AnnieDoodle, I'm not aware of Robin having any psychological degree (or any college degree, either, but not sure). Jay is (or was, not sure if he still is, given how much he's on the show) in law school in Texas...no formal psychological training either.

Oh my friggin' heck. First a repeat of the asshat racist guy and then the Robin and Phil show? Are they trying to make me gouge my eyes out? I'm totally suing for mental duress. This programming schedule is reckless endangerment. At least they can pay me for the Zoloft I'm going to have to go on.

BWAH!!!! I nearly died when Phil says "Over to you, Robin" and then she does an intro -- mind you, reading the teleprompter with all the liveliness of a corpse!

Be sure to watch DP next week when his gardener gives some advie to a group of young moms. Then, stay tuned as his old first gym teacher talks to some people who think that they are too fat. Then don't miss the show where they guy who bags his groceries teaches couples how to put the romance back into their marriges.

My point? If you know the guy then that qualifies you to be on TV and giving people advice.

Is that what she's calling herself on the show?? FYI, ANYONE can call themselves a "therapist". You don't have to go to school or get a degree to be one. That's the first thing we learn as a psychology major. It's amazing how many people are conned by these ill-qualified shrink-wannabes.

I think Robin has a Bachelors and maybe a Masters as well because I think I remember Dr. Phil talking about how poor they were in graduate school. Of course, he may have been using the sexist version of the Marital We and since as we know Robin follows behind Phil with her hand on his shoulder as he "leads their family" anything is possible.

Dr. Soap, she may have degrees, but in WHAT?!! I've never heard of her having degrees in psychology and I got the impression - I could be wrong, of course - that Robin worked while DP was in graduate school. He's talked about how poor they were so I can't see how they were both in grad school at the same time since they also had Jay early on in their marriage, I think...

After seeing yesterday's show, I finally figured out what bugs me about Robin besides her stretched out face and neck skin. It's her head, it's HUGE. She also has a pointy chin, which is enhanced by her slight underbite, and she presses her tongue against her teeth. It's annoying when Kelly Clarkson does it, and it's annoying when she does it. Stop doing that people, it's annoying!

I finally caught the "Ask Dr. Shill & Robin Show" yesterday for the first time and I have to say watching Robin is like watching the surgery shows on Discovery Channel. Grotesque, yet I can't look away.

She is so animatronic, it is like she was interfacing with the teleprompter when dispensing her pre-packaged Downhome Folksy Advice to the spineless woman in the house of men.
I had to (smallbarfinmymouth) agree with Phil, that you teach people how to treat you. If that woman goes around just picking up after those guys etc. (and why are healthy grown men still living at home, or were they still in school?) they are not going to have any reason to do it themselves.

Robin's sexist "I gotta have gurrrrrl time, time to be a gurrrl, gurrrly tub-flowers-candle-bath gurrrrl makeup-flowers-hearts and pretty ponies gurrrrrl" time really bugged. Why can't she just say: "I need to make time for myself" ?

Also, I bet if she has to fart at night, she gets out of bed, puts on her robe and slippers, goes to the bathroom and shuts the door, passes her gas, flushes the toilet, sprays potpourri, refreshes her lipstick and returns to bed without ever letting on that she has performed such a beastly deed. Because we all know girls don't fart.

I can't imagine her own talk show will last more than half a season. Remember Oprah's bestest friend Gayle's talk show? Mmhmm.

She probably also turns the water on in the bathroom until it's running REALLY loudly so no one can hear the fart whereas you just know that Dr. Phil probably routinely lets out farts at inappropriate moments and that those farts that can blow holes in walls and wipe out a village.

I'd love to watch the two of them have sex, I'll bet it's REALLY funny.

Do you suppose Dr. Phil has some sort of Hog Mating Harness he uses so he doesn't crush her?

There is not enough eye bleach on the planet.

If you google "Robin McGraw bio" the most you come up with is the official DP page for her, which goes no further than to call her the woman behind the man blah-blah-blah-wifey-cakes. No mention of any credentials, which is kind of funny to me since, although I'm proud to be Mr. H's wife, what I mention first is my career stuff. Unless she went for the MRS degree majoring in something like dark ages poetry or the sociology of television snarkery in the 21st century.

It's repeat day. Can I just say that I would pay Cash Money for a husband who wants me no matter what size I am. That woman has issues! God. I've had boyfriends tell me to stop eating chocolate cake b/c I was getting chunky. At 5' 6" and a size 4. <biggest eyeroll ever>

Sing it. You know, this is a pet peeve of mine, too. Now, I am one of the girliest girls who ever did girl, and I love the cosmetics and the hair products, I love pretty clothes and manicures and pedicures, and I love long hot sweet-smelling baths surrounded with candles.

