Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera

What Happened

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's marriage, which began in 1929, was legendary for its passion, mutual artistic admiration, and spectacular dysfunction. Rivera, twenty years Kahlo's senior, was an inveterate womanizer whose affairs included a sexual relationship with Kahlo's younger sister Cristina in 1934 -- a betrayal that devastated Kahlo and became the subject of some of her most powerful paintings.

Both partners conducted numerous extramarital affairs. Kahlo had relationships with both men and women, including a brief affair with Leon Trotsky while the exiled revolutionary lived in their home. By 1939, the cumulative weight of mutual infidelities and Rivera's volcanic temper led to divorce. The divorce was finalized in November 1939, though the couple remained in regular contact.

Remarkably, Kahlo and Rivera remarried on December 8, 1940, in San Francisco -- but on Kahlo's terms. She insisted on financial independence, meaning she would support herself through her own painting sales. They also agreed to maintain separate residences and, reportedly, a non-sexual relationship. These conditions represented a radical renegotiation of their partnership.

The second marriage lasted until Kahlo's death in 1954. While far from conventional, the renegotiated terms gave Kahlo a measure of autonomy she had lacked in the first marriage. Rivera was devastated by her death and died three years later. Their story illustrates that divorce can sometimes be a tool for resetting relationship dynamics rather than an endpoint.

Legal Breakdown: Divorce and remarriage -- renegotiating the terms of a relationship through legal dissolution

What This Means for Your Divorce