Sept. 9, 2016 "Her marriage memoir complete, a writer leaves her husband": I found this article by Sarah Hampson in the Globe and Mail today:
Glennon Doyle Melton is the ultimate confessional writer. She will write what many feel they never can or should say. She writes what she thinks during sex. She writes about female friendships in a way that will surely end some of hers. She writes about her alcoholism in her earlier life; about her bulimia; her time in a mental institution; about her abortion.
She is the founder of the online community, Momastery, with an audience of more than a million people every day. Her new memoir, Love Warrior, charts her survival of her husband’s infidelity and the couple’s return to a place of love.
Oprah has called. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, gushes on the cover that “Love Warrior reaches a depth of truth and power and emotional gravity that is rarely seen in the world.”
And then, right before the book launched this week, Melton confessed on her blog that she was leaving her husband, Craig. She spoke to The Globe and Mail from her home in Florida.
Are you surprised at your willingness to spill so much about the way you feel?
I have always understood that a large part of my recovery [from bulimia and alcoholism] had to do with being honest without having shame.
Our biggest problem is that we are really lonely. We all think we have to stick to this script on the outside and that the script should be different from the one that’s going on inside. So there is a disconnect. For whatever reason, I know how to make that inner voice audible for people.
Many people might feel they’re betraying themselves, their spouse and the sanctity of their marriage when they speak about it a very truthful way.
The first question is ‘why?’ Why is the thing that is so important in our lives – the connection with your partner – why is that the thing we’re not allowed to talk about?
What we mean is that everyone can talk about it except real people in real ways. The only things we see, all over the TV, all over the movies, and all over the commercials, is this crappy, patriarchal version of marriage that makes us all feel bad.
Parts of this book were terrifying: in particular, the scene with the marriage therapist when Craig admits to infidelity. That must have been hard to relive.
I hated writing Love Warrior. It’s the hardest thing I’ve every written. I cried. And I thought, I will not publish this unless it’s as brutal and beautiful as I feel that it was when I experienced it.
I wonder if you feel there’s a Faustian bargain you strike when you choose to be so honest about your personal life. Does the writing of it in this brutally honest way make it harder to survive the marriage crisis or easier?
I think it makes it harder to stay. If I’m being really honest, I wonder at night if I hadn’t written Love Warrior would I be divorcing right now. But – I would never take it back. I finished the book about a year ago. And I decided to leave Craig about three or four months ago.
I sat down and looked at it all and examined what all of it meant. And I figured out in that process that I don’t fit here any more. And if there’s anything that process taught me is that you must trust yourself. That’s what Love Warrior is about. It’s about a woman learning to trust herself.
Sometimes in marriage, brutal truth telling is damaging, because there are things that you feel that you don’t want to say because they’re hurtful. Knowing when not to say anything is a good strategy for a happy marriage.
Agreed. I don’t need to tell others, even my spouse, about all of the stuff in my head. Love is kind, right? It’s not about calling someone out on every little thing you feel. But we’re not talking about that.
We’re talking about huge secrets. We’re talking about lies inside of a marriage; serial infidelity.
And yet, in that therapist’s office, Craig says that he wants what you have – the ability to be completely truthful and still be loved. He has a point.
Yes, and here’s the deal. I do know all that about Craig. I now know him. I see him for who he is. And I love him. And I’m not going to be married to him any more. Women have to understand that. This is not an all-or-nothing thing.
He comes off as truly repentant.
He’s a hero. And I would never have written this book if he didn’t come across as brave as I experienced him.
But isn’t there a double standard for men and women? Women live in a sort of confessional culture. Men don’t have that.
What you’re talking about is one of the main issues in Love Warrior, which is that men have nowhere to reveal their feelings. It blows my mind when I actually consider that men are as human as I am.
How can you possibly be as human and have all of the thoughts and feelings that I have and never be able to talk about it, ever? Guys are in desperate need of truth telling. They are in desperate need of a revolution.
It seems unfair. You have the support of your tribe, your sister warriors. What does he have?
The guys are going to have to figure it out just like women did. They are going to have to be brave enough to admit that they also have to be human.
Some might criticize your decision as very selfish.
