Don and Vanessa: Just Don’t

Guest Post by Gayle

Don’t do it.  Don’t divorce.  Don’t shred your family and break your children’s hearts.  Those hearts, although eventually appearing healed, will reassert themselves farther up the road and will seek recompense in some malignant way.

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Don’t do it.  You are both attractive, young, and rich, so second marriages are highly probable.  Then your kids, who are already bearing the burden of their surname and the political swirls around their grandfather, will have two mothers, two fathers, and perhaps step siblings to contend with.  There will be two more sets of grandparents and two more extended families to grow accustomed to.  These are the added pressures your kids will experience unless you are both willing to remain single and devoted primarily to them during the remainder of their fleeting childhoods.

Don’t do it.  You may feel like you must flee your impossible spouse or you will go crazy.  The fact is, you two are bound together as long as your children live.  Because of those five, multiple birthdays, recitals, sports events, graduations, parties, weddings and funerals await that will require the cooperative participation of you two.  Each is guaranteed to have a painful edge of guilt accompanied by melancholy reflection about what might have been.

Don’t do it.  You are rationalizing that you can make this divorce work.  You look around at friends who seem to have survived divorce and are thriving, and so are the kids.  Yes, they have survived, but I assure you that they have not escaped their problems.  What they have discovered is that divorce is an exercise in problem exchange: one messy set gets traded for another.  Trust me on this.  You will be left wondering if the years of anguish associated with a torn family are worth the avoidance of waking up next to each other.  One day, maybe 20 years from now, the thought will flash through your mind that it would have been less expensive in a thousand different ways to work on your marriage instead of working out your divorce.

Don’t do it.  You “have it all,” and yet you are going to throw away the greatest treasure you possess, your lovely family.  It’s a priceless thing.  If you are willing, you can afford the finest counseling and therapy available, which could help you hang on to each other through these troubles.  Don, you are a child of divorce, so I assume you know about much of which I write.  Perhaps you recall the pain you experienced, or perhaps you put the pain away a long time ago.  Maybe the hurt is now reasserting itself, but that is not for me to know.

I do know children of divorce are statistically more prone to experience their own divorces, and I also know that second marriages are statistically less successful. Even though hopelessness has gripped you both, recall that you once liked each other quite a lot.  You cared enough to marry, establish a home, and bring five babies into it to love and rear.  Now you don’t like each other anymore and want to escape.  If you must escape, you owe it to yourselves to at least discover why you made such a poor choice in the first place.  This will give you some insight before you choose to marry again.

Don’t do it.  I too am a child of divorce (two of them) and have handled my malignant heart by going through two of my own.  Tragically, in our time this is a common tale and the source of significant cultural pathology.  We divorcers not only mutilate our own families, we also cause fissures in the wider culture as well.

Don’t do it.  I have watched some marriages go through extremely stressful times.  I suspect it is a normal stage of many marriages to get to the point where the spouses pretty much hate each other.  Some have courage and fortitude to get past the trouble and emerge on the other side more in love than they were before.  But it takes an enormous amount of work.  Perhaps you, Don and Vanessa, can find it in yourselves to embark on a similar journey.  If you choose otherwise, remember that there are some who will greatly benefit from your divorce – the lawyers.

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Iska Waran
Iska Waran

This presumes that Don Jr has some say in the matter. He probably doesn’t.

starfcker
BL
BL

Star- Mercer’s crew (over there) is geared toward the liberal crowd. Vanessa wanted to be a star, this is her big chance in the reality movie. She did have a small part in a film a while back.

She is a actor just like the rest of them. Is she interesting? IDK

Gayle
Gayle

The norm these days is a joint custody agreement specifying each parent has the kids for half the weekdays and every other weekend and alternate holidays, or some similar arrangement. Vanessa has no idea how complicated her life is going to become. Or maybe she is just going to give Don full custody. That seems like giving away a lot of power, though.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Don should just do his best to show the kids love, to support them and to let them know he still loves their mom even though she tore their family apart. That should help.

