starting new » CoupleDumb

Celebrity Smackdown: Starting Over ft. Brad Pitt

Feb 242010

Nobody talks smack about Brad. (Except CoupleDumb)

Celebrities and relationships are a curious match. On the one hand, you have the perpetual playboys who would rather gnaw off their arm than commit to a relationship. On the other hand, you have those who have time-shares in Vegas Chapels and commit like its last call. Celebrity relationships are such a warped representation of coupling and when those pairs implode, which they overwhelmingly do, we are left to watch them prowl as they pick up the pieces and start over. Today’s Celebrity Smackdown is all about Celebs starting over but, stand back, this will get messy.

Lee says: I understand that relationships can be difficult and nearly impossible when you are living under the scrutiny of the limelight. I understand it on a cognitive level. I can also empathize with the pressure celebrities must feel having their privacy violated on a consistent basis by fans or paparazzi or law enforcement. But, let me get one thing perfectly clear, just because you live under the microscope of the media does not mean you have to behave like an infection. I mean, jeesh, is it that lonely out there that celebs have to be hooking up and breaking up every few minutes?

Celebs fall into two categories when it comes to starting over. The first category is the ‘If at first you don’t succeed’ crowd. You can identify these easily by the amount of wedding rings they own and how many last names they have. These are the folks who get married at the first sign of stomach flutter. Instead of ‘I like you’ they jump into ‘I do!’ Starting over for them is picking out new china patterns while registering again at Macy’s. The average celeb usually is married a few times before death. Of course, honorable mention is given to Zsa Zsa Gabor and Elizabeth Taylor, both knock outs when they were younger, who have 17 marriages with 15 men between them. They are not alone in the philosophy of mending a broken heart with wedding cake and a honeymoon.

The second category of celeb is the ‘breaks are for suckers’ group. You know the kind of celeb who is photographed walking on a beach one day with their spouse and the next he is seen in a photo spread playing house with another woman. These guys have issues Brad Pitt. These guys don’t even let the sheets get cold next to them. These men have such an issue with being alone that they will fill their lives and surround themselves with people or children. Sound familiar? Look, I have no issues with love and I know it is a magical thing. But, it just doesn’t happen if you aren’t open to it! You can’t inadvertently ‘fall in love’ with someone if you aren’t inviting that person over for some vulnerability and intimacy. So don’t pull that crap of ‘The heart wants what it wants’ with me, Brad! The heart understands commitment but a roving eye understands the new conquest.

Have you wondered why you feel that starting over is so difficult? It’s the media! Think about it. What are the images you have of starting over? Is it Carol and Mike Brady uniting their perfectly matched families and creating a whacky bunch of love and togetherness? Or is it Dick Van Patton and his mormonesque brood of eight getting remarried. Let’s face it, according to TV, starting over involves way too many kids! I would consider a life of a celibate ascetic who is forced to rip out my own hair before I had to unite my three kids with some guys three kids and then try to be a romantic couple while these said children ran around boundary-less in the neighborhood. Come on Brady’s, you never noticed that the kids were making fringed outfits for a talent show? I just can’t be that mom or wife.

All I ask is for a little discretion. All I ask is for celebrities to see that they are seen as role models (I have no idea why, people, they just are). The 40 something year old person is coming back into the dating world and you guys are making it look like a buffet. It’s not. It’s slim pickings out their if you are looking for a healthy guy or girl. It’s not like the celebrities are doing anything like therapy between marriages or hook-ups, unless we count rehab. A makeover is not what is needed between relationships. Changing your hair color will not fix your unhealthy behaviors or thought patterns that stem from your childhood issues.

Life does not work with a story arc all the time. You don’t meet Mr. Perfect in the first act, fall in love in the second, lose him in the third and find Mr. More Perfect in the final act. There is so much more to it. Where is the act where you get your shit together or spend some time alone, Brad? When do you check your very Brady life and decide that being cool and having hideous facial hair is not enough and a little psychotherapy is in order. If not for your fear of being alone, how about you see a therapist to discuss the ode to ZZ Top thing you have on your chin. I’m not picking on you; I just think more Joe Black and less Tyler Durden. Yes, Tyler was sexy and ripped but Joe had that innocence and was committed. Either way, no facial hair! I guess this is the message of this post, Brad. Trim it or Shave it. Oh yeah, and something about starting over.

When kids do not get a vote.

Kids and why you can't kill them

Feb 232010

We do not condone smacking your children...much.
          Tuesdays on CoupleDumb are usually devoted to children and the little day-to-day nightmares that those adorable blessings can heap upon us. So, what does starting over with a later in life relationship have to do with your children? Nothing. That’s the point.

          Paul says:   You will notice that there is an underlying theme as we talk about starting over. There is an assumption that the people starting over have the ability to look back on their lives and see what worked and what didn’t. If you have no concept of causality, if you have no clue why you keep waking up on the other side of the room after sticking your finger in a light socket, then calling your process ‘starting over’ is a misnomer. Starting over does not have an Alzheimer quality to it.

