Many couples discover that in marriage it is not what is said so much, but how it is said that matters. But what happens when one partner cannot hear?

According the British firm Hearing Direct.com, a retailer of hearing aids and other related products, “ongoing deafness in a marriage that causes arguments between spouses can promote marital breakdown to the point of divorce.”

A survey of more than 1,000 people over 40 “who admitted some degree of worsening deafness …found that 33 percent of them admitted that their inability to hear properly had caused arguments with their spouses and family. Of those reporting arguments, 7 percent said their spouse threatened to divorce them unless they go help with their hearing loss.”

“Nearly two-thirds of those affected admitted to pretending they can hear adequately and half said faking their way through conversations had caused them to become depressed and isolated.” In addition to isolation, hearing loss triggers feelings associated with disability and old age. Nevertheless, according to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, “it can take as long as 15 years for people with hearing loss to get the help they need.”

That’s a long time for even the most patient and loving partner to repeat what he or she said. So when a loved one suggests a hearing test, listen up.

When some couples, as some couples do, come to the end of the road in the marriage, the no-fault grounds - irretrievable breakdown or irreconcilable differences, depending upon the jurisdiction in which they reside - are the grounds for a no-fault divorce.

Basically, irretrievable breakdown or irreconcilable differences mean what a divorce appellant says it mean. These terms, unknown to divorce literature before the 1970s, are big enough in their interpretation, so that a couple who have come to the end of road, who have tried and failed to make a go of it, can dissolve the marriage. In effect, no fault means the marriage died, but no one killed it through his or her actions, and no one is at fault for the failure. Since no one is at fault, there is nothing to prove. In some jurisdictions, couples who reach this point may file jointly.

No-fault does not mean no pain. Very often even when one spouse agrees that the marriage has broken down, he or she may not really want the marriage to end. And many people who end a marriage often find special sadness in the popular song “One Is the Loneliest Number,” with its sad refrain “It’s just no good anymore since you went away…”

What no-fault divorce means that no two people can be forced to stay married when one of them wants out.

Sometimes a spouse who acts in good faith finds herself (it is almost always the wife) with a tax liability because of the illegal actions of her former husband. Normally, married couples filing jointly have what is known as joint and several liability, which means that the Internal Revenue Service holds each liable for taxes owed.

Many women, even in the midst of a divorce, will sign what their husbands tell them to sign. Not infrequently, these same women find themselves with tax liabilities when the I.R.S. reviews joint returns.

Section 434(c)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, which was enacted in 1998, now protects the innocent spouse from tax liabilities when four conditions can be met. They are as follows:

A joint return contained “an understatement in tax due to an erroneous item” related to the former spouse;

> The innocent spouse had “neither actual, nor implied understanding” of the liability when she signed the return:

> Payment of the understated tax and penalties would be unfair to the innocent spouse;

> The innocent spouse elects to apply for relief within two years of the time that the I.R.S. begins collection efforts.

Good legal advice is recommended when a woman finds herself contemplating use of the Innocent Spouse Rule.

Also know as “show cause,” an Order to Show Cause grants a party – for example, a battered wife in a situation of domestic violence – emergency relief, sometimes the same day the application is made. An order to show cause is supported by the applicant’s sworn affidavit why the immediate relief is necessary and appropriate – for example, to prevent an abusive husband from entering the marital home.

The court can also set the case for oral argument at a later date, which is called a return date, when the parties must return to court and show cause why the order should not be granted in the applicant’s favor.

An order to show case can be brought with notice to both parties. In the case of emergency situations, however, such as situations involving the health and safety of a victim of domestic violence, it may be filed without notice. In this case it is called an ex parte order to show cause.

Sometimes court orders are issue ex parte to avoid giving notice to a defendant, for example, in the case when he or she might quickly sell property disputed in a marital settlement.

Protection from abuse orders typically work through the order to show cause procedure.

Forum shopping is not illegal, but it can make litigation more difficult for the opposing party.

Forum shopping happens when one party fights for a change of venue for a lawsuit. The goal is to move the action to a jurisdiction where the law is more favorable to his or her position. For example, a person may find it more advantageous to his or her position to file for divorce outside of California, which is a community property state. He or she may elect to opt for an equitable distribution state, where the wealthier spouse may retain more of the marital estate. The reverse is also true: California’s relatively generous divorce laws may make the Golden State appealing to the spouse of a wealthy man.

Of course a divorcing couple cannot just pick and choose the jurisdiction.

The court must have jurisdiction over them, and this means that they must meet residency requirements. However, sometimes the rewards of forum shopping make the quest worth the effort, and some divorcing Hollywood celebrities have used this method to their advantage.

On a smaller scale, sometimes people file for divorce in the next county when they want to escape the attention of the hometown newspaper.

In court, a party making an assertion must prove it true, and in a divorce, a spouse making a claim in a fault action must prove such fault. In law, the burden of proof is defined in three ways: in civil actions, preponderance of evidence and clear and convincing, for civil actions, and beyond a reasonable doubt for criminal actions.