However, I cannot STAND women who feel compelled to announce, loudly and constantly, what gurrrrrrrrrls they are, and giggle giggle giggle, gurrrrrrly things are my favorite things, all I have on my mind are All Things Gurrrrrrl.

Yuck. Do these women think that makes them one iota more feminine than someone who doesn't carry on that way? Most of my closest friends throughout my life have been men, and I know that these men usually cannot stand women like Robin. They just hate that whole mindset, and certainly that plastic look. Let's face it, hetero men enjoy we hetero women when we look pretty and smell nice. Our skin is soft and they like that (seeing how they would use brillo pads to bathe if they could get away with it). They do NOT like hearing the gory details of our bathing and grooming routines.

BWAH-haHA!!!

Professor Soap: You just made me conjure up the image of Dabney Coleman in "9 to 5" when he got kidnapped by the office ladies. Eerie resemblance there=Comedic gold!!

complicatedgirl: Like you, I also enjoy being a girl, but I also don't run out of bed in the middle of the night if there is a bubble coming to the surface! Sometimes, I even earn a hearty congratulations from the Mister. Being together for over 13 years does have its benefits! heheh

It's actually a pretty big deal when a couple can break through THE FART BARRIER together.

I hate to admit this but as progressive and expressive as I can be I find it extremely distasteful to fart in the company of others or have them fart in my company.

My sister once entered my car and farted without thinking twice about it and I nearly swooned from shock!

I know that our alternatives are limited, I mean it's gotta come out eventually, but it just seems so barbaric unless you're with a spouse and you're both alone together.

I'll say this about Dr. Phil and his show, he gives me ample reminder why women everywhere have so many reasons to loathe men.

Gak! Those are the women who actually enjoy baby showers. If there's anything more annoying and monotous than 20 women gathered to talk about breast feeding and one brand of stroller vs. another, I don't know what it is.

Professor Soap, I have a friend who actually does her daily 'duty' at work so that her husband will never catch the odor of a fouled bathroom. She also turns on the water to drown the sound of her occasional foray into fartsville. I don't get it, she can let her husband watch her give birth, but can't fart in his presence.

You know, my supervisor at work is a total sexist. I mean, he's actually said things to me like, "Women and children think this ..." and "If women don't have a man around, they never get the oil changed in their cars because they're not mechanically inclined." Yeah, the guy's a douche. The point in saying this is that I always wondered what kind of a woman could put up with him.

Well, finally I met his wife this week and ... I swear if she was not Robin's doppleganger without the botox (it's just not fashionable yet out here in the Midwest -- ha ha). I almost fell over! She had that same slightly startled expression on her face and was dressed just so, even though she was just coming from home to pick him up from work. It was crazy.

So, I think my point is, I wonder if a lot of men like Dr. Shill mostly know women like that -- the "I'm so guuuuurrrrrlllllly" kind and it just reinforces their ideas about what women are. Just a thought that came into my head.

Hexele:

Sorry, I should've clarified. A horse and a donkey are considered different species because they can't produce viable offspring (offspring that aren't sterile). His niece and her husband are the same species since they can produce viable offspring. That's why I thought the analogy didn't work; he should've used different breeds instead of different species. Reproductively speaking, a mule is actually closer to a CatDog (Can I have one? Cause that would be cool!) since both would be sterile whereas the cockapoo can produce viable offspring.[/comparative anatomy mode]

JenD:

Heh, maybe that's how her teeth got the way they are.

Robin? Sugar isn't poison. If your pharmacist says it is, check the piece of paper on the wall to make sure it didn't come out of a Cracker Jack box. Though when Robin said she had a box of Hot Tamales in her hand, I thought she meant real tamales. Mmmm... tamales... *drool*

And EWWWWWWWWWWWWW, El DeMarge!

It just occured to me that Dr. Phil's son probably looks terrible in pleats.

No, I apologize. I've read enough of your posts to know you require no schooling from me!

Weighing in on the whole Stepford Robin guurrlly thing -- I've always heard it said there's a lid for every pot. I remember watching Hillary Clinton and thinking "she made her deal and she's living with it". I doubt she'd be where she is today without holding with that strategy. Maybe Robin has worked her deal: be the stand-by-your-man gal, look decorative and nod approvingly at whatever he says, and you get a McMansion, Juicy couture, and maybe your own show.

Have you noticed how much of his staff is female?

Hmmmm, maybe I need to go on the Dr Phil show. I have been married for nearly four years and I still can't fart in front of my husband. Do you think he would take a letter like that seriously? Probably not because, as other posters have mentioned, Robin has probably never farted in front of him.

