Category Archives: Opinions

The Bachelor and The Sudden Bachelor- Not Far to Go?

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This year’s season of The Bachelor is over.   http://abc.go.com/watch/the-bachelor/SH559030/VD55179146/week-10 Courtney got the rose from Ben to everyone’s shock and disdain.  The news emanating from this show—on internet news outlets, in newspapers and magazines, at times put the latest Ben headlines right up there with tsunamis and market crashes.  What is the pull of this show?   To me, it seems so blatantly artificial…but then do I really think reality television has reality
in it? I liken reality show love and marriage to a butterfly in a jar. Nice to look at, but will it live and breathe as real love and especially a durable marriage, which can dodge the divorce bullet?  What are the odds?

My reflexive conclusion about this made-for-TV method of spousal selection:
it has to be more likely to result in divorce than the ‘usual’ methods
mentioned below, college dorms, online dating, people met at dodgy dungeon like
clubs (JK- for me anyway)…  I mean, how ridiculously artificial, all
these suitors vying to bed the bachelor(ette) like sperm cells trying to
penetrate an ovum, and doing it in front of an audience of millions.  It
seems like a cross between gladiatorial bloodsport and chick flick audition,
but not real dating or relationship building.  If the odds of a ‘normal’
marriage ending in divorce are 50-50, then wouldn’t the odds of a
Bachelor(ette)-manufactured marriage ending in sudden bachelorhood be closer to
like 100%?

Not so fast.  For one thing, who is a twice-divorced guy to say that a
highly artificial method of choosing a spouse is more likely to lead to divorce
than what we consider to be more ‘natural’ methods?  The ones I have used in the past, like meeting people at college, in bars, through friends or online dating, all result in the
coin flip divorce stats we now contend with, so no need to get all huffy about
seemingly arbitrary methods.

And another thing- people of my parents’ vintage, as well as people in
arranged-marriage cultures, have frequently married under at least as
artificial circumstances with less knowledge of their spouse-to-be than the
Bachelor had of his suitors.  50-year marriages have been founded on a
few dates, or the fact that the families knew each other, or were the “right”
families.  Marriages have often rested on pretty slim reeds and guess
what? There’s not much evidence, at least to the naked eye, that an “artificially”
generated marriage has a worse shot at longevity than one borne of love and/or
passion (that’s right, two different things).

My takeaway? Bachelor(ette) is a hokey show and a worse premise for a
marriage, but what is a better foundation for a marriage to beat the divorce stats? Marriage and selecting your spouse is like that ubiquitous Churchill quote about government: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”  Same for how we choose life partners.

I won’t let the statistics I hear about Bachelor(ette) marriages
(significantly less than 50% make it apparently) deter me from my point, which
is: marriages based on romantic notions likely rest upon a foundation almost as
sand-like as artificially based marriages.  If true (it does beg statistical research), then maybe we need to think about what really is the least likely divorce-generative scenario unclouded by overly romantic notions or, on the other side, overly artificial or practical goals.  Sure. We can do that.  My start down that road:

•           Marry when you’re thirty and less likely to succumb to passion or sex as the dominant motive, both are unreliable indicators of longevity.  Make that 60.

•           Marry with concrete goals in mind, not romantic ones. Yeah, I know.  Believe it or
not I’m a romantic.  But in my only slightly jaded view, the place for romance is in the bedroom, not at the altar.

•           Marry your best friend, not your best girl or boyfriend. Yes they should be attractive at least to you; yes, you should have great sex.  But I submit that friends
with benefits are better than benefits without friendship, even if there’s romping, fantasy-worthy sex involved in the latter equation.

In other words circling back to the question, what is the spousal selection
method least likely to line the pockets of divorce lawyers?  Damned if I
know, but at least let’s try and jettison our kneejerk pre-conceptions?

Marital Term Limits

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With the impending divorce of Schwarzenegger and Shriver comes the intersection of marriage and politics.  Not for the first time, of course, there is politics in marriage, and lots of marriage in politics.  For starters, he married a Kennedy.