Of course. If a woman chooses to protect herself and do what allows her to find peace, then that’s selfish. I just don’t hear that word any more. It’s complete white noise to me. It is something women have to fight.
Looking back on your marriage, do you feel that maybe you just married the wrong guy?
No, I never look at it like that. I don’t believe in mistakes. How can I possibly regret or think that Craig was the wrong person? I have three amazing children and a great career. And a friendship with Craig that is beautiful. We have been through so much. When we met I was a drunk. A drunk.
Do you see your marriage as a failure then?
I don’t know how to tell you, but I don’t necessarily see my marriage as having failed – at all. Our marriage is complete. It did what it was meant to do on this Earth. And it changed us both into bigger and braver and more whole people.
Can you give me a picture of how you and Craig are living now?
He lives seven houses down from me. We talk several times a day. We have no custody schedule. The kids can just go back and forth when it works for all of us. We just went to Disney together as a family. We have family dinners on Sundays. We talk openly about his future and my future. And there’s zero jealousy.
No anger?
No. I think we already grieved our marriage during the whole crisis.
Sounds like Gwyneth Paltrow’s conscious uncoupling. Do people roll their eyes a bit when you talk about how happy the separation is?
I never said the word ‘happy.’ I don’t know what exactly that means. But I think that the separation is respectful. And it’s peaceful. And there’s a lot of self control and love and, you know, a higher love, that’s being brought to it. But nobody is dancing around in fields.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Oct. 10, 2016 "Till death do us part": I cut out this article by Marissa Stapley in the Globe and Mail on Apr. 11, 2015:
Title A Better Man
Author Leah McLaren
Genre fiction
Publisher Harper Avenue
Pages 303 pages
Price $19.99
‘Men marry women with the hope they will never change,” Albert Einstein once said. “Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably, they are both disappointed.”
This paradox is central to the dilemma the characters face in Leah McLaren’s second novel, A Better Man. Maya and Nick Wakefield are a familiar sort: the couple who have everything, but suffer from grating ennui. The pair who seem perfect on the outside, but, internally, suffer the same anxieties as everyone else, and are helpless to do anything about it but self-medicate with wine and exercise (her) and work and women (him).
It’s never clear precisely what drew Maya and Nick together in the first place, beyond the superficial – her lovely white-blond hair? The tiny galaxy of freckles on her face? How self-assured he was? His raspberry pocket square? (Please, no.) But perhaps that’s the point.
They met when they were too young to have a clear picture of who they were going to become – and certainly didn’t imagine they would become who they did.
Now they’re so disillusioned with each other that whatever small things pulled them together have been forgotten, or have disappeared or were never going to be enough to sustain a lifetime together anyway.
McLaren does a fine job of showing who her characters are by unfurling a montage of telling scenes. Nick drearily observes, as he hears Maya wake one morning and pad across the bedroom floor, that she is about to “dress in something stretchy and body-contoured – selected from her vast collection of expensive, sweat-wicking exercise togs – before giving the twins their breakfast and supplemental breastfeed [for the natural antibodies] and hitting the gym.”
Later, he makes a failed attempt to blow his daughter’s nose. “He can hear the wet congestion in her head as she gulps for breath, and finally – in abject defeat – he allows himself to look at his wife.…She crouches down, takes her daughter’s face in her hands, places her mouth over Isla’s tiny nose and proceeds to suck out the contents of her daughter’s sinuses before spitting it out into the sink.” This is a woman, to Nick, who has become a mother above all else, killing any desire he once felt for her.
Nick stays at the office because he can’t stand coming home to his wife; he loves his children, but in a removed way. The idea of them is appealing – just like the idea of his life appeals to him. There is no authentic joy in any of it.
So Nick meets with Gray, a shark of a divorce lawyer and a close friend of the couple, and tells him he wants out. But it’s not so simple: Gray explains that because of all his assets, and because Maya is no longer working and is therefore a dependent, divorce will spell financial ruin for Nick.
