Are Relationships Disposable?

Shanna Moakler and her Divorce Party Cake

If you live in Florida, getting out of your marriage just got one step (or should I say leap?) easier: you can file for divorce online.

That's right, enter your name, some details, and poof the divorce process is commenced and your marriage is on the way out like the coat from three seasons ago you decided to sell on ebay.

Why offer this type of service? Broward county court clerk Kris Mazzeo says, "the new service will save residents hours of hassle."

But the question is, shouldn't getting a divorce be a hassle? Shouldn't ending a lifetime commitment be difficult? If you can end your relationship with barely a click of a mouse, perhaps marriage is truly something that has become disposable.

The picture above seems to tell it all - upon filing for her quickie divorce, Shanna Moakler threw herself a divorce party, complete with a cake! If divorce is something to celebrate, what does that say about our culture's understanding of the sanctity of marriage?

Perhaps it is our failure to honor the sanctity of marriage that has led to the scarcity of a successful one?


For more information about filing for divorce online in Broward county,
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbclerk1112nbnov12,0,3701326.story

I Wanna Get Married?

Driving to school this morning, I was listening to a CD my girlfriend made for me a few years ago, which includes the track "I Wanna Get Married" by Nellie McKay. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Nellie McKay, she is a singer-songwriter from England who used to be a standup comedian. Her music is incredibly eclectic, a mix of Jazz, rap, blues and rock, and her lyrics are very unique.

"I Wanna Get Married" is a lush, slow ballad that sounds like it comes from a different era than the one we are in. It is enchanting. Listening to it I find myself mesmerized. And mesmerized, I find myself singing along, agreeing with the lyrics of the song. (see lyrics below)

And just like that, it brainwashed me! The song, an ode to marriage, is meant to be completely sarcastic. If you listen to any of Nellie McKay's other songs, you know that the last thing she is interested in is being housewife.

And me, independent, educated me, should have laughed at the song, instead of being mesmerized by it.

That being said, why is the classic marriage model at times so intoxicating? We've been taught, as modern women, to find it antiquated and limiting, and yet, listening to this song, it really didn't sound so bad... in fact, it was a life I could easily envision for myself. Nonetheless, part of me felt really guilty for even contemplating wanting the kind of life the song describes. I want to have a career, I want to have the kind of life our feminist predecessors fought for - one where I am an equal to my husband, rather than his domestic servant.

When we have every opportunity to evolve, why are our fantasy marriages at times stuck in the 1950's? Is it possible that aspects of the old marriage model are better than the new one, where we are expected to work work work while raising the kids and building a home?

"I Wanna Get Married" by Nellie McKay

I wanna get married

Yes, I need a spouse

I want a nice

Leave it to Beaverish

Golden retriever and a little white house

I wanna get married

I need to cook meals
I wanna pack you cute little lunches

For my Brady bunches

Then read Danielle Steele

I wanna escape

This rat race I've created

I'm feelin' enervated

I don't care if I make it

I just want to bake a sugar cake for you

To take to work in the morn

And I'll stay home cleaning the dishes

And keeping your wishes all warm
I wanna get married

That's why I was born

I wanna partake in bake sales for the classroom

I wanna hear the sweet tune

Of Sally's little vroom-vroom

As she zooms around my broom

As I exhume the gloom

Of my shallow life

I wanna be simple and honest and dimpled 'cause I am your wife

I will never tarry

I'm not even torn

I wanna get married

That's why I was born

The Grass Is Always Greener? (Or is it?)

Today I was chatting online with a male friend of mine, let's call him Joe. I had seen him chatting up some ladies, and I asked him if anything came out of it... Here is some of our convo:

SexyJelly: you can't assume they aren't interested, you just have to feel it out

Joe: yeah, the question is how interested am i

SexyJelly: true

SexyJelly: of course

Joe: i have set a high bar, and maybe its too high, i have to adjust, cuz i let totaly good girls go by

SexyJelly: you are allowed to have high standards

SexyJelly: you should
Joe: but are they realistic?

Joe: i mean if no one seems to be meeting them is that good too?

This conversation seems to indicate a truth that sometimes evades us: we are in fact on a level playing field with the opposite sex. Although I always think, there are so many good girls, there are no good boys, the boys oftentimes espouse the same sentiment.

