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In the past, the prevailing emotions during a divorce were usually sadness and regret. Today, anger is the dominant emotion: People are angry at their spouses, their spouses’ parents, at their spouses’ new partners, etc. All this anger translates into words and deeds that make the divorce process more costly, stressful, frustrating, lengthy, and an all out war. It doesn’t have to be that way, even if you are divorcing the most irrational of humans. Below are the 10 most common mistakes men make in divorce. If you can learn to place your emotions in check and avoid these mistakes, you can alleviate some of the pain that comes with any divorce.

• Using your children as pawns

Threatening to limit or deny visitation is a powerful threat, and it can terrify a parent who loves his child(ren). Often, parents who are the primary caregivers, but who lack the financial resources, feel that they must use this threat to gain sufficient financial support. As painful as these threats are, do not respond in kind. Don’t issue threats of your own. Instead, recognize that in most cases, the truth will come out. If you’ve been a good, responsible parent, your spouse likely cannot deny you a chance to see your kids on a regular basis. More to the point, the court won’t allow it in most instances. 

• Thinking new relationship first, divorce second

The most common factor that turns a normal divorce into an abnormally contentious one is bringing another woman into the mix. The situation is already potentially volatile, and all it takes is the mention that you have a new lover for your spouse to become infuriated. There are several reasons you may want to announce your new relationship-revenge, one being to show her that someone finds you attractive and you’ve even found happiness. Try to keep a new relationship out of the conversations with your spouse and especially your children. The best decision is to wait until the divorce is concluded before you engage in a new relationship.

• Allowing your spouse to convince you to not hire an attorney

If your spouse has hired a lawyer, you need to hire one quickly. If you don’t, you are an amateur playing against professionals. One underhand tactic is for a spouse’s attorney to offer to represent both parties to save time and money. Not only is it unethical, but it also creates a conflict of interest.

The process is designed to be adversarial, and there is no way a lawyer can fairly represent you both. The odds are that your spouse has something to hide or something she wants, and she knows that if you hire a lawyer it will be more difficult to achieve that goal.  

• Using verbal abuse

Just about everyone who gets a divorce argues. Not everyone, however, engages in continuous verbal battles in which threats and vile accusations become routine forms of communication. Being on the receiving end of this abuse is demoralizing, especially when the threats raise the possibility of physical harm to you or your children.

You need to discuss any threats of this type with your attorney, who can advise you on how to deal with them. Furthermore, if it is you who’s engaging in the verbal abuse, remember that your spouse can easily obtain an order of protection and any violation of this order can land you in jail. There is a myth that men do not endure verbal or even physical abuse from their spouses, but it is just a myth. Abuse is not gender specific. 

• If your goal is to avoid a court battle and the high costs that go with it, then you want to avoid any accusations of personality flaws. Be aware of your spouse’s sensitivities and avoid inflaming them. Compromise is the essence of divorce negotiations, and if you say and do things to encourage your spouse to dig in and be inflexible, you’re asking for a war. 

No matter how much you despise your spouse; no matter how many ways you feel you’ve been wronged, don’t make a bad situation worse by identifying your spouse’s vulnerabilities when trying to reach a settlement. Always try to negotiate before you litigate. 

Using a difficult attorney

Lawyers can turn good divorces into bad ones and bad divorces into nightmares. It’s not just divorcing spouses that are difficult. Certain lawyers are intent on churning fees, and they can cleverly manipulate situations to their financial advantage. The result is couples who will fight over the big and little things and invariably wind up in court and broke. Do not fall for the myth that you have to find a take-no-prisoners attorney, someone who is ruthless and will use any tactic necessary to "win" the case. When there is one difficult attorney, the odds are the divorce will be costly and unpleasant. When there are two difficult attorneys, the divorce will be a total nightmare.

Becoming passive

The last thing you want to do when your spouse announces she wants a divorce is to become completely acquiescent. Many people are manipulative, and if they think they can manipulate you into getting what they want out of the divorce, such as money, property or custody, they will do so. If you are stunned or saddened, you may agree to anything and everything your spouse recommends. Don’t confuse passivity with being reasonable. My experience is that the shock of divorce soon wears off, and once it does, you’re much less vulnerable to making this mistake.

In most divorces where couples have been married for a number of years, disputes about property arise, and sometimes these arguments are perfectly understandable. These arguments, however, can become completely irrational and vengeance-based. I had a client say, "I would rather incur 10 times in legal fees what the painting costs than allow her to have it!" These arguments can be draining emotionally (not to mention financially), but it helps to recognize that no matter how your spouse uses these objects in the bargaining process, the court generally divides property fairly if both parties have competent attorneys.

Serving your spouse with divorce papers in embarrassing places

Having an officer of the law serve your spouse at home or business should be reserved for cases where they refuse to file an appearance or accept service of process, or where great conflict exists between the two parties.

There is nothing more embarrassing than having a police officer serve you with papers at work, and nothing more unnerving than hearing the doorbell ring at 2 a.m. and seeing a policeman at the door (and having your neighbors see him as well).

If your spouse uses this tactic on you, as obnoxious as it may be, remain calm.

Responding to an impending divorce with anger

The early stages of the divorce process can be a highly emotional time when people say things they do not mean or act in unusual or uncharacteristic ways. Divorces "blow up" legally when one person responds to anger with even greater anger, creating an escalating war of attrition that otherwise would have been a brief skirmish.

