Posted to House Bloggers
by Debbie Nigro on Thu, 12/10/2009 - 8:19pm
Now that we all know what we shouldn't — that there's been a Tiger in just about every tankini — Elin Woods and her kids are off to Sweden. So what now?
Lots of anger and depression and humiliation all around… enough to make a mother-in-law collapse. She did.
Though you wouldn't know it by his golf acumen, Tiger Woods is huMAN. So let me comment on the huMAN angle.
Ask any man who has lost his family to a fling and he'll probably tell you he deeply regrets it. He had few regrets at the time it was happening — when he thought he had figured out the best of both worlds.
For all the negative commentary on marriage being an “institution” that's been likened to prison, most men don't like going life alone.
Women are much better at it.
Married men like having their families to return home to after being MEN all day. They love their children and home cooked meals and their couches and their cozy wives. They need it. It's just that some of these men can't eliminate the excitement of sex with strange women.
So some don't. Others wouldn't dare risk it.
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by Rachel Gladstone on Mon, 08/30/2010 - 6:50am
My mother passed away a few weeks ago, but I don’t tell you this to garner your condolences or make you feel sad for me. No. I tell you this because, besides the whole dying thing, which was bad enough, I had to make a lot of phone calls in order to share the awful news. Much to my surprise, most of the calls were strangely comforting, because reconnecting with old family friends and relatives, to whom I rarely speak, gave me a sense of re-birth and renewal, and allowed me to share old memories of my mom as well as a few laughs and a few tears.
But then it hit me-I was going to have to call my ex. After all, he and my mom had been close at one time and he needed to be informed, just like everybody else. But I dreaded making the call and that dread overpowered my grief to the point that the mere thought of placing the call would temporarily eclipse the pain of losing her. It was kind of strange but I didn’t have to guess why this was so. I knew. I couldn’t bear to hear the sound of his voice, especially when I was sure the first words out of his mouth would be “God Bless!”
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by Rachel Gladstone on Sun, 08/22/2010 - 11:18pm
Firsts. They are so memorable, especially the firsts in a relationship. Take first dates for instance. They’re brimming over with expectation: your hope that he will be the one, the desire that this time it will work out, and the joy at realizing that a second date is in the offing, when the first one ends in a perfect good night kiss.
There are other firsts as well: the first time you introduce him to your friends, the first time he tells you he loves you, your first fight and the great make-up sex that follows. And then, it’s a walk down the aisle, the first man you’ve promised forever to and your first dance as husband and wife, which makes you feel like the star of your own movie.
Eventually, the firsts fade from view and you settle into everyday life, blissfully unaware that there could be any surprises in the offing. You think you have him pegged, you feel safe and secure in the fact that your marriage is really on track. And then one day, like a shot in the dark, there it comes: Crazy.
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by Amelia Delayne on Fri, 08/20/2010 - 10:00pm
So we often hear about the popular places women go to meet men, ie: the gym, the grocery store, bars, book stores, hardware stores, etc. But I want to suggest an unusual one — one that was inspired by a little story my married girlfriend Sue told me last weekend:
You see, Sue’s SUV was in the shop undergoing repairs. Consequently, she ended up having to drive her husband’s BMW for the day. ”I was really nervous driving it,” she said. “I was 100% focused on driving carefully cause I knew Jacob (her husband) would KILL me if I got in an accident.”
But it didn’t take long for her awareness to expand — it started while in the grocery store parking lot: “Men were doing double takes and smiling at me. I actually checked my fly wondering if I’d left it open. (laugh) But then I realized it was the CAR.”
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by Rachel Gladstone on Mon, 08/16/2010 - 9:35am
I’m a real wimp when it comes to seeing blood or hearing about the deep emotional pain of others. I have trouble watching movies about the holocaust or documentaries about the civil rights movement, and when the Biography channel airs profiles of serial killers, I delete them from the menu on my DVR without a second glance.
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by Rachel Gladstone on Sun, 08/01/2010 - 10:24pm
Lately I’ve been living in my happy place; it’s all about me and I like it that way. There’s no one asking me what’s for dinner? Do we have to go to that party? Are you really going to wear that? I do what I please, when I please and, quite frankly, this pleases me. But it does lead me to ask the question: has divorce made me selfish? And if so, is that really such a bad thing?
Before I got married I was anything but selfish. I was the poster child for people-pleasers everywhere. If you looked up people pleaser in the dictionary, my picture would have been there. And if I’d made a career of it I probably would be a very wealthy woman today. But after being married to a man who was very rarely pleased with anything I said or did, this penchant I had for pleasing was literally drained right out of me. As a result, I’ve lost my poster child status and my need to please a man has become a blip on the radar of my every day life. And this makes me wonder if I’ll ever be willing to please anyone ever again.
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by Rachel Gladstone on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 8:48am
There were many reasons to feel sad when I finally made the decision to divorce my husband. Of course, angry and bitter outclassed sad, pound for pound, truth be told, but it was still there lurking in the shadows and from time to time it would hit me, like a bolt from the blue. For me, sad vs. angry and bitter was the emotional equivalent of a welterweight dancing around the ring with a heavyweight and although it wasn’t the norm, once in a while sad would do some fancy footwork and get a punch in, making itself known. At those times, I would have to consider that emotion and give it its due, although I would have preferred to ignore it altogether because it was just easier that way; it kept me from lingering when all I wanted to do was move forward.
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by Rachel Gladstone on Mon, 07/19/2010 - 7:28am
It’s a great big beautiful world out there, filled with men who are definitely not your ex-husband, and if you haven’t woken up and smelled the testosterone yet, it might be something worth thinking about. Of course, we all go at our own pace when it comes to starting over with someone new. For instance, I moved with the speed of a tortoise, rather than a hare, when I tried to out-run the pain of my own divorce because, unlike my furry friend, I had absolutely no desire to hop to it.
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by Amelia Delayne on Sat, 07/17/2010 - 5:33pm
So I broke up with someone last week — a single dad of two. He’s the first man I’ve gone out with since divorcing that I contemplated getting serious with whatsoever. But even though we got along brilliantly, even though he said he was crazy about me, one main thing deterred his interest: the fact that I have three kids. And I admit, it slapped me in the face and kind of hurt. Not because my feelings were that deep for him — but because this scenario has always been one of my greatest fears…how about you?
When he first expressed his feelings to me (via email), I admit I was mad and wanted to scream, “You’re a F***ing coward!” I mean, jeez, he’s a parent too, and he’d rambled on about how he’s learned to take risks and grab life by the horns since divorcing. Guess I found myself another ‘talker’, not ‘walker’….
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by Rachel Gladstone on Mon, 07/12/2010 - 9:33am
This Sunday is my eleventh wedding anniversary. Or, rather, it would have been had I not left my husband five-plus years ago, which, truth be told, was six years too late. If only I had been able to pull an “Elaine” on my wedding day: standing dumbfounded at the altar while my crazed lover pounded on the giant window behind me, screaming my name and flailing his fists against the glass. But alas, I could not (no crazed lover was available at the time) and therefore did not. No, I did things the way I always do them — the hard way, thank you very much. I ignored all the signs that told me to call the whole thing off, which is really kind of pitiful, since there were so many of them.
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