Tracy Chapman said it best when she asked in her song entitled "Why",

"Why when there's so many of us are there people still alone?" And this chat goes towards at least one answer to that very complex question: unreasonable expectations.

So the question is, if we are all plagued with the same fears and unreasonable expectations, why is it so hard for us to put them aside and make meaningful connections with the opposite sex?

If the grass isn't in fact greener, maybe it is time for us to put down our (de)fenses?

Home is where the heart is?

I'm sure many of you have heard the expression, "A fish and a bird could fall in love, but where would they live?" I always took this to mean that for a relationship to work, you should end up with someone pretty much like yourself, whether that means someone who is from the same religion or culture, or someone with the same interests or values.

Well, it seems that evolution has thrown this theory a curve ball: scientists have discovered a fish that can survive for months in a tree.

It seems that a more relevant expression is, "where there is a will there's a way." If you love your man, maybe sometimes home really is where the heart is - and not what social constructs tell you it should be, whether that be in the ocean or in a tree.

For the article about the norm-defying mangrove killifish:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=488193&in_page_id=1770

We don't have to do it all at once: Letters to my younger self

We don't always have the wisdom we require at the time we need it. We struggle. We worry. Often, only later do our choices make sense to us. If you had to write a letter to yourself in 10 years addressing who you are today... what do you think you would have to say? It's good to hear it from people who have lived a long extraordinarily successful life... it gives great perspective.

I recently read a book, a compilation of letters that dozens of extraordinary women have wrote. The title of the book: "What I Know Now: Letters to my Younger Self." I have not yet read every single letter... but wanted to share a great one:

Dear Cokie,

Is this a life sentence? Will you spend the rest of your life with jelly stains on your knees? Will your kids ever sleep through the night?

Being a mother of two kids frazzles you because the utterly banal is, somehow, profoundly important. Nothing could be more mindless than wiping noses and pouring apple juice - yet you know there's no bigger job. For so much to hinge on so little is brain-numbing. It's as if world peace depended on how well you dust your living room. Worse, you were never any good at homemaking arts, apart from cooking. Now you're supposed to put toys away and clean out the tub as if your children's entire future success hangs in the balance?

This kind of absurd mismatch between day-to-day motherhood and the emotional charge it carries can be a little scary. Your kids, like all kids, are a pain in the neck sometimes. As a regular person in your regular life, you really don't get angry. But as a mother, you're shocked at your capacity for anger with your children. Instead of childish misbehavior, their transgressions seem like terrible reflections on you as a mother.

Here's my advice about the anger, chaos, and isolation. First, beware the dangers of extrapolation in motherhood. Despite his impressive tantrums, your willful son will not throw himself on the floor of grocery stores, screaming for candy, when he's grown up. Just because your daughter can't seem to stop talking now doesn't means she won't ever. Also, understand that this won't last forever. Don't feel oppressed by it. These are very short years in the scheme of life and you will live through them.

You're trying to fit everything in at once, working for a TV station and a magazine. But Cokie, you'll be in the workplace for fifty years, literally. There's no need to be doing it all at once. At times you do have to, but there are times when you don't. You can leave the work world - and come back on your own terms.

One more thing: There will be compensation! Your children will grow up to be charming and caring people - who will produce adorable grandchildren. Your willful son will someday have an extremely willful daughter. One of your daughter's sons will talk incessantly. And guess who will have patience for all of that and more? You.

Hang in there.

Love,

Cokie

Cokie Roberts -- Columnist and Commentator

Love Addiction?

The sleeplessness, the rollercoaster of emotions, the cold sweats, the racing thoughts... cocaine addition? Oxycontin? Not so much. I'm talking about love addiction my friends, and some researchers believe it is clinical.

Helen E. Fisher, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University and author of "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love," has stated that when researching the brain waves of a group of patients looking at romantic pictures, the areas of the brain that lit up were the same as those that corresponded to drug addiction. She has said, "When I first started looking at the properties of infatuation, they had some of the same elements of a cocaine high: sleeplessness, loss of a sense of time, absolute focus on love to the detriment of all around you," Fisher said of her research when interviewed by Psychology Today magazine. "Infatuation can overtake the rational parts of your brain."

And viola ladies - we are off the hook. All those lingering emotions we feel when a relationship ends aren't symbolic of some emotional shortcoming - it is clinical love addiction!

