When it comes to the lives of the rich and famous, there seems to be no limit to the amount of crazy behavior money can buy. The latest? The ‘divorce without separation’.
Yesterday, the Daily Mail reported that the wife of English footballer Kyle Walker had filed for divorce. This is not unexpected or crazy since he has had two children with the ‘influencer’ Lauryn Goodman.
I don’t understand why a man would want to trade his rather lonely wife for this sleazy rival.
Especially since the latter’s recent financial demands (including a hydraulic swimming pool, a gardener earning £28 an hour, a new car worth up to £70,000 every three years and an air conditioner costing around £33,000) place her, in my opinion, as a shameless gold digger. It’s like trading in a Bentley for a beat-up Ford Cortina.
It seems that Walker, who has four children with his childhood sweetheart, wife Annie, is desperately trying to persuade her to take him back and is willing to do whatever it takes.
The ‘divorce without separation’ of Kyle Walker and his wife Annie means the couple will formally end their marriage but will continue to live together as husband and wife while co-parenting their children.
One option is this novel and contradictory-sounding idea of a “divorce without separation.” In essence, it means the couple would formally end their marriage, with Kyle giving a large chunk of his estimated £27million fortune to Annie, but they would continue to live together as husband and wife while raising their children together.
The logic is that Annie would have the financial independence to leave any time she wanted, and Kyle would be able to live with the woman he insists he doesn’t want to give up on. Meanwhile, their children remain in the family home with minimal disturbance and with both parents under the same roof.
It’s an intriguing concept and probably only works for a multi-millionaire footballer with a mansion in Cheshire and a long-suffering wife who loves him even though he’s a complete idiot.
Such an arrangement might not be so practical on a two-up, two-down terrace in Bolton. But, strangely enough, this is not the first time I have encountered this type of setup.
A friend mentioned that mutual acquaintances had split up but, instead of selling the family home and setting up separate residences, they operate a sort of parenting timeshare. The children remain in situ, while their parents come and go and spend time together as a family. They are free to seek other partners but the family unit remains intact.
Gentleman’s Relish British-made anchovy paste
Gentleman’s Relish, the anchovy paste first made in 1828 and which I mention elsewhere in this column, is declared “delicious on hot toast.” But isn’t everything delicious with hot toast? My favorite is mashed banana with a squeeze of lime. Yours?
We’ve seen unusual solutions to thorny relationship problems before. There was, of course, the “conscious uncoupling” of Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay’s Chris Thingummy, described by its inventor, therapist Katherine Woodward Thomas, as “a kind and compassionate way to work through the pain of the breakup and use it to transform and enrich.” your whole life.’ In other words, instead of throwing things at each other, they sit together, have some adult conversations, and agree not to tear pieces off each other.
The idea of a “divorce without separation,” however, is a little more challenging. I know this because I tried it myself for a while, with my ex, Michael Gove, with whom I remain on very good terms. Still, living under the same roof without being a couple was very challenging and also quite depressing.
To him, I think, it didn’t seem so much like that. But perhaps this was because the arrangement was significantly more advantageous for him, as I was still making sure the house didn’t run out of toilet paper and doing the weekly shop. (One of our kids’ biggest complaints after we finally moved into separate houses was that all they could find in their refrigerator was wine, moldy cheese, and jars of Gentleman’s Relish, aka the Garrick Club diet.)
The other problem was that our house was not big enough, nor was our storage room. Sharing a bathroom with a teenage daughter was a challenge I hadn’t anticipated.
But as progressive as these approaches may seem, they are not new. Aristocrats and royalty have been doing this sort of thing for centuries. Generations of separated wealthy people have lived under the same roof and neither wanted to formally separate, as doing so would diminish the family wealth. Divorce is out of the question.
That’s why the rich are generally a) so arrogant about morality (one should protect one’s inheritance, but this should not be a hindrance to having a good time) and b) so reserved and good at being courteous to each other, even in through mutual hatred.
The Toffs specialize in the art of icy civility for the simple reason that, without it, having to sit across from each other while firing daggers into the polished mahogany of the ancestral font becomes too boring.
Emotions, as Downton’s Violet Crawley might have said, are for commoners. It will be interesting to see if Kyle and Annie have the dispassion necessary to make it work.
A young female footballer, who faces a ban for asking an adult transgender opponent: “Are you a man?”, is being defended on the basis that she has autism. Because? Neurodivergent or not, your question was legitimate for anyone who presented themselves as a man participating in a women’s sport.
My fashion buzz
Marks & Spencer and designer Bella Freud have launched a new clothing collection
While trying to get my hands on something from Bella Freud’s new collection at Marks & Spencer, I found myself in the middle-class human equivalent of a locust plague. However, I managed to buy a fluorescent yellow sweater and a striped wool scarf that reaches to my ankles. I think I look incredibly chic. My kids tell me I look like a giant bumblebee.
If a 41-year-old nanny is sentenced to two years and seven months in jail for posting a vile and inflammatory message online just after three children were murdered in Southport, can someone please explain why three women (Heba Alhayek, Pauline Ankunda and Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo) convicted earlier this year of a terrorist crime for brandishing photographs of paragliders after the October 7 attacks went unpunished?
You are beautiful, James!
James Blunt said that if the 20th anniversary edition of his debut album went to number one, he would change his name to ‘Blunty McBluntface’. Pictured on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday
Well, I’ll say it: I love James Blunt. He is a brilliant, funny and self-deprecating songwriter, a quality that is sadly lacking in the world of music. His last breath was to say that if the 20th anniversary edition of his debut album reached number one, he would change his name to ‘Blunty McBluntface’. It’s at number 7. Come on, Blunt fans: we can do it.
- Under the terms of Labour’s planned VAT imposition on state schools, Eton College will receive a £4.8 million refund from the Treasury for VAT paid in the past on capital expenditure. Proof, if needed, that this Government is as foolish as it is spiteful.
- Once again last week, Sir Keir Starmer referred to Rishi Sunak as “the Prime Minister”. Was this a slip or a case of wishful thinking? As an opinion poll today shows, Starmer’s approval rating is at an all-time low: down two points to -31 percent. He must long for the days when there was someone else to blame for the disaster…
- There is something chilling about those images of the Israeli drone that chased the architect of the October 7 massacre into a bombed building before killing him. Yes, he was a very bad man, but the video looks like a dystopian sci-fi movie. It was not wise to release him.