their harboured fears that the two of them don't get on so well these days.
As a result, more divorces are filed in January than any other month of the year and it is sad but true that in the US the divorce rate now stands at 50 per cent. Divorce is no longer the stigma it once was and for many it is just another factor in their increasingly complex lives. American marketers are recognising this fact of life more than ever now and are building it into their advertising, products and services.
Each US state has a different divorce law, so getting divorced can be both a legal and financial minefield. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a host of websites have emerged that are devoted to the subject of divorce. Many of them take different angles - from Stopyourdivorce.com and Divorceasfriends.com to Split-up.com and the Do-It-Yourself Divorce kit offered on Divorceonline.com. Yes, it's true - you can organise your divorce online.
Inezita Gay, a 38-year-old marketing manager from New York, served divorce papers to her estranged husband using the Divorce.com website. "Divorce.com simplified the process for me, made it less adversarial and saved both of us a lot of money in legal fees," she says.
In many cases there are children to consider. Supportkids.com is an Internet-based service that claims to have collected more than $50m (pound 34m) of past-due child support payments for thousands of families. It takes a percentage of each sum of money it recovers from the offending parent.
People researching divorce on the Net may also come across an interesting ad for Spectorsoft.com. "Contemplating divorce?" it says, "Find out if your partner...