Here’s another common ground: there should be term limits.  It’s been accepted in politics, it’s time to consider it for marriage.

What?  Am I suggesting that “til death do us part” be replaced by “til 20 years from the date of marriage?”  Why, yes, I am.  Is it because I have been divorced twice?  Why, yes it is, at least in part.

Here’s the thing.   Marriage has a hypnotic effect on us the same way love does.  Love is a drug, someday there will be scientific studies breaking down the chemicals it produces in our brains which basically overtake all of the other chemicals and render our sense and sight basically useless.  All stemming from a Darwinian biological imperative which necessitates that procreation be priority 1, and first comes love, then….  You know the rest.  That’s at least my highly unscientific opinion having fallen fast and hard a few times and still scratching my head over why and the life-changing consequences.

Marriage is the offshoot of love.  Because love is possessive, marriage is exclusive.  Because love is intense and we never ever want to lose it, marriage is forever.  I won’t dwell on the exclusive part since, well, it can be debated and I’m not an advocate of open marriage notwithstanding the constant breaches of the security fence marriage is supposed to erect.  So to speak.

But if the exclusivity component of marriage is under constant bombardment by those pesky things, facts, the longevity component is nearly down for the count and someday we will need to come to terms with the fact that, if half or more marriages are not forever, then what’s the alternative? Continue reading →

Guest Post: Divorce Can Make Things Better

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Editor’s Note: This post comes from our new friend Leo Averbach – Author of Breakup: enduring divorce.

I went through the divorce mill and came out the other side feeling better for it. However, it was not plain sailing. The breakup was tough, really tough. Firstly, I was shocked to learn that my wife was having an affair. It hit me like a train; I was torn apart. Secondly, divorce was not in my script at all, so when I saw my marriage crumbling beyond repair after nearly twenty years together and three kids, I was totally disoriented.

In fact, my whole life disintegrated. My family was in tatters; I was no longer a husband or life-partner and was struggling to remain a father. I lost all sense of who I was and my confidence plummeted. I felt completely deskilled instead of the reasonably competent  naked at the counter of life. For me this was loss on a grand scale. Most of all, I felt emasculated and impotent in all senses.

Somehow I managed to turn the situation around. It took time, of course, and I was fortunate to have help, in the form of therapy. The therapy helped me to rebuild my confidence, to start believing in myself and to put myself center-stage. I shed a lot of my emotional armor and began to develop an awareness of my feelings. This fundamentally changed the way I functioned, shifting me from being ‘in my head’ to being ‘in my heart’ more; from looking out to looking inward. I gradually came to the realization that “it’s all in me”, that we see the world as we are, not as it is. Continue reading →

Guest Post: 10 Reasons to be Happy about Your Divorce

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Editor’s note: This post comes from our new friend – blogger Alexis Bonari

We don’t mean to be flip. Divorce can be a devastating experience that leaves you feeling lonely, confused, and uncertain about your future. Depending on the circumstances of your divorce, that may be a best-case scenario. But there’s always a silver lining. And even though there will be some things that are hard about your divorce, there are a number of reasons you can remember to be happy about your sudden bachelorhood:

1. No more trips to the Pottery Barn. Or to Bed, Bath and Beyond. Or to that rustic little B&B in Vermont. Pick your poison. Now you’re done with it. All those Sunday afternoons you may have spent nesting or doing “romantic” things that really just bored you can now be spent doing things you’d rather be doing. Unless, of course, you’d rather be at Pottery Barn, then never mind.

2. No more visits from your in-laws. They may have been good for a weekend of babysitting, or even a wonderful, home-cooked meal, but the surprise visits and nagging about when you should get that promotion at work were enough to drive you over the edge. No more will you have to endure the probing questions that only thinly mask disappointment and condemnation. No more will you have to endure seemingly endless stories about the pansies in the garden or the goings on down at the lodge.

3. You can leave your socks on the floor. Or leave the toilet seat up. Or wash the dishes once a week. You no longer have to hear incessant pleas to take out the trash or to keep the ribbon drawer tidy. Your “man cave” is your whole house, and you can do as you please. (Note: Don’t go too crazy with your new relaxed attitude on house work. You will still want to invite a lady over at some point, and your house should have a welcoming vibe and not send her screaming.)

