Chocolate is nice, diamonds better, but to some, a divorce is undoubtedly the best present to give on Valentines Day.

Michigan attorney Walter H. Bentley III is hosting a contest that will award a divorce to a man or woman who tells “the most compelling and convincing story.” Examples he cites veer from the practical to the cruel-hearted.

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“Someone diagnosed with cancer…maybe that’s one reason their spouse no longer wants to be with them,” he told ABC News.

Another? Finances. “Maybe [a couple] is struggling to make ends meet, and they don’t have enough money for a divorce.”

According to ABC News:

He got the idea…when one of his students in a night school class he teaches invited him to a party. “She’d just had her divorce finalized,” says Bentley, “and she was celebrating. I’d never thought about that before – celebrating divorce. So, I thought, why not do something special for Valentine’s Day? You can’t find a new love before you close the chapter on the old.”

The contest ends tonight, and more than 500 people have applied. (Sorry, Charlotte: It’s limited to Michigan residents.)

Ana McKenzie is CL's news and culture editor. Born and raised in south Texas, she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2010 and moved to Los Angeles to try to become a movie star (or a journalist)....

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