Not that happily divorced couples simply go back to being friends. “It takes as much energy to be happily divorced as it does to be happily married,” says actress Fran Drescher, who divorced her husband of 18 years shortly after the end of The Nanny. Drescher now stars in a sitcom, Happily Divorced, based on the split. She and her ex, producer Peter Marc Jacobson, still vacation together but now bicker less. “Our friends are ultimately relieved,” she says.

As in most things, it helps to have a party. Christine Gallagher, a divorce party planner in L.A., says business has exploded in recent years. “The party’s very cathartic,” she says, “it’s a way of saying ‘The End.’?”

“I’ve heard of civilized divorces,” says wedding-cake impresario Sylvia Weinstock, but most of her clients aren’t so lucky. She makes cakes for divorce parties, but the lion’s share are for celebrations after bitter divorces. “A good many of our clients do not end things so happily,” she says.