4. Eat pizza every night if you want. There will be no more arguments about what’s for dinner. If you’re in the mood for pizza – or Chinese or wings or sushi – have it. It doesn’t matter if you “had that last week.” You are the decider now.

5. No awkward couple dates. You know the ones: You meet up at some new fusion restaurant with some new couple that your wife met through work or through her book club, and while your wife is having a fabulous time chatting it up with her new bestie, you’re stuck locking eyes with the tax accountant who loves badminton sitting across from you. And you’re expected to find the same cosmic connection that your wives have. Now you can pick your friends – and your dates. You don’t have to hear, “Oh, we’re going to dinner with the Joneses on Friday. You remember Bob? You love Bob!” Continue reading →

Got Milf? Or Dilf?

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I’m going to talk about milfs and dilfs.  That’s right, you heard me.  Because I was given an advance copy of this brand new book, Got Milf? by Sarah Maizes about milfs which I liked because who among us hasn’t had the hots for a milf and/or- without knowing it- wondered if we are a dilf?

If you’re a Sudden Bachelor, even if you were bombed back to the stone age emotionally if not financially and physically by divorce, forming positive goals are a key way out of the cave and back into the light.  Aiming to be a dilf is- to my way of thinking- a positive goal!

The book does things like distinguishes between cougars (nasty) and milfs (hot!) and shows how to measure the “milf quotient.”   I won’t get more specific since it’s not out til April!    Most importantly, it shines a light on a word and concept that has flowed effortlessly into the vernacular these last few years.  Even if you’re a guy, when this book comes to a kindle near you you can read it, put it up to a mirror and get some direction on how to become the converse of milf-  a dilf!

Why do I have any claim to talk to you about being a dilf?  The only time I was ever called a dilf was by one of my stepson’s sexually ambiguous male friends.  In fact my ex- wife once gave me a shirt that says, not dilf, but Dork.   And my stepdaughter used to make me wear it at each of her birthday parties, like a ritual humiliation.  Well, I may be a dork, but dork and dilf are only separated by 3 letters and even if I never become a dilf, that doesn’t mean I can’t pontificate to you about it.

How to become a dilf?  I say start by queer eyeing your wardrobe and body.  If divorce has brought on defeatism in your life, take a step toward defeating the defeatism by going shopping.  That’s right, I’m going to inflict on you- when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping, blah blah blah.   Go with someone fashionable, ideally a woman, especially ideally a milf.  If you know a hot mom, just get her to go shopping with you.  It’s a triple win.  If she’s available you might get laid or more.  If she’s not, you can bond with her and she may have hot friends.  And setting aside those factors, clothes do much to make the man, at least in the eyes of a milf, and if your typical weekend wear is pleated khakis and a tucked-in short sleeve Brooks Brothers collar shirt with a pocket longing for a protector, then someone needs to rip that sh*#@  right off you and replace it with a John Varvatos button down knit shirt and some Levi’s cords (or Gap 1969 cords, my favorite pants, EVER).  Nothing like a milf to help you retrofit. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Domestic Violence Is Never Acceptable (Unless You Are A Woman)

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Editor’s note: This post comes from our new friend – Santa Monica, CA-based attorney, newspaper columnist and author David T. Pisarra Esq.

Women are to be cherished. Held gently. We speak of them as “frail flowers of life.” They are not to be abused. “Never hit a girl” is the training boys get from the time they are old enough to listen. And rightfully so. Violence should never be tolerated.

But that message doesn’t seem to reach everyone.  It appears that it’s perfectly acceptable for a girl to abuse a boy. Hit them, kick them, scratch them and abuse them. They can take it.  And more importantly; they can’t fight back.

This is the double standard to which we as men are subject. And it’s a system we have been complicit in creating.  A woman knows that at even the slightest impoliteness of a man she can plant her feet in the ground, scream “abuse” and the die has been cast. The man is now an ‘abuser’ and he’ll wear that scarlet Letter for a long time.