I work on campus, and in my office there are students and full time staff. I am one of the students, and when I first started working there, I expected to meet some guys as well as girls. Well, not one guy works there. There's about 10 students and all of them are girls. The person in charge of the students is male, and I think it's a power trip being the boss of all these girls. Especially since I get the feeling that he doesn't get any attention from girls outside the office.

DP probably has to be the alpha male, and likes having girls obey him.

In other news, I thought you guys would enjoy this.

Starting with Freshly Groud Coffee's first post about gurrrrl stuff until right here I have never laughed so hard at a Twoper page (barring Miss Alli's recaps of course) so just don't yall make fun of my degree goals:

Ok, the neanderthal jerks on today's show just made my blood boil!

But, you know, what did their wives expect? Its not like their enlightened caring husbands turned into selfish boors at the second that the rugrat popped out! Their wives must have already had an inkling that they were married to self-involved dicks. I would like to see what happened if Mr. Borokat dropped off junior at the babysitter so he could go enjoy a leasurely breakfast, I would tear him up!

The one guy said that he did not want kids and that's all well and good, but he's got one now, and his unwillingness to step up and do what needs to be done makes me hate him, not be really thrilled w/ the wife for procreating w/ such a loser, and pity the child. THIS is how socially malformed children who become adults devoid of character are created.

And the guy who would not change a diaper? I don't think that there would be any asking. He is a parent of this child, equally responsible for bringing this child into the world. Change the diaper, asshole.

I have such a distaste for traditional gender roles.

As much as this show gets on my nerves, I'm mad we didn't get the show today because of stupid crappy basketball. I'd rather watch Maury than basketball!

We got it here but they moved it into Guiding Light's 10 am lot because they are re-synchronizing the GL Broadcast so that the same episode airs in every part of the country on the same day rather then what was going on before which was that GL was a day ahead and a day behind. I'm just hoping the two-day delay doesn't affect the Canadian day ahead broadcast of Young & The Restless because that discrepancy saves all US viewers from the agony of Friday afternoon cliffhangers.

I dislike rigid gender roles too, Borokat, because it (Usually!) allows both sexes to shirk their full range of personal development and responsibilities; it keeps men emotionally crippled/too powerful and women emotionally infantile/too underpowered.

At any point in time, both partners must be prepared to be the community liaison, parent, professional, and provider if the household and family are to run well and be prepared for all contingencies. Otherwise, the minute one of them goes down, the other is fucked!

So true, Professor Soap. So true. And something that a lot of people overlook. In the end, it's not good for anybody.

Word on the rigid gender roles. I'm a chick and I know how to change my oil, change a tire, and do basic maintenance on my car. I think it's important to know how to do these things because I shouldn't rely on a man to do them for me. It's part of being an adult.

JenD:

I just got a mental picture of DP with a harem. *shudders*

Ha! Ha! DP compared Jay to broccoli! Comedy gold!

May I say: HELL Yeah!

The Mister and I share the breakdown of the most unpleasant household chores thusly: He truly loathes changing the litterbox, I truly loathe going down to the cellar to do laundry (the creepy wispy cellar-spider factor). So he does the clothes, and I do the cats. I do a lot of the other house stuff, since he works outside the home and I work at home. But none of it ALL falls on me. I ain't nobody's servant.

Hubby saw that loser-father show the first time it aired and couldn't believe what selfish, weeny a-holes the guys were. I am so proud of him!

When our daughter was born I was expected to attend a crash course in baby bathing. I looked at mr. Royvac and said "I'm tired" He said "no problem" and off he went. The nurse gave me a real dirty look, like that's not the fathers job. I was really pissed at that look.. It turns out my husband was a real hit and all the other mothers fell in love with him. He's been a hands on father ever since. Housework not so much, but it doesn't bother me because I don't shovel or mow.

I wish the SAHMs that I know could take this attitude. My husband is doing dishes right now.

Re: todays rerun show about the women who wanted to wed. The pre-med girl's mom annoyed the crap out of me. She acted like her daughter was a total moron, with her patronizing speech about accidents happening. How the hell she can have faith in her daughter to practice medicine but not to use birth contorl is beyond me. I wanted to hand her a copy of Persuasion and tell her to mind her own business.

We had a rerun today of the guy who was 500 lbs. and lost a bunch of weight but still had a "fat guy" attitude. He was too shy to ask a woman out; he couldn't even bring himself to talk to a woman he considered pretty.

