The lovers who left—and were featured in the NY Times
A number of years ago, the NY Times added a special feature to its previously rather staid engagement and wedding announcement pages. It was called “Vows,” and featured an in-depth look at a particular marrying couple.
Usually the stories have been cute and anecdotal and sometimes even a bit heartwarming, if you happen to be in the mood for that sort of thing. But not the story of the romance and then wedding of Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla, who left their respective first spouses (the two couples had been best friends) for each other.
The details appear here. Both couples had several young children. The two lovers-turned-bride-and-groom swear they did not have a sexual affair until they left their first marriages, although they did fall in love and declared that fact to each other before they announced it to their mates.
Mr. Padilla seems to regret the publicity from the Times piece because of the firestorm of criticism it has provoked; Ms. Riddell apparently has no regrets. A great deal of the negative reaction comes from people who say they believe a person should stick with a spouse, even if unhappy, if there are young children involved. Others disagree, pointing out that if people are profoundly unhappy in their marriages it’s not good for the children either.
As for me, I think it’s dreadful that this couple and the Times chose to air this particular story publicly. What were they thinking of? Certainly not their children’s or ex-spouses’ privacy or pain. My guess is that they were so in love with each other that they figured that everybody loves a lover. But everybody doesn’t–at least not these lovers.
But what do I think they should have done, given the situation of meeting as friends and then falling in love—and assuming they are telling the truth about refraining from an affair? It depends on the circumstances of their first marriages.
I’ve seen a lot of marriages. I’ve observed those in which spouses have stayed together in an atmosphere so poisonous and destructive that I believe the children end up suffering more than if their parents had broken up instead. And yet I’ve seen marriages that are abandoned for what seem like frivolous and temporary reasons, in which the children suffer greatly and the spouses grow to regret their move, and the whole thing seems needless and self-indulgent and narcissistic. I’ve seen divorces where the children don’t seem to suffer at all, although these are quite rare and tend to feature grown-up offspring rather than actual children.
In the Riddle/Padilla story, the Times and the couple are mum (fortunately) on the details of just how bad—or good—their first marriages were, or whether abuse or substances were involved, or how long and how hard they tried to work on staying together. We really don’t know, although that hasn’t stopped people from guessing.
[ADDENDUM: Here’s a sequel to this post that expands on some of its themes, including those raised in the comments section.]
To paraphrase Tolstoy, each unhappy marriage is probably unhappy in its own way; and so there is no one best solution. However, it seems to me that
1–the social institution of marriage grew out of the need to protect and nourish children,
2–once children are brought into the relationship, the greatest duty is to the children’s welfare rather than to the adult’s happiness,
3–the social science research at least suggests that, on average, children do better even if the parents decide to stay together only because it will be ‘better for the children’, and
4–too many adults place their own pleasure ahead of the welfare of their children and then rationalize that pursing their own pleasure will also be better for the children.
Certainly there are exceptions to the average findings of #2 above, but it seems to me that the burden of proof is on the claim that the particular case is an exception.
As I also commented over on Ann Althouse’s blog, what bothers me most about this story is not so much what the couple did in the first place, or even their choice to publicize their behavior in the NYT — it’s the additional choice they made to be photographed for the article with their children. It’s one thing for an adult to choose to expose his or her own questionable behavior to the world. It’s quite another to drag young children along for the ride and destroy their privacy by splashing their faces all over a national newspaper and the internet, to be forever associated with their parents’ sordid little interlude. For these people, it’s all about them — even their children are nothing more than props to be used in orchestrating the Great Drama of their lives. Yuck.
Mrs Whatsit,
I couldn’t agree more. Although I found the subject matter repellent in general, what really sickened me was the wedding photo featuring these very young children. Plus the quotes from the bride about the “messiness” of life.
I’ll say. It would have been nice if she had shown a little intellectual honesty about how her selfish personal choices (and husband number two’s) helped create that mess.
Blech. These two deserve each other.
I am not an expert on marriage and love and such gooey stuff, but is not love one of the worse reasons to get married?
I recall the first sentence of a lecture given by a professional marriage counselor a long time ago
“we in the United States believe in marrying for love which is one of the worse reasons to marry and no other culture in the world does it.”
Depends on what your definition of love is, Bob from Virginia.
If love is your commitment to the other person’s welfare then love is a great reason.
If love is the feeling you get when you are around that person, then love is a terrible reason.
