Jon Gosselin: Fool In Love (With Himself)
The reputation of Jon and Kate Plus Eight's Jon Gosselin has turned from doting dad to sleazy cad. Less than two weeks after announcing he's divorcing mom-of-eight Kate, the ridiculously immature reality dad is behaving like a dog in heat. The bachelor wanna-be is living the high life, renting a NYC pad and jetting around the globe as he vacations with his new 22-year-old gal toy. As a former divorce lawyer and divorce book author, I have harsh words for this not-yet-divorced unrealistic reality star: Go home, fool, and work on your marriage.
Time to grow up, Jon. Marriage isn't easy. But for better or for worse, you are a father of eight little ones. You are living in a selfish fantasy world that because you "suffered" through a difficult marriage with an admittedly difficult woman, you are now entitled to experience new romance, cradle-robbing relationships, and the sexual chemistry that comes with new partners who are not your wife. Really. Do you think you are the only man whose marriage hit road bumps after the birth of a child? Now multiply those bumps by eight. Do you think the pressure and exhaustion of being a mother to eight kids with eight sets of emotional needs might have made Kate a more demanding and difficult human being? Welcome to the world of marriage after kids, Jon.
You have put your needs ahead of your many children's needs. A grown-up man would behave better.... and know better. Now, I am sure you have rationalized to yourself that you deserve your new life. That your soon-to-be-ex is a drill sergeant who annoys the hell out of you. That you have fallen out of love. That you felt trapped in your marriage and your life, and you don't want your kids to see two unhappy parents. And that you deserve to be "happy."
Wake up. Your happiness is a state of mind. You could choose to be happy in your own family. The reality is, Jon, fate gave you eight babies with Kate and you owe it to those children, and to her, to use your last breath to hold this family together. That means months, if not years of family counseling. That means suppressing your childish desires for new love when your marriage becomes lackluster, and at least making an attempt to re-kindle your old love with the woman you chose to marry and have babies with. And how about dropping the girlfriend and putting in the work-work-work required to hold your fragile family together. Back in the old days, it was called sticking it out for the sake of the kids.
What you need now is a staycation... at home with your children, who probably crave your comfort after witnessing their daddy romancing his new girlfriend on Entertainment Tonight and holding her hand on tabloid covers as they wait on line at the checkout counter with Mom. Giving your marriage the old college try would mean more to your kids than jumping into bed with 20-something girls gone wild would mean to your ego. And if down the long hard road of attempted reconciliation, things have not improved with Kate after all, maybe then you might explore other options quietly, outside the public eye. Sacrifice, Jon, isn't such a bad thing. Parents do it all the time.
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Fantastic, Stacy! You nailed head on! this man is a child and has left his family for college life. He is not in love with anyone but himself. You are my hero, Stacy! Tell it like it is....
Jon Gosselin said he went from being single to having twins to being a father of 8 in just a few years, and that Kate was in control of everything.
Funny how people who passively let others make all the decisions then find themselves annoyed that someone else is in charge. You can never know what it's like to be in another person's marriage, but I sure do wonder about a guy who says he is finally in charge of his own life, and the first decision he makes to troll around with a twenty something, and allow himself to be photographed, so that his kids are treated to Dad and his new honey canoodling each other on a magazine cover, while the grocery store clerk rings up their Cheetos.
It's odd, I got such a different feeling about the two of them than most people on the site. I felt sorry for her. As a single mom, when I watched the show I kept thinking "She has to be assertive, someone has to run the family and be organized with 8 kids, he seems completely useless."
If you're in a relationship that takes teams of psychologists and years of therapy in order to aforementioned relationship to "work" then OBVIOUSLY its a bad match.
People get married way too fast all the time. How is it a good thing that two miserable people stay together?
The best lesson to teach the kids is that love is about being happy with your partner, not establishing some elaborate Israeli/West Bank truce wherein the two of you only manage to be civil together.
If you're arguement is that single parents are soooooo horrible to children -- then are you also advocating that children should be taken away from single mothers or single fathers?
No?
Then why in God's name is it so critical that two people remain married and make each other miserable for the sake of the kids? How is seeing Mommy and Daddy fighting every single second of the day "better" for kids then a divroce wherein the children see each parent seperately, but also see them HAPPY when they see them?
Your comments that love is all about being miserable and gutting it out are antiquated in the extreme.
I can watch this show whether Jon and Kate are married or not. We watch to see the children.
While it isn't ideal with Jon away in an apt, something had to be done to break the chain of Kate's continual abuse. We who watch the show wondered when he was going to grow a pair and we got our answer.
No one wanted those children to witness the abuse of their father any longer, it was a bad example of male/female relationships. She lately had graduated to slapping him a lot. It was hard to understand that she was apparently unaware of what she was doing...I guess she didn't have time to watch her own show or she would have seen it.
I don't think she is slapping him anymore. I don't think she'll be slapping him again unless he wimps out and reverts to the hang-dog , exasperated man-servant he had become.
We'll see whether Kate has mellowed out when the new season begins. I want the show to continue so we can watch the children and see how they are faring.
This after all is just another picture of life with all it's mysteries, marriages don't always succeed, but children still grow up.
One quote said..."a normal childhood is of no value whatsoever" and that could be true too.
