Divorce, Separations and Annulments

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    Texas Court Seals Records in Ken Paxton’s Divorce Case

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    The order meant details in the case, which involves allegations of adultery, would not be public as the Texas attorney general challenges Senator John Cornyn in the 2026 primary.A state court on Friday ordered records in the divorce of Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas to be sealed, a day after his wife, State Senator Angela Paxton, filed a petition that accused Mr. Paxton of adultery.The order to seal the records in the case, in the 429th District Court in Collin County, north of Dallas, came after a request from Mrs. Paxton’s lawyer. This means that further details of the high-profile split would not be available to the public in a case that could significantly affect the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas.Mr. Paxton, a firebrand conservative who is popular among Republican voters, is challenging Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary in 2026. Mr. Paxton has been leading in public polling.In a statement on Thursday, Mrs. Paxton said that she had filed for divorce “on biblical grounds” and “in light of recent discoveries,” suggesting that new events in their relationship had prompted her decision. The divorce petition said that the couple had not been living together since June 2024 and that the grounds for divorce included that Mr. Paxton “has committed adultery.”Mr. Paxton said the couple’s relationship was strained by the pressures of public life and “countless political attacks” in his own statement on Thursday. He asked for privacy.The divorce announcement came as a shock in Texas. Mrs. Paxton had remained at her husband’s side through years of criminal investigations, a state court indictment for securities fraud and an impeachment at the State Capitol in which Mr. Paxton was accused of abusing his office by doing favors for a real estate investor who helped him conceal an extramarital affair.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Angela Paxton Files for Divorce From Ken Paxton, Texas’ Attorney General

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      The announcement could have a significant impact on the race for U.S. Senate in Texas. Mr. Paxton is challenging Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary.State Senator Angela Paxton of Texas, the wife of the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced on Thursday that she had filed for divorce, saying she made her decision “on biblical grounds” and “in light of recent discoveries.”The divorce petition, filed by Ms. Paxton in Collin County on Thursday morning, lists among the grounds for divorce that the “respondent has committed adultery” and that the couple has not lived together “as spouses” since June 2024.Mr. Paxton, in a parallel announcement on social media, said the couple had decided to “start a new chapter in our lives,” and suggested that the pressures of public life and “countless political attacks” had precipitated the rupture.“I ask for your prayers and privacy at this time,” Mr. Paxton said.The announcement of the divorce filing could roil Texas Republican politics, where the couple has been a fixture for years, and where Mr. Paxton’s primary challenge to United States Senator John Cornyn has already caused significant rifts ahead of the 2026 midterm campaign.Mr. Paxton, who has courted the hard right of the Republican Party for years, has been polling ahead of the incumbent in public surveys, and he has sought to align himself firmly with President Trump and his supporters.Democrats, in turn, have jumped at the prospect of contesting the seat, hoping that in a general election with Republicans facing headwinds, they could more easily defeat Mr. Paxton than Mr. Cornyn.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      You Only Get Married a Few Times. Why Not Go All Out?

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      As the Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sánchez nuptials approach, a look at how second weddings went from low-key to lavish. They were one of the world’s most famous couples, their future sealed when he renounced his throne for her and she renounced her husband for him. But so much disapproval surrounded the audacious affair between King Edward VIII of England and the American socialite Wallis Simpson that their eventual marriage, before a handful of guests in France in 1937, felt more like a perp walk than a wedding.“It was a sad little service,” Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, a wedding guest known as “Baba Blackshirt” because of her reputed Nazi sympathies, wrote in her journal. “It could be nothing but pitiable and tragic to see a King of England of only six months ago, an idolized King, married under these circumstances.”It seems quaint to remember the days when second weddings were typically quiet and modest affairs, especially after a bit of adultery. Perhaps there was a sense that everyone was allowed just one public spectacle-style wedding in a lifetime. Maybe it was considered indecorous to declare “til death do us part” once again, when death had clearly not parted you the first time you said it.That’s why former monarchs fled to France and commoners had small, tasteful celebrations, perhaps at City Hall, the brides wearing outfits like “a gray suit and a pillbox hat,” as the high-end event planner Bryan Rafanelli described it in an interview.In contrast, let us consider the 2025 version of a royal wedding: the forthcoming marriage in Venice between Jeff Bezos, the billionaire king of Amazon, and the ex-TV host and helicopter pilot Lauren Sánchez. Having entered public consciousness when their racy texts were leaked to the tabloids during their previous marriages, their relationship — buoyed and insulated by Mr. Bezos’ estimated $228 billion fortune — has always had the feel of an extended P.D.A. victory lap.Depending on what you read, the wedding will cost $15 million, or $20 million. Or maybe it will be scaled back to under $10 million because of the couple’s supposed decision to be “less ‘Marie Antoinette’” after the Blue Origin spaceflight this spring featuring Ms. Sánchez and a group of her famous female friends. The 11-minute mission suffered from a bit of a P.R. problem when the women donned sexy space outfits, discussed their extraterrestrial makeup routines and, in the case of Katy Perry, declared the intention to “put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pete Hegseth’s Mother Accused Her Son of Mistreating Women for Years