So how are we complicit? We are complicit in our silence. We’ve become indoctrinated to the idea that our role as men is to take it. Just look at how men are portrayed in the media. We chalk up the abuse we see on television as humorous, and ignore how offensive it is in reality. A recent and extremely appalling example was the Pepsi Max commercial “Love Hurts” that aired during the Super Bowl and reached an audience of 150 million people.

The commercial was of an African-American couple that progresses through various scenes of their life together. The implication is that she is controlling the food decisions for his diet to keep him healthy. It opens with her kicking him under the table in a restaurant as he tries to order fries – so he orders fruit instead. She then walks past him in the kitchen as he is eyeing a pie and pushes his head into it. The third scene takes place in a bathroom with him hiding in a shower trying to eat a hamburger. Her hand comes through the curtain, rips his hamburger from him, and then she pushes a bar of soap into his mouth. Continue reading →

Huffington Post Divorce: A Tale of Two Cities

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Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post’s new Divorce section as part of our regular contributions to their site. Keep checking back for more Sudden Bachelor on Huff Post.

Does it ever feel to you, after you’re separated or divorced, that there are two parallel towns you live in? There’s the one you lived in when you were married, peopled with the couples you hung out with, and if you have kids, populated also with the parents of your kids’ friends, possibly (in some egregious cases) in-laws… There was a whole teeming population of people many of whom- when you got divorced, got wiped off the map. And then, Alice In Wonderland-like, you suddenly found yourself in a whole other place, you could call it Second City. Even if you stayed in the same apartment or house, it’s different, your town has become a much less populous and thriving place. In fact, around this time of year, it can be downright depressing if you haven’t at a minimum found someone new to repopulate your bed let alone your neighborhood.

Why is it that you need to move into this second, somewhat barren city? You kind of liked the one you were in, relationship discord notwithstanding. It’s like punishment, banishment, for a crime you didn’t commit! (on the other hand…) It can feel like a bad dream or a Twilight Zone episode where you are waving and shouting “helllloooooo” to everyone as they pass, the parents of your son’s friends, the couple who were your movie buddies, but they don’t see you, you are walking through your town like a ghost.

Before you become the ghost of Christmas past, here are some random do’s and don’t's for repopulating your new world and dealing with the deconstruction of the old: Continue reading →

Life Lessons: It’s 2011 … Let’s NOT Do it Again!

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Happy New Year Sudden Bachelors!

Every year we set out to fulfill “New Year’s Resolutions,” and every year we tend to “full-fail” at “resolving” those things we set out to do at the beginning of the year. One of the main reasons this is so is because we make a big production about the resolutions we’re making, but we do not apply the same amount of attention to taking consistent action throughout the year.

This year, I have not made one single “resolution.” This year, I’m setting goals. I’m setting weight loss & fitness goals, professional goals, personal goals, and family goals.

The reason why I’m making an issue of this is simple. I have observed that it’s a part of human nature to just “go with the flow” and conform. We just got through celebrating the most expensive exercise in conformity a week ago (YES … I am talking about Christmas). Everyone spends all year crying broke, but yet & still every December, the mall parking lots are all filled to capacity! So after Christmas, what do people do? They start talking about their “New Year’s Resolutions” and what they’re going to give up – smoking, over-eating … whatever.

Well, I’m not buying it … I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!

The only way we’re going to achieve our goals – or for those of you who wish to hold on to your “resolutions,” is for us to be held accountable to them. You don’t have to share your goals or resolutions with the world – in fact, I recommend you don’t & I’ll explain why in a second. Anyway, find yourself an “Accountability Partner” – someone in whom you can confide and will challenge you only so far as to help you stay on your course.

Now the reason why I say it’s not necessarily good or wise to share your goals with the world (or maybe even on your Facebook page), is because not everyone is out to support you. Many people … even people who deem close to you will use your goals to taunt you. When you hit those inevitable valleys, these will be the people who will talk you out of your goals and resolutions by saying things like “Well, you shoulda’ known you was gonna break down and eat some McDonald’s – HELL – I knew you were gonna do it!”