Although this may comfort some, as an independent, proactive, self-reliant woman, this doesn't really help me feel any better. Rather than buying into the hype, and giving yourself an excuse to wallow in your love addiction ("it's not my fault, it's my brain!"), try hard to think about why the relationship ended, and why you are better off without him.

When addiction knocks, knock it the eff out. The last thing you need is the ghost of relationships past to haunt you. Especially since there is no such thing as love methadone.

Robolove?

According to artificial intelligence researcher, David Levy, by 2050 humans will be having sex and marriage with robots. Oh yeah, the sex he says will probably happen a hell of a lot sooner (he predicts within five years).

And this is what it has come to ladies. Researchers truly believe that even love is something that they can get a robot to emulate. A perfect Roboboyfriend? Maybe even a Robohusband? With divorce rates soaring, perhaps a programmable mate is the solution to all our problems.

Or is it?

We've all heard the expression, "To err is human," and reading this article made me so appreciate the inherent flaws in every human relationship. I will take a flawed, fluid, man over a perfect mechanical mate any day.

Robo, no no.

The cause of all my false expectations regarding marriage: MASH

Today a friend sent me a link to this website, http://www.playmash.com/, where you can play MASH online. Remember MASH (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House) from when we were little girls? All we had to do was pick some men, pick some cars, places to live, and the color for our wedding dresses and then poof, fate (in the form of picking a random number) would decide your entire future. There was no arguing, no evaluating, no nothing: the only control we had was over who and what we picked to be in the game.

If only it were that simple in life.

Even with the most careful planning, even the most ideal MASH result (A George Clooney, a mansion, 3 kids, and two luxury vehicles) life has a way of adding in all these unforeseeable technicalities that can turn your perfect MASH result into a pile of MUSH.

When we're raised to consider only the broadest categories in planning out our ideal futures, how can we be expected to deal with all the random contingencies that the game doesn't provide for?

As members of the MASH generation, how can we train ourselves to think outside the box?

Wishful Thinking?

Elizabeth Gilbert writes, in her non-fiction novel Eat, Pray, Love (which I high recommend), " I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism."

There is a saying that behind every man there is a great woman. Is it wishful thinking to believe that your man will reach his highest potential? Isn't that what woman are there for? To support their family and husband into reaching their potentials in life? Not just men, but even friend to friend (girlfriend to girlfriend)...

How can you distinguish your voice of reality from wishful thinking? How can you tell what is reachable and what just isn't going to happen?

Patience is my #1 virtue

The events in my life the past couple months have led me back again and again to the fact that I must learn how to become patient. I have to learn today, not tomorrow, not later when I am older... but right now, this second. I all of a sudden feel in my bones, that if I don't learn how to get rid of my impatience I might just become an inpatient.

I go through a lot of my days gasping -- for results, for contact with a person that hasn't called, for answers to the future, always waiting.... waiting.... waiting. INSTEAD OF LIVING, ENJOYING & PARTICIPATING.

Recently, I emailed a friend while I was in the car: I'm going NUTSS inside, Google for me HOW to be patient. (Again another example of impatience -- emailing while driving) HELLO, we all know that's not a smart thing to do. So any way, she emailed me back a wikihow article on "How to Be Patient." This was the best article I have read in a long time.

Some key points:

*Become more patient and life becomes more enjoyable: your relationships with other people may become more rewarding, your job may become less stressful, and even the hardest times in your life can become more bearable.

*Being patient with others is a form of respect for them. Nobody is perfect, and if you want to be a good parent, boss, spouse, or friend, it's important to recognize this and to be patient with people.

*Patience can reduce your stress levels and improve your health and longevity, and patience can actually make you happier. Whenever you find yourself growing impatient, think about the positive effects of patience, and remember that impatience only makes things worse.


And last and most importantly....
*It's important to be able to deal with things that bring us impatience, but once you are able to change your attitude so that you are a patient person, you will find that patience can help you endure any tribulation, no matter how long-lasting or difficult. More importantly, perhaps, patience can help you achieve your goals. Almost anything really good in life takes time and dedication, and if you're impatient, you're more likely to give up on relationships, goals, and other things that are important to you. Good things may not always come to those who wait, but most good things that do come don't come right away.

Comical part of the article: "WARNING: Patience should be no excuse for procrastination. While patience can help you be OK with doing nothing, it's important to understand that idleness breeds impatience and stress. "