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      Penelope Hegseth made the accusation in an email to her son in 2018, amid his contentious divorce. She said on Friday that she regretted the email and had apologized to him.The mother of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, wrote him an email in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women for years and displayed a lack of character.“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.She also wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”Mrs. Hegseth, in a phone interview with The New York Times on Friday, said that she had sent her son an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written. She said she had fired off the original email “in anger, with emotion” at a time when he and his wife were going through a very difficult divorce.In the interview, she defended her son and disavowed the sentiments she had expressed in the initial email about his character and treatment of women. “It is not true. It has never been true,” she said. She added: “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She said that publishing the contents of the first email was “disgusting.”Questions about Mr. Hegseth’s treatment of women have emerged in the weeks since Mr. Trump chose him, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, to lead the Pentagon. The issue is expected to be a subject of scrutiny during Senate confirmation hearings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Can ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Change a Conservative Religious Culture?

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      In the seventh episode of the new reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a character makes this observation of a fellow married mom struggling with a controlling husband: “It’s kind of a theme with our church, though, and kind of what the problem is. Everyone is getting married before their brains even develop.”The show, which is on Hulu, follows eight influencers in Utah who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is being marketed as a docudrama with a religious gloss; a caption for the trailer on TikTok promises “Secrets, scandals and viral handles.” This group of conventionally attractive mostly 20-somethings was cast because, as part of a loose network of friends who call themselves “#momtok,” they already had millions of social media followers. Following their rise to fame over the past few years, they made headlines for a cascade of salacious and embarrassing public moments.“Mormon Wives” is being sold as regular reality TV dreck — I say this with love. I love garbage. So I was surprised to find that beneath the usual petty squabbles and plastic surgery recovery scenes, there is a much deeper theme of religious conflict.These women are engaged in an ongoing discussion about, among other subjects, the social conservatism of Mormonism — where chastity is a virtue, homosexuality is a sin and the father is the “is the presiding authority in his family” — and whether they can change the culture of the church and also the broader world, including their own families.(A similar conversation has also been happening on “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” but it tended to be overshadowed by the criminal behavior of one of the cast members, which played out over multiple seasons. I told you, I love garbage).The “Mormon Wives” very public grappling with rigid gender roles and working outside the home is also part of a larger trend I wrote about earlier this year — while every demographic group is moving away from organized religion in the United States, young women are leaving “in unprecedented numbers.” They are pushing back against their churches and disaffiliating in part because they feel like second-class citizens in their houses of worship.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Lopez Files for Divorce From Affleck, Should You Reunite With an Ex-Partner?

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      As Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck show, rekindling an old romance is risky. We asked couples counselors what you should ask before diving back in.When the superstars Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck married in 2022, decades after calling off their initial engagement, it seemed like the stuff of a romantic Hollywood blockbuster.“Love is beautiful,” Ms. Lopez wrote after the couple’s Las Vegas nuptials. “Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient.”But Ms. Lopez filed for divorce from Mr. Affleck on Tuesday after two years of marriage, ending months of frenzied media speculation about their shaky union, and highlighting a decidedly unromantic truth: Reuniting with an ex-partner does not guarantee a happy ending.“I have certainly seen people who are in long-term happy relationships who got back together after having broken up,” said Elizabeth Earnshaw, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Philadelphia. “I would say that is the exception to the rule.”Many couples counselors said they recommended taking an almost clinical approach to reuniting with an ex — even (or especially) if you are swept up in the thrill of rediscovering old passions. Here are four questions therapists recommend asking.1. Do we both understand why we broke up?That is a “laughably obvious” question to start with, admitted Lisa Marie Bobby, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Denver and the founder of Growing Self, a counseling and coaching service. But if you and your partner cannot both articulate a clear answer without defensiveness or tension, that is a red flag, she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jennifer Lopez Files for Divorce From Ben Affleck