Marriage, as the rest of the world does it, seems to fall between the poles of feeling and committed love. However, the committed love probably has a better chance of developing from the arranged marriage than from the feeling marriage.
NYT:
Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler:
As for me, I think it’s dreadful that this couple and the Times chose to air this particular story publicly. What were they thinking of?
the point is to prove that with an arbitrary contractual negation for marriage, the institution is no longer needed.
Feminists say its not needed
Progressive say its not valid and needed (all the way back to Harmon and his daughter Lillie).
communism says its not needed
Marxism says its not needed.
every time people ask this question, they just refuse to apply the answer that they don’t want it to be.
of course they never lived under social life changing propaganda, and so do not realize that it first appears strange, then its normalized.
unlike kids, its harder to normalize you as such a process has to change the past regard. which is why there is a focus on the young, and the desire to shorten the life of elders, and the less than equal.
Those quotes i kept putting up ARE the goal and these articles and things which seek to visit dispair, nihilism, false hope, a sense of the impossible, etc. are the process.
i keep telling you its a process, and to learn it, and that is the LAST thing you or others want to do.
once you learn to identify a coral snake from its visually close brethren, you no longer can deny things.
however, holding out to keep denying, is exactly what is needed to make or actualize the end!
you DO have locks on your doors
you belive in burglars and robbers
you DONT have leprechaun repellent
you DONT believe leprechauns are real
you Do believe in modern mecidine, so you buy over the counter meds
you DONT believe in witch doctors, so you have no idea how to find one even if your life depended on it.
its all about beliefs and changing them
and so, what does articles like this, and others steeping your marinating mind do to your judgments, hopes, beliefs
after all
to destroy western culture, you only have to change beliefs and we lose our connection to the information AND reasons why it was the way it was, and pretend we are more modern for resetting ourselves like an animal born in a cage.
western culture, or any culture, is a BELIEF system
so they keep attacking by articles, movies, blogs, laws, protests, college courses, consciousness raising, etc.
all trying to break the old belief system by making it a mish mosh of ideas that no longer work.
once the alternative to communism and slavery is defunct what is left?
sigh
For some reason this article reminded me of an exchange from an episode of South Park, where Stan’s mother and father were going through a separation.
Stan’s mother: “Now, Stan, you know that I love you and you’re the most important thing in the world to me.”
Stan: “Then get back together with Dad.”
Stan’s mother: “Okay, when I say you’re the most important thing in the world to me, what I mean is, you’re the most important thing *after* *me* and *my* happiness and *my* new romances.”
Anyway, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for this couple, and I really feel for their ex-spouses and, of course, for the children.
Tabloid TV hits the NYT.
Around the time I was a senior in high school, there was a rash of adultery among the parents of my peers. It even crossed the ocean. Mrs. A observed Mr.B and Mrs. C in a rendezvous in Europe. Mr. and Mrs. B divorced at his initiative, but he ended up with someone else. Mr. and Mrs. C stayed together, but the gossip and stares resulting from the discovered rendezvous caused Mr. C to take a job 3000 miles away, at a loss in salary.
An English teacher at my high school was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. Reason: an affair with a history teacher at the school. Both middle aged. They divorced and moved out of state.
An elementary school teacher and her husband would have divorced, but he died of cancer before it could have occurred. She married her school principal less than a year after after her husband died. They married and moved out of state.
I could go on and on, but will stop.
Several years after this “season of the witch,” I attended the wedding of some friends. Both had recently come back from a guru pilgrimage to India along with a brother who was also a future brother-in-law, where for the3 first time they had met X, who had come to India from our town Y. Back in the states, X attended my friends’ wedding. In reflecting on finding four from the same town Y at an ashram in India [including brother], X said, “Y is SUCH a spiritual place.”
I had to suppress my impulse to laugh.
I have scorn for those who engage in such a “seventeen year old itch.” Selfish, self-indulgent pigs.
They each will spend the rest of their married lives together wondering if the other has fallen out of love and found someone more interesting.
I found the story repellent, same old selfish people. They do indeed deserve each other. I hope their marriage ends the same way it began.
From the descriptions given here I wonder if the difference between love and war is one of degree rather than kind? Sensation, thrill, adventure, daring, boldness, death, disgrace, cowardice, bravery, foolhardiness, desertion under fire, everything except discipline and esprit d’corps …
While on the subject of utter stupidity my favorite romantic ass is the former governor of South Carolina. One wonders whether now that he found his soul mate in Argentina does he plan to start a family?