I don't know what in the fuck Dr. Shill was thinking (as usual), but I think he did more harm than good. Does the man have no concept of what it means to be shy? It's not something that is easily overcome, no matter how much hee-lair-eee-us berating you do to the poor victim. It is especially embarrassing to men if they are shy around women. They see their "playa" counterparts getting all the tail, and nine times out of ten, treating women really badly. The shy guy would treat a nice woman right, if he could only work up the nerve to chat one up.

Rather than be sensitive about this man's shyness, Phil played off the poor bloke for laughs (something he does increasingly often) and embarrassed the poor guy further. Then there was the "hidden" camera that showed how shy the poor man was in a bar-type situation. Real helpful there, Shill. The coup de grace, however, was when Shill brought in these two bar skanks from the "hidden" footage into the audience to tell the shy guy how cute they thought he was. Sounds good, right? Not. For a shy person, that is just about the most mortifying thing in the world, to be put on the spot like that. The poor man looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.

Mr. Complicated is a very shy man, so I know what I am talking about. He had to go the "just friends" route with me before becoming my boyfriend, because he was so apprehensive about making a move and possibly being rejected. He was madly in love with me (no arrogance there, it's true), but every time he went to tell me, he lost his nerve.

PissyMissy:

Same here! Gee, I wonder why her daughter's GPA slipped a few points? Could it be because the classes get harder as you go along? My GPA slipped a bit when I took Organic Chemistry, but I didn't complain. I was relieved to get out of that course with a C.

DP's "law" that you must be 27 to get married is just stupid. It's just some randomly picked chronological age. I'd say people's maturity should be a bigger factor than their birthday.

Awww Complicatedgirl, sweet story, sounds like you got a good one.

Re the "wait till 27" thing. Hasn't DP been reading all the recent articles about the infertility problems young women are facing because they waited too long to start families? Like many of them, I used to think that as long as you didn't wait past forty you'd be fine. Fact is, your chances of getting pregnant goes down hill from mid-twenties on and lots of young couples who sensibly waited until every last duck was in a row are being sadly let down.

I thought it was obvious that the 27 year old girl's problem was that she had given her last two boy friends way too much time to either cook or get out of the kitchen. Four years and five years? If I had marriage as a goal and the guy didn't pop the question after a year or so he would have been politely shown the door so I could get on with my mission.

Percolata


That was really bothering me about Shilll's attitude with the 27 year old. I could feel her pain, I was 26 when I got married and already worried about having enough time to wait a year or two and still have time to have the three kids we want with some decent spacing in between. It was so damn male of him to say "you know you're talking to a 53 year old?", like it was insane to worry about getting older and lessening the opportunity to accomplish one of her major life goals. Sure she was talking about getting old to someone 30 yrs older, but then if DP decided he wanted another Philet or two he could dump Robin and find a 22 year old with no worries about fertility whatsoever. Ugh!

C-Girl


ITA. Seems to me he would have been better off advising FFG (Formerly Fat Guy) to meet women at work, in church, at activities he enjoys, away from the bar scene where he is unlikely to find fulfillment anyways. Mr. Pissy, besides being anything but actually pissy, is also very shy and self-concious. Can't imagine him meeting a beer in a bar let alone a girl. We met in school and were friends for years before he got around to kissing me for the first time. Hate, hate, hate that DP thinks everyone should be just like him instead of giving them realistic options for thier personality and temperment.

Did he really say that? Yikes! I got married when I was 22. Luckily, I'm only 26 now so I still have time to get a divorce and do it again the right way next year. Thank goodness for Dr Phil, otherwise, how else would I know that I'm living my life all wrong?

The thing is though, statistically speaking, marriages entered into at or beyond 28 (And especially at and beyond 30!) have a MUCH higher survival rate!

I attribute it to the factors of people achieving a certain level of development and becoming aware of the needs of others as well as their own; people being less selfish; people usually being more established; and people having had a chance to try and out many people in relationships including the person they are with.

The fact is, the younger you get married (Especially if you rush into it!) the greater the odds it won't work-out.

Now, of course, there are successful exceptions to this statistical tide, but on this one statistic, Dr. Phil really isn't lying or pulling stuff out of his ass.

Anyway, most women still can conceive fairly easily in their late 20's and early 30's.

Obviously, if you want to play it safe, conceive closer to the late 20's side of 30 and remain vigilant about your hormonal and ovarian functionality.

There does seem to be a "damned if you do/don't" to when a woman gets married that I didn't realize. Of course, neither did DP, and he's a "doctor". (Generalization coming) I tend to believe that people are not as mature before 25 or so to handle the responsibilities of marriage; however, women do have the "clock" issue to face as well.

