applaudwomen.com Blog

We don’t know what to think about this story on CNN.com, but culled from Oprah.com.

I contemplate divorce every day. It tugs on my sleeve each morning when my husband, Will, greets me in his chipper, smug morning-person voice, because after 16 years of waking up together, he still hasn’t quite pieced out that I’m not viable before 10 a.m.

If you contemplate divorce every day, should you not go ahead and get one? Or is the author, Ellen Tien, being satirical, as suggested in the accompanying comments?

We had a hard time slogging through the whole piece, so we picked out some salient points for your consumption.

To be sure, there will be throngs of angry women who will decry me for plunging a stake into the heart of holy matrimony. “My husband is my lifeline,” I’ve heard said (and that’s bad news for the aorta). “My husband and I never fight” is another marital chestnut — again, bad news (not to mention a big fat lie), since according to the experts, the strongest relationships are the ones in which people can continually agree to disagree. “My husband is my best friend,” others will aver.

No. Your husband is not your best friend. Your best friend is your best friend. If your husband were your best friend, what would that make your best friend — the dog? When a woman tells me that her husband is her best friend, what I hear is: I don’t really have any friends.

Not entirely sure we go along with this statement. Our husbands are our best friends. We tell them everything – and we don’t compete with them over whose outfit looks the best today.

Having choices is a cornerstone of strength: Choosers won’t be beggars. “Thinking about divorce is kind of like living in New York City with its museums and theater and culture,” a doctor friend of mine said. “You may never actually go to any of these places, but for some reason, just the idea that you could if you wanted to makes you feel better.”

Maybe one day, marriage — like the human appendix, male nipples, or your pinky toes — will become a vestigial structure that will, in a millennium or two, be obsolete. Our great-great-great-grandchildren’s grandchildren will ask each other in passing, “Remember marriage? What was its function again? Was it that maladaptive organ that intermittently produced gastrointestinal antigens and sometimes got so inflamed that it painfully erupted?”

Yes. Yes it was.

Until that day of obsolescence, we can confront the dilemma and consider the choice a privilege. Once upon a time is the stuff of fairy tales. As for happily ever after — see appendix.

Well, perhaps one day the institution of marriage will be obsolete. But we like to think of a couple we met recently, 61 years together, who still say “I love you” to one another every day.

What do you think?

Well I’m starting to get the hang of blogging although I’m sure I still have a lot to learn. I want to thank those of you who have commented or posted blogs. I’m very excited to have finally started some interactive communication. I have wanted to do this within in Applaud and have been able to create some feedback in my letter section but there is so much more that I want to do. I think we, as women, have so much to share with each other and as far as I know there is no forum in New Hampshire to do that. So I’m hoping that I have created a place where women here can share their concerns, issues, enlightenment, information and most importantly their support for each other.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m very happy that the holidays are over. I don’t transition well so any kind of change in routine is very difficult for me. It’s especially difficult when my major activity at this time is to get advertising sales and during the holidays people have a totally different focus. So thank goodness things are back to normal.

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce something new that I am working to create in Applaud. Over the last six months I have come in contact with several women who are either in the divorce process or have recently gotten a divorce. Some of these women have also been involved in abusive relationships. I think that the magazine could be of benefit in helping women get through these difficult situations by providing helpful articles. So we are working on that for the next issue. I’m also hoping that this blog will create a forum where women going through the divorce process or who are involved in abusive relationships, whether married or just dating can share their thoughts or learn from others who have directly or indirectly been affected.

Finally, please feel free to either email me directly at sjcald@comcast.net with ideas for postings or to comment here about things that you would like address or share. Please spread the word to other women about this blog so that we can continue to grow our community of NH women.

If you haven’t yet read our Tribute to Princess Diana issue please go to www.Applaudonline.com to read it or contact me so you can obtain your own copy. Don’t miss this 6-page Tribute to Diana with exclusive quotes and photos.