As the saying goes, timing is everything. So when is it the right time to tell your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and other assorted relations that you and your spouse have decided to call it quits? It’s complicated. First of all, you better be sure that there’s no chance that you and your spouse will be reconciling. There’s nothing worse than premature annunciation.

There’s also a kind of hierarchy that needs to be followed. It really is important to make sure the people closest to you hear the news directly from you and not through the grapevine. I accomplished this by sending out a mass email. But I came up with another idea as I was reading this weekend’s Sunday NY Times. They have a whole section devoted to wedding announcements. How about a section devoted to separations and divorces? It would be so efficient, an easy way to inform a lot of people. It would also give match.com and jdate some competition.

Wedding announcements typically include a picture of the happy couple and all their vital statistics such as age, employment, parents’ info and where the happy union took place. A newly separated or divorced man or woman could submit an announcement with their age and employment as well as additional data such as height and weight. Other optional information—-length of marriage and ages of children. All this information could accompany a fetching photo of the newly available.

What do you think?