Preponderance of evidence, the lower of the two standards, means the litigant’s claims are “more likely true than not true.” This standard is the lowest and easiest burden to meet, and it is the one required in most civil litigation, including divorce, separation and domestic violence.

Clear and convincing, the higher of the two standards in civil action, is the standard required by a litigant “to rebut a legal presumption,” for example, to overturn a prenuptial agreement. This standard requires what is termed “a firm belief” as to the truth of the claim in the mind of a judge or jury.

Beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest and most demanding standard and it is reserved for criminal actions. This is the standard a court uses in depriving someone of his liberty and, in extreme cases, his or her life. This standard means that the jury is “satisfied to a moral certainty” of the proof of the allegations against the accused.

Back in the bad old days, when fault divorce was the only way to end a marriage, lying under oath – perjury – happened every day. One Pennsylvania judge who granted many divorces said that divorce court was a meeting of what he called “the liars’ club.” Spouses, coached by skillful lawyers, routinely concocted stories, and as they say, “bore false witness” against their estranged husbands and wives. For example, many couples, faced with the burdens of proof, engaged in collusive divorce by setting up their own fictitious adultery so the other spouse had grounds for the action.

It would be great to say that no fault ended divorce perjury, but it probably has not. Now couples must resist the temptation to lie about the goods they are dividing.

Perjury is lying under oath. Put simply, if a person believes he or she is telling the truth when testifying, he is neither a liar nor a perjurer. Lying knowingly and intentionally and doing it under oath is what makes willful mistakes perjury.

Civil perjury is rarely prosecuted. However, divorce judges, who have heard and seen all manner of flying carpets, do not like it when people lie in their courtrooms. Judges often like one party more than the other, and it is cinch that it not the party who perjures himself or herself.

In the last twenty years, America has become a very “dressed down” place. The standards about what is considered acceptable dress for public appearances are much more relaxed and informal than a generation ago.

A court appearance, however, is not a place to go casual. Judges are only human, and they cannot help but notice the dress and behavior of parties who appear before them.

Whether it is a divorce trial or an appearance in court in connection with a modification of custody or visitation, a conservative, neat appearance goes miles in the direction of a good first impression. For men this means coats and ties; for women, a dress or skirt or pants suit. T-shirts, jeans, jackets with the sleeves ripped off – all send out a message that judges do not appreciate.

Good court behavior is restrained and courteous.

No one should ever interrupt the judge when he or she is speaking. In court, the judge gives the parties permission to speak. No one should speak to the judge in the second person, that is, refer to him or her as “you.” A judge is addressed as “your honor.” In court, everyone speaks in turn and no one should ever interrupt someone who is speaking or make faces or display emotion when the opposing counsel is speaking, no matter what the opposing party is saying. No one should ever raise his or her voice or shout at an estranged spouse or his or her legal counsel.

Needless to say, everyone should appear in court a little ahead of the scheduled time. And everyone should always tell the truth.

Some people become confused about the difference between grounds and fault. In divorce actions, there must be grounds for divorce. Grounds are the legal reason a party or the parties are asking the court to end the marriage. In some, depending upon the claim, the grounds are fault, but in most cases today, the grounds are no fault.

Some jurisdictions have abolished fault divorce, but in those states that offer fault divorce, the reasons include adultery, deviant sexual conduct, extreme cruelty or cruel and inhuman treatment, habitual drunkenness, mental illness, sexual desertion, and drug addiction. Some states recognize some of these fault grounds; some recognize all of them.

These terms have different shades of means and interpretations depending upon the jurisdiction.

About 30 of the jurisdictions offer fault as well as no-fault divorce.

No-fault grounds normally include physical separation, usually separate habitats, not merely separate bedrooms from six months to three years; irreconcilable difference, or incompatibility of temperament. No-fault actions allege that the marriage is “irretrievably broken down,” a term which did not exist in the literature of divorce prior to the onset of no-fault divorce in the 1970s.

Divorces may be contested, when one party disputes the allegations, and uncontested, when the parties present an agreement for approval of the court.

Simon and Garfunkel wrote a popular song called “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.” That may be true for lovers, but for married folks there is only really one way – the right way. And that does not mean walking out the door.

Abandonment, which is also called desertion, is a fault ground for divorce in some jurisdictions.

It not the same as leaving the marital home as part of a trial separation to “sort out feelings,” or moving out as part of a permanent separation undertaken in preparation for filing a divorce at a later date.

Abandonment means one spouse leaves the other without cause and without permission. Depending upon the jurisdiction, the missing spouse must be gone for six months to a year before the departure is considered abandonment.

No one can legally end a marriage, even a common law marriage, just be walking out the door. A person who abandons his or her spouse and children may find arguing for custody of the children later is much more difficult.

People who want to end a marriage should, to borrow again from Simon and Garfunkel, “make a new plan, Stan.” Walking out the door makes the divorce that very often happens later anyway even more difficult.