Too bad they didn’t have this column back in the days of the Fritz Peterson/Mike Kekich wife swap in 1972. Fritz Peterson is actually still married to Kekich’s ex-wife. Kekich and the ex-Mrs. Peterson did not last long, however.
That’s a good description of their love: War without discipline and esprit d’corps. I would also make the following substitutions: compulsion for daring and boldness, depression for death, cross out bravery altogether. . . and there you have it: what monkeys would do if they were debauched.
Care to start a pool on how long this marriage lasts? I give it five years. Carol Riddell is getting a bit long in the tooth, whereas her husband is just aging into his prime. (It’s a sad truth that men peak about ten years after women. Because women have to look fertile while men just have to look prosperous.) He’ll find another soul mate who just happens to have a toned young body and perky breasts.
I understand these two wanting to be happy. I just don’t see how devastating all these lives to get there allows that happiness to even remotely come about.
SteveH: I’ve seen it happen with friends. Especially if the first marriage was very unhappy, and the second really is very clearly a much better match. Yes, there is sorrow for everyone, but I think sometimes the majority of people involved in certain specific divorces end up better off—even the “left” spouse and the kids, if the marriage was really awful and there was very much fighting and tension, and afterwards there is more calm and both parents are near enough to see the kids a lot.
Children are not dumb. They wish mommy and daddy would stay together and be happy, but if mommy and daddy are always screaming at each other and at loggerheads, or really miserable, the kids know it and sometimes are okay with the upheaval of the divorce, just to have some peace. I’m not saying this happens often, but it does sometimes happen. And sometimes the rejected spouses end up saying it was all for the best, too.
As I said, though, I have no idea whether any of that will be true for these people. The odds don’t favor it, I’m afraid.
And I agree that the article itself, with the photos, was a terrible idea, and IMHO a narcissistic one.
Neo wrote: My guess is that they were so in love with each other that they figured that everybody loves a lover.
My guess is they were both so in love with themselves that the potential harmful impact of their story appearing in the NYT never crossed their pretty little heads. And, I agree with the consensus – two people so in love with themselves will never manage to be committed to the happiness of the other – this marriage is built on sand.
Sounds like the entire saga involves only children, except possibly for the spurned spouses.
The last article C.S. Lewis wrote for publication was about this very subject. IIRC, it was originally entitled “We Have No Right To Happiness”. It is here, with a slightly different title:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1985/issue7/733.html
His usual trenchant analysis.
I’ll repeat what I’ve said before (although perhaps in a different blog) “do people still read the NYTimes?” F
As soon as I finished reading this little morality tale to my husband on Sunday morning I said I gave it two years at the most. Whatever makes people in these situations think that someone who would leave one spouse would not leave another when something a bit more interesting came along?
p.s. to F,
My husband maintains our weekend subscription to the NYT because, as he often tells me, “You have to know what the enemy is thinking.
@Bob from Virginia at 4:44 pm:
If you substitute the word ‘lust’ for the word ‘love’ then you and I will be in agreement.
Love is a dynamic phenomenon as far as I can tell.
My wife and I love each other more deeply and in different ways than we did when we first met.
I have doubts the marriage of two narcissists will be long lasting. Look at the divorce rate in Hollywood. A fly on the wall could report on the conversation between the pair. “My spouse doesn’t appreciate how wonderful I am.” “Yes, you are wonderful–almost as much as me!” and so on.
Bob:
that marriage councilor should look for some other profession. Has she studied marriage institution in ALL the countries in the world? Is she an anthropologist? A statistician? A sociologist? She is not even a good salesman (which she should be, in her occupation).
What a nincompoop.
On topic:
I just finished reading John Updike, The Maples Stories. It’s a collection of short stories about a life and death of a marriage, a couple divorced after 20 years of marriage – and then subsequently remarried to the lovers they both had at the time of first marriage.
It is a beautiful book, economical in expression but abundant in sentiment and thought behind every word. And it makes the reader to see all points of view and mutual love of all members of Maples’ family, before and after the divorce – but also the destructive forces present in everyone.
Ms.Riddell is right: life is messy.
I think at 44 she is mature enough to weigh pros and cons and if she decided to leave her first husband and take her young children with her, there must be a good reason. Since everyone here engage in speculation, I’ll give it a try, too: could it be (judging by the age of her children: young) that her first marriage was an act of desperation on her part? That she was tired of waiting for the right person – for what, 20 years? – , and married the least repulsive of candidates present at the time? That marriage councilor Bob recalled would be very proud of her: she married out of pragmatic considerations, love was nowhere near.
