Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

To have and to halve

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 20, 2007

NEW YORK - Like two Cold War adversaries, Chana and Simon Taub are separated by a wall built down the middle of their home to keep the bickering spouses apart.

Neither one wanted to move out of their beloved Brooklyn house, and so - in one of the strangest divorce battles the city has ever seen - a white drywall partition was erected a few weeks ago on orders from a judge.

The divorce case, which has been staggering through the courts for nearly two years, has been dubbed Brooklyn's War of the Roses, after the 1989 movie starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.

Aside from the wall, the Taub version of the story has some other farcical elements: Chana says her husband of more than 20 years has bugged her phones. Simon says his wife owns too many shoes.

It's not as if the Taubs have no place else to go. For one thing, they own a place two doors down. But for reasons that include stubbornness, spite and love of the home, both insist on staying in this particular house in Borough Park, a heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.

"It's my house. And emotionally, in my age, I want to be in my house," says Simon, 57, who requested the wall. He calls his wife a gold digger.

Chana, 57, who accuses her husband of abusing her, says she has as much right to stay as he does, if not more. "I need a house to live in and money to live on," she says. "I worked very hard, like a horse, like a slave for him."

In New York City, it is not unusual for couples to fight over a house or refuse to move out during divorce proceedings. Judges sometimes ask couples to set boundaries, such as letting a spouse have access to the study during a certain part of the day.

But a wall?

The wall divides the living room from the staircase on the bottom floor of the Taubs' richly decorated, wood-paneled three-story house, whose market value has been put at $923,000 by the city.

She gets the top floor, where the bedrooms are situated, along with the kitchen on the second floor. He gets the living room on the first floor and the dining room on the second floor. So that they don't run into each other on the second floor, the door between the dining room and the kitchen is barricaded on both sides.

One of the couple's children is staying with Dad; three are staying with Mom.

Chana says that for two decades she put up with physical and mental abuse that grew more severe over the years. She says she had to flush the toilet after Simon and put on his socks and shoes for him. She filed for divorce in 2005.

Simon denies ever laying a hand on Chana and says he gave her a luxurious lifestyle.

Chana says she doesn't want much from her husband, mainly alimony, child support and a fair share of property.

Chana says that since Simon returned, he has been monitoring her via videocameras. Simon says the surveillance goes both ways, though Chana says she does not control the cameras on her side.

Chana says Simon has bugged her phones. Simon says he doesn't care whom she talks to.

Kimberly Flemke, a couples' therapist, says when spouses refuse to leave a house while divorcing, it often means neither is ready to move on.

"It's clear that if they're going to go this length, there's still far too much connection," she says. "I would hope they'd both go to therapy."

[Last modified January 20, 2007, 00:31:49]