He can stay with Maya and try to make it work, suggests Gray – “Try counselling, take a holiday. … Just stay married and save yourself the cash and your kids the therapy” – or he can try out a strategic option Gray only offers to clients off the record, in extreme cases:
If he wants a better divorce settlement, Nick is going to have to become a better husband. Nick must also encourage Maya to go back to work and support her selflessly as she does so.
If he can truly become the husband Maya needs him to be, when he finally does drop the divorce bomb – claiming a need for self-actualization – her reserves of anger and resentment will be so depleted she won’t have the heart to take him to the cleaners.
Or so the thinking goes. But won’t Maya, a smart woman and former family lawyer herself, figure it out? Gray insists the plan is foolproof. And possibly, it is – except that secrets like this don’t tend to stay buried. Especially in fiction.
A Better Man asks a compelling question: Can a broken marriage be fixed – as in really fixed, not just patched and mended so it can hobble along, with the couple concealing their hatred in front of the children and co-existing until such time as they are too old to be attractive to the opposite sex any more and too sick and tired to hate each other?
However, what holds the book back initially is that the lack of interest Maya and Nick feel in their own lives makes the first third of the book rather a chore to read. Although McLaren portrays them expertly, there’s a certain flatness to the writing, as if the author is as detached from this couple as they are from each other.
Yes, their situation is recognizable, but this doesn’t serve the purpose of making them feel real soon enough. They come off as dim caricatures with First World problems. They’re people you’re acquainted with, but definitely don’t want to know very well.
Thankfully, as the book progresses and the superficially perfect lives of the Wakefields unravel in spectacular fashion, there finally come moments when McLaren’s deft prose crackles with the pain of what it would truly feel like to be these people.
It’s desolate, this landscape of a marriage gone off. And it’s familiar, because lots of people have either experienced it, or held the hand of a friend who is experiencing it or lived in fear of experiencing it themselves.
Marriage is supposed to be a safe harbour. When it goes wrong – when the war is happening in our very own living room – life becomes excruciating.
In the end, A Better Man is unexpectedly beautiful, a tale of what happens when lovers lose sight of one another during life’s journey, only to turn a sudden corner and find their partner there, in sharper focus than ever before, unrecognizable and yet, somehow, the same as always – and happily so.
Marriage is supposed to bring out the best in people, but so often it brings out the worst. With A Better Man, McLaren shows that divorce can sometimes be the only solution – but not for the reasons you might think.
This week's theme is about marriage:
"Happily ever after...or at least laughter ever after"/ Match: Alex and Andy
"Adulthood, part 2"/ "Me, myself, my marriage"
My week:
Nov. 3, 2021 "Le Chateau to Relaunch in Canada this Month in Suzy Shier Partnership": Today I found this article on Retail Insider:
The Le Chateau brand is returning to Canada this month under new ownership. The iconic fashion brand was acquired by Montreal-based Suzy Shier over the summer. A new Le Chateau website will launch this month and in-store distribution for the brand will commence in the spring of 2022.
On Tuesday November 16, Suzy Shier will relaunch the Le Chateau brand online with a ‘Glamour capsule’ consisting of a range of dresses and other formalwear for women. The launch will be available on the newly launched lechateau.com website. In early 2022, the spring relaunch will be available in-person in select Suzy Shier stores in Canada.
It is currently unknown if Suzy Shier will launch standalone Le Chateau stores in the Canadian market. Suzy Shier operates a network of womenswear fashion stores across Canada.
Le Chateau to Relaunch in Canada this Month in Suzy Shier Partnership (retail-insider.com)
Oct. 31, 2021 "Seasonal Canadian Retailer ‘Calendar Club’ to Launch Permanent Stores: Interview": Today I found this article by Mario Toneguzzi on Retail Insider:
The Calendar Club has evolved over the years to selling more than just calendars and now the retailer is embarking on ambitious plans to become more than just a pop-up business with its eyes set on launching permanent store locations.
Calendar Club Canada, founded by the Edgar family, is the largest provider of calendars and puzzles but is also an industry leader in games and toys. The company has over 200 locations.
It is recognized as the largest seasonal retailer in Canada but the plan is to open up year-round stores next year in targeted markets across the country.