Look, the reason we make these resoultions is because we want to change our lives for the better. To do this is to be successful. If you really want to be successful in fulfilling your resolutions, then you most change your patterns. So … like I have done, do away with your resolutions; set goals, and find yourselves an “Accountability Partner.” Recognize that you’re only conforming with the norm just waiting to full-fail those resolutions.

In 2011 … Let’s NOT Do it Again!

Huffington Post Divorce: Storage and Letting Go

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Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post’s new Divorce section as part of our regular contributions to their site. Keep checking back for more Sudden Bachelor on Huff Post.

I met my ex at the storage room last week. I took away a lesson in letting go.

The storage room is in a nondescript concrete structure in Yonkers, and until last Saturday held the remaining detritus of my marriage and some archeological evidence of life before that.  I met my ex in front.

We proceeded to the room through a chilly labyrinth of corridors lined with rooms just like ours. My somewhat morbid thought: there are lives condensed into each of these cubicles, kind of like rows of drawers in a crematorium.

The clanging of the storage room door opening echoed down the corridor as we talked studiously of neutral things, like Melissa’s daughter/ my stepdaughter and her travails at her new school.  Once in the room, we quickly decided which furniture would stay or go: none for me, I was already jammed into an apartment half the size of the house we had lived in. She would take the Mies chairs, notwithstanding their total dilapidation.

After the junk guy joined us and moved some furniture, Melissa and I started digging out and opening the boxes. I picked through the toys in the first box and noticed at the bottom some Hot Wheels tracks- the ones my son and I played with for hours and hours well before I knew Melissa. There was also some artwork, paintings which unintentionally looked like abstracts, a therapist’s dream image of a very little stick figure kid and looming parents on either side, pieces of cardboard with things like buttons and feathers pasted to them. Melissa and I laughed when we could not figure out which kid did what and also how the stuff had stayed pasted to the cardboard for so long!

I shut the boxes. There were no tears or anything, no Citizen Kane moment.  The junk man asked, junk? I nodded yes.

The rest of the room was jammed floor to ceiling with furniture which we and the junk man removed, dolly load by dolly load, until the chairs were in Melissa’s car and the rest of the furniture down near his pickup truck.  It was when Melissa was gone and the junk man was breaking up the final sticks of furniture with a crowbar so they would fit in the truck, that I thought about storage and letting go.

I arrived home feeling a bit liberated, telling my girlfriend that the storage room was cleared, ready to accept her many boxes shipped from across the country.   During the rest of the day though, a lingering question echoed in my head: what had happened during the preceding decades the skeletal remains of which ended up deposited in that room to leave me in this kind of pleasantly numb, more expectant than mournful, state?  And in that state, what could I take from the wreckage of the lives I had led, to move forward into this cool clear fall Sunday with some pinprick of light to shed on the fallout from the failed relationships that led me here?

It was amazing how easily the furniture all came apart, the crowbar went through it all like butter, it had looked so- durable! So many dinners on that table, so many books, stereo equipment, TV lodged in the bookshelf unit for years Maybe it was that, how easily all this furniture freighted with years of use and meaning came apart coaxed by the crowbar, that flagged for me that letting go is the easiest and hardest part of marriage and divorce.

We tend to keep grievances and expectations boxed up within like we keep things in storage.  You could call it- baggage.  We take it from our childhood to our relationships, then from relationship to relationship, we open those boxes in every therapy session until we might as well play a tape recording.  What is so hard about letting go?  Isn’t all we need a crowbar?

There’s Life After Divorce – BlogTalkRadio.com

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Love Bites For Lover’s Only BlogTalk Radio is excited to have had guest Mark Schwartz, Co- Founder Sudden Bachelor.com, on the show. Mark shared his bachelor secrets with Radio-Host Candace Chambers Belida. Is there life after divorce? Listen below:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Flovebitesforloversonly%2Fplay_list.xml&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx

Listen to internet radio with MyCandace on Blog Talk Radio