I’m harping.
Can’t help it.
This particular celebrity divorce (and subsequent engagement) has gotten under my skin. In part, because I feel no sympathy whatsoever for the wife, Camille Grammer, fully cognizant that the (sur)Reality lens distorts, and we really don’t know much about her.
Me Generation, Part Deux?
But I’m appalled at parading around a fiancée before the divorce has been inked, which strikes me as indicative of much that is wrong with our entitlement-driven 21st century culture.
“We are in love,” says the groom-to-be.
That was the bit of “news” that caught my eye yesterday. “[We] see no reason to postpone our happiness.” That quote, from Kelsey Grammer, when explaining why he is marrying Kayte Walsh, and as quickly as possible.
Love conquers all?
Love. Right. The password to permissiveness. What’s not to love about love?
The complete quote, as given to People magazine:
Kayte and I are marrying because we are engaged, and we are engaged because we are in love and see no reason to postpone our happiness any longer.
Since when is personal happiness allowed a free-for-all? Since when do we proclaim it proudly, ignoring everything else – in particular, two children?
Serial monogamy? Sort of?
Some people aren’t made for monogamy. Okay, I get it. Really. I also believe we can love more than one person at a time, though I will surely offend by saying as much.
But happiness at any price? Is that really what we’re celebrating? And as soon as those feelings fade or mutate, on to the “next big thing” – whatever or whomever that might be?
After all, isn’t Happiness our new religion? Isn’t it a good enough reason to do as we please, especially when we flash our pearly whites and claim our rights in the name of love?
Making excuses
Sometimes we make excuses for not reaching goals. Sometimes we make excuses for not playing by the rules and taking what we want simply because we want it. Does “I’m in love” or “life is short” or any number of other so-called reasons for bad behavior offer a free pass? Especially if you’ve got the bucks to ease your conscience and cover the legal bills?
Marriages end. Fine. But waving the banner of “I don’t want to postpone my happiness?” Are you kidding me? I don’t care how many millions there are to pay for therapy for the kids or placate the plastic soon-to-be-ex. It’s a dreadful example.
Whether you believe love is an explosion of sensation, or a slow bloom that grows from careful tending, “all’s fair in love and war” is apparently alive and well. Especially in Hollywood, or on the New York stage, or anywhere that big bucks or nasty narcissism runs rampant.
Reality bites
I am a realist. Some believe in karmic retribution, in “you reap what you sow,” and a variety of other anesthetizing adages to ease the pain when life barrels off the tracks. Sometimes, reality bites – apparently, even for those in marriages splashed across our screens.
But I bemoan our propensity for picking one’s own happiness over all else, including honor and children, not to mention a modicum of good taste. It isn’t so much what Kelsey Grammer has done that bothers me. It’s the way he’s done it.
As for happiness at any price? $50 million is apparently the going rate. And when it’s time for Wife #5 in a few years?
Forgive me. I’m being cynical. After all, Kelsey is passing on the pre-nup. Fourth time’s the charm? Until it’s not?
© D A Wolf
I certainly think it is bad taste to parade the fiancee around before the divorce is even signed. I feel for the children mostly, because (although I am assuming) I don’t think they are insulated from the news about their father. I am certain it is all so confusing for them and I wonder if either Grammar is sensitive to the feelings of their children. Life is short, but living selfishly isn’t the answer in my mind.
I waited years to get married without postponing any happiness (or turmoil). It’s just tacky.
I think sometimes the need to “have someone” overrules good sense. While life is more complete with someone to love who loves you, being alone for is not bad. Getting to know yourself, learning to love yourself, would contribute to longer-lasting, more stable relationships with others, I believe. For for some, being alone is the scariest thing in the whole world.
You have to wonder about wife #4 (or #3) … at what point does a woman see a man with a string of failed marriages and say, hmm – maybe tying the knot is a bad idea?
Maybe that no pre-nup has her less than concerned?
I’ll refrain from comment on these specific people, as I do not know them. However, there is a critical difference between love and narcissism (which is projection of the self onto others). The narcissist is wounded, or developmentally stuck/traumatized (and there is no shortage of this in our world, Hollywood is often just narcissism writ large).
And while we can, I agree, love more than one person, we can also project onto more than one person. If one doesn’t actually know who they are, they do not understand that they are hurting others (ex-lovers, children, betrayed friends, etc.) because in their mind it’s really all them, and thus the suffering child is THEIR suffering child-self.
What looks like entitlement boils down to dread and wretched loneliness that never heals from trips to pleasure town with younger and younger anima/animus stand-ins onto which narcissus may project his own eternal child… until he’s a plant growing beside Heff’s grotto.
Here’s to actually loving each other as real beings, and to healing the hurts that lead us to unwittingly hurt others. When being authentic looks fun to others, perhaps more of us will turn from Hollywood as stylist of the lifestyle and pick up the gauntlet of realness.
Either way, All Best Wishes for a positively trending 2011.