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      The A-list couple, who married in 2022, had attempted to rekindle their romance after close to two decades.Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from Ben Affleck on Tuesday after two years of marriage, capping a decades-long romantic history that spawned its own famous portmanteau: “Bennifer.”Ms. Lopez filed the petition to dissolve the couple’s marriage to the L.A. County Superior Court, according to court records. The filing, which was first reported by TMZ, was submitted on the second anniversary of the couple’s lavish wedding celebration at Mr. Affleck’s home in Georgia.Representatives for Ms. Lopez and Mr. Affleck did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The on-again, off-again relationship between Ms. Lopez, 55, a singer and actress, and Mr. Affleck, 52, an actor and director, has been a subject of pop-culture fascination since the early 2000s.The pair began dating while filming the 2003 romantic comedy “Gigli.” Although the movie was panned, the relationship between its stars became “the summer’s most watched romance,” according to an article that year in The New York Times. They got engaged in 2002, but postponed the wedding the following year, citing the media frenzy around their union.The pair split and moved onto other relationships: Ms. Lopez married the singer Marc Anthony in 2004, and Mr. Affleck married the actress Jennifer Garner in 2005. (Both ended in divorce.)In the spring of 2021, tabloids lit up with headlines that Ms. Lopez and Mr. Affleck were dating again. In July 2022, the superstars were wed at a midnight ceremony in Las Vegas, complete with a pink Cadillac convertible. They held a celebration with family and friends in Georgia in August, with Ms. Lopez wearing a Ralph Lauren gown and a sweeping veil.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How to Avoid a Drawn-Out Divorce

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      The sticking points in a breakup aren’t the same for every couple, but lawyers who have brokered countless divorces have some advice for keeping things simple.Ask any divorce lawyer: The only people who control how long a divorce takes are the two parties going through the divorce.Although many divorces are finalized through mediation, a process in which lawyers try to broker a resolution without having to go to court, those negotiations can sometimes take years, prolonged by things like child custody battles, when emotions can be expected to run high. Perhaps less explicable is when the holdup arises over the splitting of assets like homes, vintage cars or art collections.About six years after they were declared legally single, the formerly married actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt continue to be legally entangled. The reason: a French vineyard they bought while together; Mr. Pitt is suing Ms. Jolie for having sold her stake in the property without his consent, according to reports by Us Weekly and People. Ms. Jolie is asking him to drop the suit so the family can heal.Although your average split isn’t likely to be held up by a fight over a winery, many couples find that certain jointly held assets can be sticking points in the event of a breakup or divorce. So what precautions — if any — are couples taking to avoid a bruising battle after they’ve decided to part ways?Alan Feigenbaum, a divorce lawyer in New York City, has seen divorce proceedings drag out over the division of valuable art collections. But things can become absurd, he said, when negotiations are dragged out over property that isn’t even particularly valuable.“Some of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen,” he added, “is arguing over who gets to keep their children’s toys.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Spouses Discuss Co-Parenting and Being the Best of Friends

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      “We genuinely like each other,” Alex Yaroslavsky said of his ex-wife and co-parent, Liza Cooper. They even live in the same apartment building.In Unhitched, couples tell the stories of their relationships, from romance to vows to divorce to life afterward.Liza Cooper and Alex Yaroslavsky, both from New York City, met in their late 30s, in March 2007, through a dating app; they married about a year later. Both secular Jews, the two seemed compatible on paper, yet differences in their communication styles sometimes created conflict and ultimately brought an end to their marriage.But with patience, work and a sympathetic landlord, the two managed to become dear friends and co-parents after their divorce. They now live on different floors of the same Upper West Side apartment building.Dates of marriage June 15, 2008 to Dec. 13, 2018Age when married Ms. Cooper was 37; Mr. Yaroslavsky was 38. (They are now 53 and 54.)Current occupations She is an administrator in a hospital and a dating coach; he is an executive coach with his own company.Children One son, age 14.Where did they grow up? In 1980, Mr. Yaroslavsky, an only child, immigrated to the United States with his parents when he was 10. The family had lived in Lviv, which was then part of the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine. He quickly learned English.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More