Then she rushed to have children (maybe that possibility was her main concern in the first place?) and tried to adapt and adjust and compromise and settle in her loveless marriage. Suddenly – here follows whole paragraph on life’s sense of humor and joke that fate played on her – she does meet, finally, Mr.One (by the way, is his last name Partilla or Padilla, like the terrorist’s?).
Heartbreak, drama, etc etc her tears of pain turn into teas of happiness when she discovers her soulmate harbors the same feelings for her.
And so on, so on – in best tradition of romantic novels and soap operas.
No, seriously, the only mistake the couple made was to go for publicity – not because it would be bad for their children (children are versatile, especially at that age, besides nothing harmful happened to them, mentally of physically) – but because they gave a chance to all hypocrites, busybodies and moralizing twits in NYTimes’ audience to show their superiority and high standards. And they protest and point fingers…suspiciously “too much”, in my opinion.
Great link, ELC. Thanks.
Predation and ruthlessness are inherently erotic.
The couple in question is drunk with this.
It’s a human failing.
Most of us have experienced this at some point in our lives.
Not a good thing, perhaps. But, we’re sinners.
I bet both of these people vote for politicians that emphasize the collective. Yet if you found yourself in a stuck elevator with either one, they’d attempt to use your shoulders to stand on to get out the hatch as though you weren’t even a fellow human being, much less one of equally important standing in the world.
I call people like this the walking and breathing oblivious. They’re at present in a seeming pandemic state in America.
Forbes magazine tracked down the ex-husband and interviewed him for his side. It makes for riveting reading: http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/2010/12/21/jilted-ex-blasts-ny-times-over-vows-story-revisionist-history/
Whatever makes people in these situations think that someone who would leave one spouse would not leave another when something a bit more interesting came along?
Along these lines, I saw someone on Althouse comment, “When a man marries his mistress, he has just created a vacancy.”
I’m with Janet above. I give it maybe two years.
There’s and old bit of wisdom:
Show me a woman I can steal away from her husband, and I’ll show you a woman that can be stolen away from me.
Works for stealing men, too…
As for marrying for love. As noted, it depends on what love means. Sadly, many people mistake loving sex with a given person with actually loving that person.
The reactions to this story have been tedious.
Everybody likes to engaging in sanctimonious halo preening.
The truth of human experience is quite different.
It’s the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The same old principles apply
As time goes by
I don’t know what it is about people that makes them engage in such lavish halo-preening.
It’s bipartisan, that’s for sure.
I would be willing to bet that the majority of halo-preeners on this subject are guilty of the sin they deplore.
I’m not approving or disapproving what this couple did. Who in the fuck am I to approve or disapprove? What difference does it make?
As I said above, predation and ruthlessness are extremely erotic. That’s the animal side of our natures.
We are not entirely rational beings, thank God.
The world would be a deadly boring place if these people who are enjoying themselves with this display of sanctimonious halo preening actually did what they say other people ought to do.
Thankfully, we are all sinners.
Shouting Thomas: WTF?
Nobody’s halo-preening. We’re condemning bad behavior. Who the fuck are we to disapprove? We’re human beings, most of us are married, many of us have children.
It’s your attitude, in which distinguishing good from bad is somehow the sin, that has undermined societies throughout the western world.
Now, you may think the world would be boring if people honored their wedding vows and cared about their children. I expect you won’t find it so exciting and interesting when some woman dumps you.
It’s your attitude, in which distinguishing good from bad is somehow the sin, that has undermined societies throughout the western world.
I don’t have an attitude. I don’t have a political mission. I’m not interested in overmining or undermining the western world. I don’t represent some mode of thought.
Now, you may think the world would be boring if people honored their wedding vows and cared about their children. I expect you won’t find it so exciting and interesting when some woman dumps you.
None of this is up to me. Women dump boring men. I’m not boring.
I was speaking reality, with which you seem unacquainted. Life is not really about themes in magazines, TV and weblogs.
Wow.
Wonder if that’s the same “Shouting Thomas” from the blog that used to be called Roissy in DC? Certainly has the same arrogant attitude.
