I don’t have cable so I didn’t watch the show last night, but I did read up on the worst-kept secret via CNN.com and my friends’ Facebook walls. Yes, John and Kate plus 8 are now 8 plus Kate, and Jon on alternating weekends and holidays.
Look, I’m the first to realize we probably shouldn’t care about these trivial TV storylines when the global economy’s still circling the toilet bowl and Iranians are being shot in the streets, but these are real people going through the same life altering ending that so many families face now.
Unlike a lot of people, I don’t believe that ending (or never starting) the reality show would have saved the Gosselins’ marriage. True, you never really know what goes on between a couple and as much as we saw on the show, there's a lot that we were never privy to—a whole history and lots of private time without the cameras—but it’s clear from the beginning that Jon and Kate had issues. Not insurmountable issues, necessarily, but certainly none that were born of the show or their newfound celebrity.
No, I say that the Gosselins fell into the pattern that so many couples find themselves long before the show hit the air. The nagging wife and the cowed husband, both resentful of the other for the roles they were forcing on each other. It’s the chicken and the egg...Kate wouldn’t be such a nag if Jon weren’t such a jackass. Jon wouldn’t be such a jackass if Kate weren’t such a nag.
Papa Gosselin, who appears to be the one calling it quits, put it this way.
"I was too passive. I just let her rule the roost and do whatever she wanted," Jon said on his marriage. "Now I finally stood up on my own two feet, and I'm proud of myself."
Kate’s take is somewhat different.
"I'm not very fond of the idea, personally," Kate said. "But I know it's necessary because my goal is peace for the kids."
The truth of course is that they’re both to blame, and so it would have taken their mutual commitment to rebuild their marriage. It’s a decision many couples make in the course of their relationship—to stick it out and make it work, change and be changed, and above all forgive the past and move forward together.
Other couples, like the Gosselins (and in the interest of full disclosure, like me and my ex, too), never get that far.
I wonder, though, how thin is the line between making it and walking away? When I look at the Gosselins—at least what I’ve been allowed to see—I don’t see a marriage that’s irreparably broken. I see a pretty damn normal one (minus the cameras and the eight rugrats), with some typical unhealthy patterns and stupid infighting, that just needs some work and reprioritization. Frankly, it’s what I see when I look at a lot of the couples around me too.
And no, I’m not saying that everyone should stay together—obviously some people really are so abusive, co-dependent, dysfunctional, or just poorly matched that they really are better off on their own. But for those with more manageable conflicts, what’s the real difference between couples who stay together and couples who fall apart? All things being even, and after talking to lots of friends and their spouses, it seems to come down to the eye of the tiger and just having the will to survive—together—in or out of the spotlight.
Image via Ursula Vernon