          Every person that I know who has ever begun a new relationship, especially later in life and after other failed relationships, have had the same question: how is this going to be different? Of course, in our unhealthy and uninsightful society the caveat to that question is… and how can I have something totally different without changing anything about me.

          What does all of this have to do with children? Simple. Our kids, also known as the symptoms, are the perfect indicators of the health of the family system. Let’s take one of the common ‘starting over’ problems as an example; the kids do not like your new love interest. This is the stuff of sitcoms and after school specials. The kids vehemently hate daddy’s new chippie and do everything that they can to get rid of her, including gluing her to a bus and sending her to Albuquerque. Of course on TV, the woman is a shrew that would make Hera look patient and the dad is a moron. At the end, dad is back together with the kids mom and everybody lives happily ever after.

          Sure, art mirrors reality but we all know that that shit doesn’t happen. And, by the way, if you are getting your life lessons from sitcoms then you need to seriously up your meds. Instead, what we have when the kids dig in and tell the adult with whom they can and cannot be in a relationship is a lack of boundaries. This is not something that happened overnight and it really has nothing to do with the new person in your life. Somewhere along the line, you gave your kids the message, the permission, that they dictate who you bump uglies with. I am using the term bump uglies because it is my favorite euphemism for sex and it makes me giggle every time that I say it but this includes holding hands, kissing, whispering sweet nothings, and walking on the beach.

          Starting a new relationship when you already have children is bound to test boundaries to the limit. The kids do not need to like mommy’s new love but they do need to understand that mommy likes him. And mommy needs to understand that as well. This is your boy toy, not theirs. And daddy is not bringing home a new mommy.

          On the upside, children are resilient and innately loving, all evidence to the contrary aside. When they see a happy healthy parent in love with a happy healthy new friend, they will fall in love also.

            Lee says: So to summarize, don’t take relationship advise from sitcoms, Daddy’s new chippie is none of the kids business, you can’t start over if you have amnesia, you need to change to really start over, boundaries with your kids is important and anything remotely sexual makes Paul giggle.

Starting Over

Monday, Heavy Monday

Feb 222010

It's never to late to start over. Ok, maybe it is.

          A couple of weeks ago, we had the rare opportunity to go to a conference. It was no ordinary conference since Disney was the host. We were treated like royalty from a room at the Polynesian Resort to entertainment to food and, of course, Disney tickets! The gifts were abundant and all of this to simply get us in the loop for all the wonderful events, programs and new adventures they are cooking up for the world. Of course, as we had written about before, the most important was the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day program where volunteers earn a free day at Disney.

          One of the best parts of this trip was talking with writers of all types. One of the first conversations we had was with the author of About.com Orlando beat, Theresa Johnston. The topic of conversation went from on-line dating to parenting to the topic of this week, starting over. We couldn’t believe we hadn’t written about it. No, seriously people, we had to go back in our archives to make sure since we knew we had discussed it umteen million times. So now that we know that we have totally neglected our core readership, here is the CoupleDumb take on starting over.

          Lee says: As a chick in her 40s now, I can see where entering the dating scene at this point in my life would be daunting. By daunting I mean it would be a fucking nightmare with Freddy Krueger and Chuck E. Cheese running after me with a butcher knife and tokens. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that by the time a human hits there 40s, you have a sense of what you like and don’t like. You are more settled and less malleable. You are flexible only up until the point where it fits into your general idea of who you are.

          However, please do not assume my previous statement means that I believe that people over 40 are stuck. On the contrary! I know that the 40s is a freeing time where we start getting comfortable with the idea that we make the rules and we set the standards. We can look back at our younger years and see the wasted time on drama, poor boundaries and bad love. This is why the 40s is a great time to create a healthy relationship and find your partner.

          Wait a second. Before you dive in and think I’m saying that 40+ers are ideal mate choosers, I will caution you that if you have not reflected on your past mistakes and you continue to hunt in the same backyard for your soul-mate, you will always choose the wrong partner. Love and war are not different in these respects. If you do not learn from your history, you are doomed to repeat it and a life unexamined leads you to the same assholes (of course I am paraphrasing Satayana and Socrates here). There comes a moment in your life where you need to decide that the way you have always done it is wrong and to continue to do the same thing and expect different results is not only the definition of insanity but stupid.

          Then you have those who become reactionary. Those are the ones who need to have the exact opposite of what they had before. If your husband was an alcoholic womanizer, then you go after a teetotaling strict conservative who is so oppressive that you feel suffocated, making you long for the days where your husband would binge drink and come home smelling like whores. Reacting is as bad as shutting down all together. Some people feel that failing at love is tantamount to failing at life. They choose to take their ball and go home, never to love again.

          Love is very possible the second or third or fourth time around, but you need to do some work before diving into the dating pool again. Think of it as stretching before exercising or taking a refreshing, tearful and insightful walk down memory lane before you let someone into your space bubble. Heart ache is not pretty but the upside of risking is the possibility of finding someone who worships you for the god or goddess you are. I like to think that’s worth the trouble.

          Paul says: So, what I got from this post was that, if you are older than 39, you need to stretch before dating and do not hunt for your soul mate in your backyard. I assume that free-range soul mates are OK.