And of course Tatyana, with her fathers mean nothing bullcrap, and her curious indulgence of the most inane impulses. Honestly, if this woman was grown up, she’d have never chosen to marry this “boring” or whatever he was man in the first place. And if she did, and had some kids with him, she’d have been better to be a responsible mother and work to keep the family together.
Oh well, we reap what we sow. This is what society has done to marriage. Gay marriage will merely complete the process.
“Thankfully, we are all sinners.”
Oh my.
I can understand disgust at “lavish halo-polishing” certainly. But isn’t it simply another of the sins you are thankful for because sin makes life interesting?
By the time I was 12, I knew my father was serially unfaithful to my mother. They didn’t divorce until I was almost 30. My Mom filed, my Dad fought it.
About 5 years after they divorced, I finally realized they were still in love with each other.
My mother got her wish though. Dad learned his lesson and I know he has not strayed from his last two wives (he outlived one, still married to the second) and I doubt that he strayed from the ‘mistress’ he married soon after Mom divorced him.
And that was her wish – that they should marry and make each other miserable.
What I learned is that loyalty and fidelity are not synonymous and that love is not enough to sustain marriage. Of the three, I’ve begun to think loyalty is the most important.
Brad: this is a warning.
Please see this.
I’ve seen a few second marriages that do indeed seemed to be much better than the first marriages. But the kids definitely became messed up. The people in the second marriage are fulfilled, with a more suitable partner, but their kids did not do well at all. It’s pretty sad and a shame they couldn’t wait for the kids to be grown before they left their tiresome spouse who got on their nerves. I have a friend who is leaving her second husband, and maybe she should, her husband is a nice guy, but gone a lot, perhaps they have grown apart, however they have a adolescent son with special needs and it’s gonna be very hard on that boy. My friend says she has to leave her marriage now while she’s still attractive so she can find someone else. (This is her second marriage that she’s ending). Can’t help but think that the lack of any stigma at all regarding divorce, even if you have kids, is what is going to completely screw up this kid who has enough problems. But there’s no stigma at all. I say wait til the kids are grown before you bail. Yes I know how judgmental, how old fashioned. I calls ’em like I sees ’em.
julia NYC: “her husband is a nice guy, but gone a lot” is not the kind of miserable marriage I’m talking about. I’m talking about marriages that either involve constant fighting and/or abuse and/or substance problems and/or powerful incompatibility of mind/body/spirit.
The thing about the kids: have you compared those kids to miserably unhappy marriages where people stay together? Believe me, there’s a lot of screwed-up kids in those marriages, too.
My point is that, in a really bad marriage (not just a sorta bad one where people are bored, or all their needs aren’t perfectly met, or that sort of thing) children suffer no matter what you do, and they do not necessarily suffer any less in a really bad marriage that stays intact.
Children are not dumb. They wish mommy and daddy would stay together and be happy, but if mommy and daddy are always screaming at each other and at loggerheads, or really miserable, the kids know it and sometimes are okay with the upheaval of the divorce, just to have some peace.
I’d differentiate between the first and second cases myself there though. Whilst children might not like their parents having massive screaming matches or fist fights in the kitchen every other night I believe they’re rather more capable of putting up with them being quietly miserable than you think. I remember my parents marriage going through bad patches when I was small involving occasional loud arguments, slamming doors and crying jags and I still remember desperately wanting them to stay together, unhappy or not. You really don’t like the uncertainties involved in divorce at that age and just don’t want to deal with them at all.
Yes it’s true, marriages that are alarmingly destructive and frightening, with lots of disrespect surely must end, and would be better for children if they did end. I don’t know many folks who were in frightening marriages. I do know a lot of folks who split up because they were in frighteningly dull marriages, with great detriment to the kids. Because there’s no stigma anymore these boring, dullsville marriages are easier and easier to end. If there are no kids, hey go for it. But there seems to be more of a stigma these days if someone says there should be a stigma. Then people seem to think you are horribly narrow minded.
I know that it’s impossible to generalize about divorce, but it seems to me that people are a little too ready, on the whole, to put their own happiness before anything else. Of such things, greatness does not come. I have a pretty good marriage, but there have been a couple of times when I could have packed it all in, for various reasons. What kept me in place was thinking of all the people in my life (children, grandchildren, and others) who look to me for a steady influence in their lives. It would have devastated more than just my husband. So I stuck it out and I’m glad. Circumstances change, people change, and the benefits of staying have been far greater than the benefits of leaving, and no one has suffered.
That’s all.