I love this show, although I frequently have it on "mute" because I get so embarrassed for them due to their excesses. I can't say I admire any of them in any real way, but it is interesting to see them demonstrate on a weekly basis that all the money, all the bling, all the plastic surgery in the world can't save you from a broken heart, and that a broken heart is just as painful for the fancy people as it is for the rest of us. I feel very sorry for Jeana, whose husband just oozed contempt and disregard all last season (and who is, I believe, currently in jail for running someone over while driving drunk). She has four homes and money and jewelry and beautiful clothing, but the one person she loves dearly does nothing but sneer at her. I also feel for Tamara, who has realized that her son (whom she had when she was 17!) has no regard or respect for her and refuses to be anything other than a dissolute brat, even though he's well old enough to know better.

I have close relatives who used to live in the same town, and they too had pain and hardship and profound betrayal simmering under the surface. Money *definitely* can't buy happiness; I wouldn't places with them in a million years, after finding out what was going on behind closed doors the entire time.

Actually, the one thing I can say I admire is one of Tammy's (?) daughters -- one of the girls whose father died suddenly over the summer and without a will, which condition left all his money to the "new wife" who in turn refuses to give any of it to his children -- who bought a new car. She said "I'll work four jobs if I have to" to keep the car. That showed real pluck. For a girl who has been given everything her entire life to have something of her own, that she earned, and will hang onto even if it means she loses her status as an OC princess, showed some strength of character that I didn't expect.

Taking someone to be your partner "for better or for worse" has its limits, surely. Presumably "for worse" would also include a spouse who:

* Cheats

* Steals from the family finances

* Lies habitually

* Is abusive, physically or verbally

Taking someone with any (or all) of the those characteristics is most definitely taking them "for worse".

The notion of taking someone to be your partner "for better or for worse" means -- to me anyway -- that you will endure (together) your circumstances as a domestic unit for better or worse, not that one partner is allowed to be "worse" and treat the other one like shit, and the other one is obligated to put up with it.

Better and Worse

"Does nobody believe in 'in sickness and in health' or 'for better or for worse' anymore?"

-KitchenGirl

I wasn't the one who said that, for the record.

What bug is up your ass? You seem really, really bitter about something but I don't know what. If you're married and content, why would you care what I do with my life? If you're enot married, or not content, well then try cleaning up your own backyard before you point your fingers at the rest of us. What difference does it possibly make to YOU as a individual if I want to spend my money that I earned myself on a bik trip through Germany this summer? I can't imagine that it would have any impact on you whatsoever, unless its just rank jealousy that I *can* spend my money and time biking down the Danbue. Am I supposed to sit around and waste my life waiting for my "pair-bond" to find me? How is he going to find me if I'm sitting home alone doing nothing? Fuck that! I wasted my 20s hoping that staying put would put me in the path of love but it didn't. All that time, all that opportunity to travel, see new things, take classes in interesting subjects... wasted. Boy that just burns me up, let me tell you.

Have you ever considered that correlation doesn't equal causation? Global warming is not caused by a decrease in pirates, and perhaps (perhaps!) single folk go see the movies they want to see and buy the toys they want to buy because they don't have a partner to do things with. Are we supposed to go alone to movies they don't want to see, or make solo purchases of sensible things like family minivans, as some kind of cosmic signal that we are willing to compromise?

I am single. I sometimes work very long and very unsociable hours because that's my job, and I need to keep it if I want to pay my rent. I have a roommate, because I can't afford my 2.5 bedroom apartment on my own, and also I like company. I don't have a date for tonight, but I'm probably going to go out and hear a great little first-wave ska and reggae band all the same because they're really good and they're local and if I meet someone there then awesome and if I don't well then at least I didn't stay home by myself on a Friday night watching TV feeling sorry for myself.

Gadzooks, woman, you really just sound like a jealous, bitter, shrew.

The man should have the option of, essentially, aborting his parental rights and responsibilities, during the first trimester.

Except that the rights to support and parentage (in some capacity) belong to the *child*. You can't unilaterally terminate rights that belong to someone else.