Therefore, allow a bit of time to pass before you do anything. Your spouse may settle down after blowing off some steam, and you can continue to move forward in a reasonable manner.

Source: Askmen.com

Did you know that the human body literally glows? It emits a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall within the day. According to past research, the body emits visible light 1,000 times less intense than the levels which can be seen with the naked eye. In fact, almost all living creatures emit very weak light!

Scientists in Japan employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons to learn more about this faint visible light. Five healthy male volunteers who are in their twenties were placed bare-chested in front of the cameras in complete darkness in light-tight rooms for twenty minutes every three hours.

The researchers found that the body glow rose and fell over the day, with its lowest point at around 10:00 in the morning and its peak at 4:00 PM, dropping gradually after that. These findings suggest that there is light emission linked to the body clock. This is happens due to how metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.

Faces glowed more than the rest of the body and this might be because faces are more tanned since they get more exposure to sunlight.

Urine-powered cars, homes and personal electronic devices could be available in six months.

Using a nickel-based electrode, scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that could be burned or used in fuel cells. One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses.

One molecule of urea, a major component of urine, contains four atoms of hydrogen bonded to two atoms of nitrogen. If you place a special nickel electrode into a pool of urine and apply an electrical current, hydrogen gas is released.

A urine-powered vehicle could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon.

When people find a wallet on the street, they either leave it, take it to a police station, find a way to contact the owner, and the worst thing is to keep it. What they do with it depends more on evolution that morality, according to scientists. They conducted an experiment on this and had hundreds of wallets put on the streets of Edinburgh. One of four photographs was inserted behind a clear plastic window in each of the wallets, which showed a smiling baby, a happy family, an elderly couple or a cute puppy. Some wallets had no image and some had charity papers inside.

The study found that people were far more likely to send the wallet back when faced with the photograph of the baby. Those wallets had the highest return rate, with 88 percent being sent back. Next came the wallets with the photograph of a puppy, the family and the elderly couple with 53, 48 and 28 percent respectively. The charity card and control wallets had the lowest return rates with only 20 and 15 percent.

According to a study, people with low-self esteem felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves. They were asked to say phrases such as “I am a lovable person.” Researchers found out that saying things like these only helped people with high self-esteem.

The researchers asked people with both high and low self-esteem to say the same statement and they measured the participants’ moods and feelings about themselves. In the low self-esteem group, those who repeated the mantra felt worse after while those with high self-esteem felt better after.

Paradoxically, those with low self-esteem were in a better mood when they were allowed to have negative thoughts compared to the time when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative things. The researchers suggest that overly positive praise and unreasonably positive self-statements like “I accept myself completely,” can provoke contradictory thoughts in individuals with low self-esteem.

Such negative thoughts can then overwhelm the positive ones.

After the world’s first successful AIDS vaccine has been tried and tested — protecting one in three people from getting HIV in a large study in Thailand — government leaders and scientists are now trying to improve it.

The World Health Organization and the UNAIDS said that the results gave hope to those concerned, even though it will be years before a vaccine will be thoroughly available. Scientists created the vaccine with a combination approach, using two types of vaccines that worked in different way.

The combo cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the study of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases co-sponsored the study and said that the outcome has given him cautious optimism and inspires him to develop a more effective AIDS vaccine.

Every day, there are 7,500 people around the world who are infected with HIV and in 2007, 2 million died of AIDS.

1. Kimberlee Big Hole — South Africa

Apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097 meter deep mine yielded over 3 tons of diamonds before being closed.

2. Glory Hole — Monticello Dam, California

A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the reservoir. This is the ‘Glory Hole’ at Monticello dam, and it’s the largest in the world of this type of spillway, its size enabling it to consume 14,400 cubic feet of water every second.

3. Great Blue Hole — Belize

This incredible geographical phenomenon, known as a blue hole, is situated 60 miles off the mainland of Belize. There are numerous blue holes around the world, but none as stunning as this one.

4. Sinkhole — Guatemala

These photos are of a sinkhole that occurred early this year in Guatemala. The hole swallowed 2 dozen homes and killed at least 3 people.

5. And the really terrifying one!

This is the ‘Biggest Sink Hole of All’ that you have heard about. It is capable of swallowing trillions and trillions of U.S. dollars … Annually!

A four star hotel near Venice offered the ultimate low-cost vacation by mistake. It was a romantic weekend in the Italian lagoon city for 1 Euro cent. Not surprisingly, the Crowne Plaza in Quarto D’Altino which is 15.5 miles from Venice received bookings for the equivalent of 1,400 room nights on the night the rate was posted on its site.

The hotel first thought that the offer was posted by a hacker but it turned out to be human error at the Atlanta, Georgia offices of Intercontinental Hotels Group and this is acknowledged by the hotel’s mother company. The offer was supposed to be for a two-night stay at half price, because a night at the 151-room hotel would normally cost between $128 and $214. The 1-cent rate was up only Sunday night, but that was long enough for travelers to book dates running from October until next year. The hotel stands to lose 90,000 Euro or $129,000 and this is according to the hotel manager.

Monica Smith, media relations manager for the hotel group in the U.S. said Friday that some 228 guests made reservations for the equivalent of 1,400 room nights while the error was on the hotel’s site and that the reservations would be honored. According to the media relations manager for the hotel group in the U.S. although there was a pricing error, the hotel has committed to honoring the 1-cent rate for guests who have a valid confirmation, but the rooms booked at the low rate are non-transferable.