Quarterseven
Quarterseven

I never thought that I would agree that divorce is something that just shouldn’t be done. My parents got divorced and I am divorced. In the “upper ” class world I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, divorce was not unusual, but not yet as prevalent as it is today among all classes, that is when marriage even takes place. I’m 58 now, and it was my age group that were the first to be “allowed” to live with a man to whom one was not married, again, oddly enough it seems to have been more common among the girls of the “upper” class in the 70’s and 80’s. Of course one would have never admitted to your grandparents your living arrangements, it was clear they would have pronounced it as “living in sin.” When my parents got divorced, my paternal Grandmother never spoke to my Mother again, although they had been quite fond of each other. To my Grandmother, divorce was unacceptable, period, end of story. Family was everything to that generation(and the preceding generations)but the 60’s changed that, and everything else that had held society together since the beginning of time. Of course at the time we all thought our Grandparents were darling and so old fashioned, but they just didn’t get it that times had changed. I remember my Grandmother in frustration asked me when I was around 18 and arguing over what time I had to be home from some dance, ” Good Heavens, do you think that I have lived for 85 years and have not learned one thing about anything? Do you not understand that I was a young girl once too?” I’m embarrassed now to say that I truly thought at the time that no, she was 85 but those were “old” days and thus didn’t have any relevance to my life and no, I didn’t really think that she had ever been a young girl once, I mean obviously she had to have been, but not like I was! I could go on and on about the warnings that went in one ear and out the other as I sat around waiting until it was time to go out that night, but I’ll just get to the point, they, our Grandparents, were right. About everything. I am willing to bet that most people my age have noticed that when they died, all that mattered died with them. It was their generation that held our families together, despite the damage that their children had caused with divorce. They were the ones that gave us the sense of security and belonging. They were the ones that were always home and their home was always the same. It looked the same and smelled the same and lunch was at the same time every day and their rules and expectations were the same, good manners were not optional, cussing and/or taking the Lord’s name in vain was forbidden,at all family events attendance was required, no exceptions, and complaining or speaking ill of others was frowned upon at all times. There were boundaries, and children need boundaries, as does society need rules and boundaries, and looking back, that is what they were trying to tell us amongst the chaos of the 60’s and 70’s. Just looking at what a mess we are in now that they are no longer here proves that they were right, and we were stupid thinking we knew better, and I wish more than anything that they could come back for a day so I could tell them what fools we have been for ignoring what they said, and so they could straighten out this big fat disaster we have caused and make everything alright again.

Roberto de Medici
Roberto de Medici

If either of you are looking at legal problems, then that means you each will be called to testify against the other.

By staying together, you will strengthen each other, and no one can call you to testifiy against the other, when the children understand that you are testifiying against Daddy or Mommy, you will be shit in their minds, and you have no choice…stay together.

Jake
Jake

If you file for divorce all of your records become unobtainable by others, like Mueller and his circus.
Yet if still married they cannot be compelled to testify or divulge. Just a possibility. We likely won’t know until Mueller goes away.

Trumpeter

If you can’t put your kids first, why did you have kids?

Annie
Annie

Just hypothetical, but if you were getting daily death threats against you and your children because of who you were married to, what would you do?

Anonymous
Anonymous

A valid point for consideration, but only one among many.

It’s also quite possible she just doesn’t care bout the marriage and her family and children any longer and just wants out of it instead of doing the hard work of keeping it together.

Gayle
Gayle

I’m sure the circus that surrounds all the Trumps creates enormous stress. Fame is a curse, really. It can’t be helping a marriage that was probably already becoming fragile.

starfcker

Gayle, this is a terrific read, thanks for putting pen to paper. I do think Iska brings up some things you overlook. This behavior is incentivized on the woman’s side. It’s not just a marriage issue, it’s also a business issue. When you have no fault divorce, and the right to liquidate in business (same thing, really), it becomes very difficult to ever build anything lasting with a partner. When either partner has the ability to blow something up at any time for any reason, it’s a recipe for breakdown if you don’t have some really wise folks. Nassim Taleb just wrote a couple of articles Jim posted a couple weeks back about people having skin in the game. If you are the home wrecker, or the business wrecker, there needs to be a downside. A serious downside. And there’s not. Take away an ironclad prenup for a moment. If Don Jr blows up his marriage, his wife would get the house and enormous portion of his income, regardless of whether she moved in another man or not, until the last kid turns 18. And his access to his kids might be severely limited. They could be raised with another man in Don’s house. Now if Vanessa were to blow up the marriage, she would get an enormous portion of Don Jr’s income, regardless of whether she got another man or not, and she would get the house and the kids most of the time, and Don Jr. would probably have to pay her lawyers. Where is the downside for her? Does Don jr. seem like a drug addict? Do you think he beats the shit out of her? She has a privileged life that most human beings ever born on this Earth would envy. And she’s not smart enough to find a way to be happy. It’s hard to have any sympathy for her. She has six kids to keep her occupied and her emotions under control. She’s failing, obviously. If Don Jr is banging his hot secretary, and destroys his marriage, he needs to pay, no question. But there’s no out for the possibility that he was just working extra hard to bring home the bacon for his wife and kids. And lots of women don’t understand, that’s why men work. To provide for them.

starfcker

I’ve seen businesses 15-20 years in, really starting to hit their stride, when a spouse decides they are unhappy, and unwind the whole thing. The business could have never been where it was without the full effort of the two partners and their spouses. Those are big life bets to make. And because the law allows one person to bring it all down, that’s what happens to a twenty year effort by the other three people. It’s nuts.

Uncola

I saw the Grand Canyon once and it was almost too big for my eyes. Like your heart, Gayle. If I was them, this piece would give me pause. Sometimes these transitions can turn merely by a minor change of perspective. Thanks for the post.

Gayle
Gayle

You’re welcome. It just spilled out. With age and experience comes wisdom, sometimes knowledge you wish you didn’t possess.

Mongoose Jack
Mongoose Jack

Amen.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

By the time a woman actually files, it’s over. There’s nothing he can do and there’s probably nothing he could have done. She’s got her kids and presumably a chunk of money. She’ll be the toast of NY just by unloading on her ex-father in law. She doesn’t need Don Jr anymore. I’d bet $1,000 he didn’t want this, and there’s not one goddamn thing he can do about it.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

Look, I was not consulted when they chose to marry. I would have advised Don Jr to run. She surely knew, because women think far ahead, that she would divorce him one day.