Dave Patterson, Chief Operating Officer at Calendar Club of Canada, said it’s been about 20 years that the company has been selling items beyond calendars and one of its initiatives has reached thousands, perhaps millions of people.
“We have stuffed animals. Our bear program has been one of those hidden secrets. We’ve helped communities across Canada donate millions of bears to charities. We do on average 100,000 plus bears a year. It’s pretty powerful.
“I’ve been with the company for three years and have travelled the country many times and have met many customers that have said ‘my son that was in sick kids’ hospital actually got a bear from you’. It’s a big thing that most people don’t realize. It’s basically a gift with purchase. The customer can choose to buy a bear and have us donate it to their cause or they can take it and donate it themselves. With the amount of years we’ve been doing it, there has been well over a million bears donated from this little company out of Paris, Ontario.”
Seasonal Canadian Retailer 'Calendar Club' to Launch Permanent Stores: Interview (retail-insider.com)
Nov. 9, 2021 "A couple used surrogates to have 21 babies in less than 2 years. Experts say that having such a big family is unusual but could work": Today I found this article by Kelly Burch on Yahoo news:
Kristina and Galip Ozturk have a big family. In the past 19 months, the couple, who live in the country Georgia, have used surrogates to welcome 21 biological children into their family.
"I can tell you one thing - my days are never boring," Kristina recently told The Sun.
The Ozturks' youngest baby is 3 months, and their oldest is 19 months. In addition to the babies, the couple live with Kristina's 6-year-old from a previous relationship and one of Galip's nine older children.
Experts say that though the family's size is extremely unusual, it's not necessarily an unhealthy dynamic, especially if the Ozturks have the money and emotional resources to support their children.
"What is important is the environment: Is it safe, is it nurturing, are basic needs met, is there trust and communication?" Kendall Phillips, a licensed professional counselor, told Insider. "As long as those elements are in place and those who are in charge of the family are mentally and emotionally stable, then the size doesn't matter."
Forming a secure attachment
It's critical for child development that babies form a secure attachment with an adult; this helps them interact with the world with trust rather than distrust. And this can happen even in a family as big as the Ozturks', Phillips said.
"If infants, toddlers, and children are raised in a safe and trusting environment that is consistent and comfortable, there should not be problems with attachment," she said.
To provide that environment, the Ozturks rely on 16 live-in nannies and a variety of personal chefs, cleaners, and assistants, Kristina said on Instagram, adding that the nannies were not assigned specific children but rotated.
Marcum said that typically the advantage of having siblings close in age is that they provide one another with playmates; on the other hand, being close in age can lead to sibling rivalry.
Phillips said there's no predicting how siblings will bond. She said she'd worked with twins who weren't close and with siblings with a large age gap who were.
"Relationships in general, even siblings, come down to personalities and the general makeup of the family and its dynamics," she said. "Age becomes less of a factor over time and life choices may become a factor over time."
Giving grace
People are fascinated by extremes, Marcum said, and the publicity around the Ozturk family is an example of that.
Many people were critical of the "Octomom," Natalie Suleman, who birthed octuplets in 2009, but that family appears to be thriving, Phillips said.
A couple used surrogates to have 21 babies in less than 2 years. Experts say that having such a big family is unusual but could work. (yahoo.com)
My opinion: I feel like the family should have adopted all these kids. Or be a foster parent because for every kid they take in, they get paid. I never want to have kids because it's hard work. Homer Simpson said it the best:
This is is from The Simpsons episode "We're on the Road to D'ohwhere":
"When Homer is on his way to Vegas to meet up with his friends, he has to make a detour to take Bart to an education camp. Meanwhile, Marge has discovered a surprising source of income."
"The Simpsons" We're on the Road to D'ohwhere (TV Episode 2006) - IMDb
Homer: Being a father is just a job. Long hours, no pay, and at the end all you get is someone yelling "you screwed me up!"
1 comment:
Thank you for the informative post. Also, get in touch with Sharma Ji Astrology, who provides excellent solutions for many clients all over Canada. Hindu Astrologer in Scarborough | Famous Astrologer in Scarborough | Palm Reader in Scarborough | Fortune Teller in Scarborough | Psychic Reading in Vancouver
Post a Comment