Fascinating Advice from a Fascinating Person

Last night I watched Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People of 2008. One of those people was actor Will Smith.

As we all know, Smith has been married to Jada Pinkett Smith for the past 11 years. You always hear that these two have a great marriage, but you can never really trust if that's the truth. It is Hollywood, after all.

But Barbara addresses this in her interview with Smith, when she talks about the difference between his previous marriage with Sheree Zampino, which ended badly, and his current marriage with Jada...

Barbara: You've said now that divorce is not an option.

Will: Yeah. If divorce is not an option, we MIGHT wanna figure out how we could, like, have some fun together? Since we're gonna be here.

Barbara: Rather than, "Gee, if it doesn't work out, we'll get divorced."

Will: Yeah. Being married is the most difficult thing you're ever gonna do in your life, EVER! Anybody who's married, and divorce is an option? You're gettin' divorced.

Love it!

This kind of mimics the Kyra Sedgwick quote I wrote about a while back. It's the brilliant (yet basic) idea that you have to go into a marriage knowing that it's never, ever going to end. That's the only way it will work, or else you're... well... screwed.

The only problem is, how do you adopt the divorce-is-not-an-option mentality? And not only adopt it, but maintain it year after year after year?

If anyone has the secret, please lemme know before I get married. (Which, at this rate, won't be happening for a while, so take your time.)

Also, I have to say that I think parenting is "the most difficult thing you're ever gonna do in your life, EVER!" So either marriage is even more difficult (Lord, help me), or the fact that I've survived parenting (so far!) means that I'll be able to survive marriage? Perhaps?

Here's the full interview with Will Smith. Let me know what you think of it!

Gold-diggers are goin' down

Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday's "Work-Out Partner" poll. Your responses were varied, and every one of them were valid! I guess the bottom line is, it's a matter of preference.

Incidentally, today while running on the treadmill I was reading an article about Kate Winslet in Vanity Fair. The writer asked Kate something about what happiness looks like for her, outside of work.

Her response...

"I need to be looked after. I'm not talking about diamond rings and nice restaurants and fancy stuff—in fact, that makes me uncomfortable. I didn't grow up with it and it's not me, you know. But I need someone to say to me, 'Shall I run you a bath?' or 'Let's go to the pub, just us.' I mean, the things that make me the happiest in the whole world are going on the occasional picnic, either with my children or with my partner. Big family gatherings, and being able to go to the grocery store—if I can get those things in, I'm doing good."

I think Kate was reading my mind when she said this, because I would have said pretty much every single word, verbatim. (Except for the grocery store part, because I detest that dreadful place. But I guess if you're a celebrity you never get to go to the grocery store, so in that case it's a rare pleasure for Kate.)

But the part about being looked after and taken care of? It's about so much more than the bling bling. It's about being pampered with affection and—more importantly—one's time. This is why I get angry with the money-hungry, gold-digging girls who are giving women a really, really bad name.

Guys, most of us women don't want your money. Most of us want what Kate Winslet wants... just someone who desires to go to the pub with no one else in the world but us.

(And in my case, someone who will go to the grocery store for me. Just sayin'.)

Advice from Kyra

I went to the doctor's office today, and while sitting in the waiting room, I read the August issue of Redbook magazine. The cover story featured actress Kyra Sedgwick, who celebrated her 20th wedding anniversary with husband Kevin Bacon this year. In the question-and-answer interview (which closely resembles my Hero & Heroine interviews), Sedgwick offered some of the most refreshing views on marriage that I've heard in a long time.

Here is an excerpt from the interview. I marked in bold the points that really struck me.

What changes in a marriage over 20 years?
Both of our lives are an open book in a way, because we are so boring. We've been married for so long and there are no secrets. But I never in a million years thought there would be sides to Kevin that I'm still learning. [Our relationship] is like a treasure; there are layers and layers of it. I'm constantly amazed that we are still surprised and interested in each other. When I look back at our first four years... by that time we'd had our second kid, and I look back at those pictures and I think, Gosh, I didn't know him at all! I loved him, but I didn't know him, and he probably didn't know me. But you grow together and learn more about each other. I think the trust gets deeper and the dependency gets deeper, which is scary. I think, because my father and mother split up when I was very young, there was a part of me at the beginning of our marriage that thought, I'm cool alone. I love him, but I'm strong enough to handle life without him. But now he is the person I count on to live and walk through life with. It's a dependency that is there and large and real and profound.

How do you handle the conflicts?
We always knew that we were each other's "one." Both of us knew this was forever and we were going to work it out no matter what happens, so when we fight, it's not so scary. You can't be honest with someone if you think that they are going to leave. It doesn't mean that sometimes I don't have bad dreams — which are terrible — but it's just a dream.

As parents, how do you and Kevin make sure you also get what you want?
I feel the primary relationship has to be the mother and the father, and then it can be the kids. Of course the kids come first in planning your life, but it's incredibly important to keep your relationship as a couple strong and make time for it. It's the foundation on which everything is built. Kids should know that your needs are important, because if they think your happiness lies only in them, that's a lot of pressure on them. Plus, I think if you are pursuing your own goals, it makes your kids want to search for whatever their dreams and bliss are.

So, how do you keep your relationship strong?
We got help when we needed to be alone. We check in with each other all the time. I think that's ultimately the best for the kids, because they feel safe when they know Mum and Dad are good, enjoying each other's company and wanting to be alone together. I think that's important.


Not sure why she said "Mum" instead of "Mom," but regardless... That's some good stuff right there. And what makes it even more enlightening is to hear it from someone in Hollywood—where marriages last about as long as it takes me to stand in line at the DMV. If that.

The picture of marriage that Sedgwick paints is the picture I want for my own marriage, whenever that may occur. In my mind, marriage is difficult, labor-intensive. But she makes it actually sound enjoyable. What a concept!

Oprah Who?

The theme of this month's issue of O, The Oprah Magazine is love. Which is ironic for me because it was the first time I've ever read that magazine. I'm actually not much of an Oprah fan at all. But my boss (who doesn't even know about this blog, for no reason other than I haven't told her about it) randomly handed me this month's issue. So I read it, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the theme was all about a subject I happened to be obsessed with.

The feature well consists of a collection of essays written by "thirteen gifted writers," most of whom have published a book at some point. Book writers are different from magazine writers in that their writing tends to be more emotional. So to have emotional book writers writing about the most emotional experience of all—love—was a brilliant move on the part of the O editors. (Seriously though, naming a magazine after your first initial? Could you BE any more vain? Sorry. But seriously.)

Anyway, check out the articles when you get a chance. Be warned, some of them are vague and metaphoric and, you know, Oprahfied. But each essay's approach on the theme is completely different from the other, and what I like about it is that they're not all about romantic love. One writer even talks about her love for a cat. Cats aren't really my thing (sorry cat people!), but the essay was so well-written that even I started to love the darn cat after awhile.

But my favorite article is one called "Does it Have to be Work?" by James Collins. He talks about how he and many people tend to focus on how difficult it is to be in a relationship, how everyone says it's "hard work." So his relationships have suffered because he goes into it with that mentality. But his essay concludes with a plea to bring joy back into relationships, like it was supposed to be. Somewhere along the way, our culture has lost sight of that joyful mentality. It's an interesting concept that will make you ponder. And I love to ponder, don't you?

I would like to think this is the last post in which I will endorse Oprah. But you never know. If I were writing this blog when Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch in enthusiasm for Katie Holmes, I sooooo would have been all over that. So if something like that happens on her show again, yeah, I'm there.

Until then, I just might have to get a cat.