I think that’s what Vixen said, they marry, have kids, file for divorce and keep the kids and get alimony to boot.

Donny would have done better to seek his Mom’s advice and not Dad’s. With is track record, Dad was not the matchmaker he tried to be.

TJF
TJF

Who the fuck are Don and Vanessa? This sounds a bit like a John Cougar song.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote
James M Dakin

Pretty pony philosophy is all well and good, but if divorce pays, that is what you get. And divorce pays. At least for some. I won’t point any fingers.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus

What’s this coyness about divorce? It’s completely rigged in favor of the woman, which is why it’s usually the woman who files, not the man.

David Allen
David Allen

Wise words well spoken.

BB

The Little Trump jr was smart enough get an unbreakable pre marriage contract or so I have read and it was approved by Trump Senior who didn’t want his son to do anything stupid . After all Trump Senior has been down that road a few times.

rhs jr
rhs jr

Depends on who the beautiful sexy spoiled selfish blond slut is but my experience would point the finger at a feminist. But whoever is most guilty, whatever property she gets will wear out and whatever money she gets will run out and whatever good looks she has will turn into fat and wrinkles and no man will ever love her again like her Prince Charming and whatever family she has will shatter like a dropped wineglass and there will be no sweet gatherings with the kids and grand kids. Enjoy your Divorce sweetheart because that is all you will really get and thank you for the heartache and hard years you gave me that made me so strong.

Flying Monkey
Flying Monkey

Jordan Peterson on divorce.

Hauptmann
Hauptmann

I know the author means well and this is valuable counsel BUT as a child I’ve lived with a failed, corrosive marriage and know what effect it had on two of us in the family: my mother and myself. Some marriages should be ended and accepted as the mistakes they were and let life go on. No, it’s not perfect but acrimony, cold distancing, corrosion, are much worse. Mistakes are made in life and corrections should be accepted as part of that same life.
And, please, the melodrama of “five babies” is just a little too much.

Annie
Annie

I Couldn’t find a more recent picture, this one is from 2016. But the 5 kids are pretty young.
comment image

Horndoggle B. Fapsalot
Horndoggle B. Fapsalot

The alimony and child support might have been worth it to hit that at least 5 times.

Gayle
Gayle

You are right about corrosive marriages and the damage they do. I’ve seen that up close and personal, too. That’s another post, though.

Some kids are highly resilient to bad marriages and divorce, some are not. I wrote my piece because not much in the mainstream culture addresses the reality of divorce’s aftermath on all concerned.

downeast hillbilly
downeast hillbilly

From my own hard-won wisdom, and knowledge I wish I didn’t have . . . Malignancy grows in any soil. Divorce is but one. A marriage that never should have been is another. The cure is light and air.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

Outstanding piece, Gayle. I was literally cheering you on by the third refrain of ‘don’t do it’.

My biggest problem with Trump was and remains his serial family wrecking. I can’t think of many things in this world more damaging than to leave your wife and children to start out a new family regardless of their economic circumstances and it appears that the proverbial chickens have come home to roost.

Sad.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Thanks, H.

In my own puny defense, at least I didn’t do anything stupid until my kids were basically on their own. They were still traumatized, though.

Gayle
Gayle

Anon above was I.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus

She’s undoubtedly the family wrecker here, let’s see who files with what.

James the Wanderer

I agree, but I suspect there are some exceptions.
(1) When one spouse or the other becomes an addict
(2) When one spouse or the other becomes mentally ill
(3) WOSOTO abuses someone repeatedly physically, sexually, emotionally
(4) WOSOTO becomes obsessed with money, and the other cannot earn enough under any circumstances
(5) WOSOTO joins a cult, whether religious, cultural or ideological, and the other cannot / will not
There are probably others, but it boils down to people changing, in bad ways, and losing that which made the marriage worthwhile in the first place. Minor idiosyncrasies can be tolerated or ignored, but if your significant other is in your face about something day in day out all day all night, how are you supposed to deal with that? And addiction, psychosis, abuse, money, cults, all are like that; you get no relief, until it ends.
Life is too short to spend it in hell.

Gayle
Gayle

Some divorces are necessary for sure. No argument from me there.

Ottomatik
Ottomatik

The war rages, I am sure her actions have some serious outside influence.

BL
BL

She used to be Leonardo DiFaglio’s girlfriend. Maybe Leo has wooed her away from Donny.

nkit
nkit

Been there, done that. Why is divorce so expensive? Because it’s worth it.

The Modern Chronicler
The Modern Chronicler

Gayle, this was an outstanding piece; heartfelt, verbose, and powerful. Thank you not only for writing it and for sharing it, but also for your transparency and vulnerability in admitting you yourself were a child of divorce and that it affected you negatively.

Posts like these are not the “norm” on TBP because most articles are about politics, the economy, history, and current events. But as great as TBP already is, your excellent essay made it even better.

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