 |
| Golden Bachelors |
was the response from my friend and mentor Anne, who was addicted to Slate's Golden Bachelor Suggestion (and wrote this wonderful piece about being 67 and single when the show's finale aired last November). It took me a second: Who was she talking to? Ah, Gerry Turner and Teresa Nest, the aging lovebirds who emerged triumphant at the end of Gerry's turn as the septuagenarian bachelor. Doniso officially. Talk about out of sight, out of mind. As Scott Nover wrote in Slate on Friday about the end of the couple's three-month marriage, "the period of American interest in Jerry and Teresa's brief love story is over."
Well, I guess I have a little more leeway in my personal area of interest because I spent most of the day trying to figure out why these headlines about the Golden Couple's divorce bothered me so much. Yes, I admit I followed the ins and outs of the entire season. I found peace with their match in the end. But I found their wedding—which was broadcast live on television—to be boring and annoying. As they conducted follow-up interviews about their future together, I kept wondering: Were these two really going to move away from their grandchildren in Indiana and New Jersey and settle in Charleston, South Carolina, as they claimed they would? ?
Now we know the answer is no. According to their rehearsed ad on Good Morning America on Friday morning, they are Splitsville. But I refuse to call it divorce. At best, this is a “divorce,” in the same way that their relationship was a “marriage.” Divorce results in the division of assets. Discussions about family holidays and time spent with children. Decisions about who gets how much retirement money, or a shared compact car. Divorce requires difficult decisions, especially ending a marriage! There's no way Jerry and Teresa will have enough time together to put together anything that would require a divorce as we normally think of it. And even if they have to have some big conversations about the breakup - it can take couples a few years to decide to divorce! - How many discussions could have actually taken place? They got married in January!
Now, they could be having an argument about Bachelor's Golden Money, but I doubt it. It sounds like the kind of thing that was worked out in a ream of paperwork with ABC months ago. They certainly didn't have a joint bank account at the time of their marriage, so they both probably got their money via ACH directly into their own vaults — no stress there!
If it's not obvious by now, I'm speaking from experience. I'm divorced. I probably have one of the best divorce stories you'll ever hear, as my ex-husband and I are incredibly close, devoted parents and forever family. We have keys to each other's houses, and we see each other all the time. Last weekend, our daughter stayed home with my (second) husband while I went to a concert with my first husband. Can you follow that? It confuses people all the time!
But it wasn't easy to get here. It was hard, because divorce is really hard! Even if, like us, you do not own a home and things are relatively simple, it is difficult to analyze the years of shared life, objects and feelings. At best, you could end up like us. But often, the end of a life together results in so much of the stuff we try to put in the back of the proverbial closet that the mess can never be completely cleaned out. Every divorced person I know is doing their best. But there's a certain kind of sadness that's lasting — and often much worse — even when things are as friendly as they could be.
I'm not sorry that Jerry and Teresa will be rescued from this everlasting rubble. But let's call the end of their "marriage" what it is: a breakup. They couldn't decide where to stay, and things didn't go well. This may be a divorce legally, but it is nothing more than a broken, short-lived engagement
Post a Comment