He didn't really"grow a pair". Since when is abandoning your family 'growing a pair"? He should have gone into counseling - worked with his pastor - refused to continue shooting the show or something else. Leaving his family to be a single guy who lets his little willy do his thinking isn't a man with a pair - it's a sorry excuse for a man.
HE should have gone into counseling? Without Kate wouldn't that be the sound of one hand clapping?
Fate did not give Jon and Kate eight kids...science did.
As for the couple divorcing, I don't presume to understand people's reasons for divorcing.
I will say however, my husband's parents stayed together for, "the sake of the kids" and it completely screwed up him and his brother. It took decades for my husband to understand how a healthy husband and wife relationship works.
Staying together isn't necessarily the healthy choice...and a lot of the time it's the harder choice to make. Just because you see a man 'smitten' with celebrity and making poor choices doesn't mean if he were home with the wife and kids, he'd be a better father to his kids.
Ms. Schenider, who the hell are you to tell people to stay together for the sake of the kids?
And what makes you think Kate wants to stay married to Jon? For all we know, Kate was actually having an affair with her bodyguard and used the 23 yr. old school teacher as an excuse to toss Jon out.
The way it looked to viewers, their marriage was in shambles long before the bodyguard and school teacher ever entered the picture--Kate's a royal b%$^ and Jon's a boy in a man's body. Neither Kate nor Jon were mature enough for marriage, yet alone for parenthood.
Divorce will be a blessing for these children as Kate's non-stop belittling of Jon will end and her obsessive-compulsive, unrealistic expectations of everyone around her might settle down now.
The next best thing will be to get these children off television. TLC needs to end the exploitation of these children by the parents.
One thing is for certain; he is totally in love with himself, and completely self-absorbed. Undoubtedly, she is too. I'm glad those kids at least have each other.
They don't seem to want to save their own marriage and that's their choice
I grew up with divorces and can tell you that it's awful for a kid to be in a home where the mother and father live different lives. It's worse, in my opinion, than the alternative of them living seperately.
Also, as a "divorce book author" you should know that unsolicited advice like this doesn't have any impact at all on their seeking counseling.
Kate had to be the grown up....You would be nasty too if Jon had been your husband. Those kids are better behaved then most i come across. She must be doing something right.
He is so lazy,he didn't want to work so kate did,he didn't cook ,can't clean and to beat it all he couldn't even babysit his kids while she worked,He was sneaking off nailing 20 somethings!!!
Sorry. I disagree. I've watched the show a few times, though I'm ashamed to admit it. I'm not a big fan of divorce except in the case of abusive treatment. Kate was clearly abusive toward Jon. I can't imagine treating my husband that way. Staying together for the sake of the children just so the little boys can learn how men are treated (badly) and the girls learn to treat men (badly) is just not an option. Besides, if you've read anything about the family, you'll learn that Kate wanted out of the marriage a long time ago (her own brother said that) and didn't want counseling.
I think both of these people are exploiting their children. That should be the real story here. They've made money off of the fact that they've had a litter of kids. They've put private moments of these kids lives on display to enrich themselves, not to pay for college educations and such. As I said before, I watched the show a few times until I felt like I was a voyeur and had to stop. These kids deserve privacy, especially as their family falls apart.
What is it we expect of these people? They are children having children! They are both totally self centered and self absorbed. Let us not forget the touching scene of Kate staring out the kitchen window of the new house saying 'This is mine, all mine'. It was so touching as to make one weep ( or barf, whichever). Not that anyone expected more from her, she was only playing the part that she was born to play.
There will never be consensus on who is right and who is wrong. There is plenty of blame to go around. What they need to do is concentrate on the kids and what is best for them.
As for the money of it all. They get $75,000 per episode and that's just for the show. Put 1/2 away for the kids and the parents each get $18750 per week. That'll pay for a lot of Kool-Aid. Assuming they haven't blown it all on junk, they should be set for life.
TLC needs to pull the plug on this disaster if the parent's don't. Somebody needs to be the hero here. Unfortunately, neither the parents or the network will do that as long as people like us keep blogging, watching and freting about the family, Gosselin.
I totally did that same thing and calculated their earnings! With 5 million kids and 8 or 14 they ARE set....well said!
I'm tired of everyone being so mean to Kate. She has 8 children to raise and she had a passive - aggressive husband which amounted to another child. I can understrand her frustration. He did nothing unless he was told to and then she looked like the "bad guy". I would imagine Jon has always been irresponsible, as he continues to be. Kate in her overly "OCD" manner is raising the children and has taken on this public life to provide for her children. What has Jon done? Gone to party.
Oh please, women have been having large families since the dawn of time. My mom had eight kids. It does not give you a license to berate and disrespect someone in their own home. Humiliation is never the way to get someone to be on your team. She needs serious therapy so that she does not use that tactic on her kids. They will hate her and rightfully so.
ARTIST50, if Kate is not the "bad guy", why does she alienate every adult around her? That includes her father, mother, brother and others. She's apparently mean and nasty all the time to everyone she comes in regular contact with. Somebody who is a "good guy" would have some loving relationship with someone, wouldn't they? She doesn't have any that we know of. I pity her children.
That's why they need to go into counseling.
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