I know that the people who write in for help skew female, but it would have been interesting to get some male perspective on the issue. Whether it was men who were avoiding marriage totally or men who are just as "desperate" for wedlock as the women (they do exist).

Instead, he brings on a couple of girls and mocks them, thinking they just want a big party and a fancy dress. Only the first girl came across that way; if he had given her a chance to talk, she probably would have better articulated what she wanted. But the guests just seem to be props for DP's comedy stylings anyway.

Well it's just sooo much easier for DP to look smart, mug at the camera/audience, and engage in his usual "helpful" sadistic pot-shots when he's dealing with stupid and inarticulate people who have no self-esteem, no self-awareness, and no ability to think for themselves or stand-up to him for shitting on them before a live studio audience.

Of course, the very demo(graphic) likely to completely believe in DP 100% are those who aren't with it enough for the aforementioned reasons and are also unable to critically analyze him necause they haven't taste-tested other self-help gurus.

I would love it if DP actually had to try and stand-tall...

(No doubt with Robin behind him with her hand on his shoulder... God, what a sexist image that is... fool... a man and woman [In the case of heterosexual couples and there are most certainly other kinds!] should co-lead a family together!)

... against strong, smart, and self-aware guests and clinicians who could rip him a new one.

As much as I think she's disturbed (which is why she's behaved like such a slut) and something of narcissist (which is why she's oblivious to the needs and feelings of those around her), at least Marital Therapist Stacy had the chutzpah to stand up to him! Of course, doesn't it just figure that on a conservative sexist fire-trap like DP that the educated woman of strength would also be a Narcissistic Homewreckin Ho? As if to say, beware virtuous SAHW, this is what happens to good women with just a little feminism!

I think it's interesting how when they brought that family aboard Dr. Phil told them that he was only taking on this family because they were children involved. The implication was that the way Stacy had conducted herself was so amoral that she was not worthy of his or anyone else's time or help, treatment, compassion, or understanding.

Does this fool ever tire of trying to prove to us what a hero and dominant alpha male he is?

It's sickening!

Professor Soap:

According to The US Census (chart on page 16 of the pdf file), the lifetime projected percentages divorced from first marriage are as follows:

• Men 25 years old - 53%
  
  
  
• Men 30 years old - 50%
  
  
  
• Men 39 years old - 49%
  
  
  
• Women 25 years old - 52%
  
  
  
• Women 30 years old - 47%
  
  
  
• Women 35 years old - 44%

There aren't vast differences in the numbers and risk. DP makes it seem like you're 20% more likely to divorce unless you wait until hit your 27th birthday.

If you want to really make sure your marriage will last, wait til you're 60 to get married. The likelihood of divorce is only 36% for men and 32% for women.

timeonmyhands:

BWAH!

Professor Soap:

Ugh! That's what burned me about the working mom vs SAHM episode. Why is there need for competition? If a woman is happier working outside the home and the children are taken care of, how is it someone else's business?

I agree with this to some extent. I knew a lot of my friends who got married straight out of college and now, a decade later, are either divorced or should be (staying together for the kids or out of poverty). I myself was engaged at 21, but I broke it off right before I met Mr. Complicated. Even then, we got married when we were 25 years old.

Does that bode badly for our marriage? I don't know. Mine seems pretty strong to me, but anything could happen, I suppose.

The thing I find interesting about these statistics is, the older the people entering into the marriage are, the more likely that there are at least a couple of children entering the union as well. I thought the the "blending" of families was one of the most stressful events that could take place in a marriage.

One more thing: regarding Slutty Stacy the Therapist...she may be an amoral tramp, but she's a very intelligent, very articulate amoral tramp who could give Shill a real run for his money. She has been through MFT training, so she knows all the shrink-speak and I think she sees right through him. I don't like what she has done with her life as far as husbands and children go, but I do enjoy her unmasked skepticism for Shill. It's written all over her face. And Shill knows it. Why do you think he insists so loudly that he's on the verge of "dropping" the family? "Not committed 110%," my ass. More like, "doesn't worship at my feet and take every little bon mot of mine as the Fifth Gospel."

Re: marriage

What if you just don't find the right person until you're in your late 20s or 30s? Finding the perfect person to be with isn't that easy for a lot of people. I'm 19, and I have a strong feeling I'm going to be one of those women who won't get married or have children until late in my life. I defintely wouldn't want to pop out a few babies now considering I haven't finished college and don't have a career.

I think the thing about marrige is that there is no 100% guarunteed right or wrong way of doing it. No one can give you an exact right age or time to do tell you exactly who you should marry. There's no perfect way of predicting whos marriage will work and whos wont. Dr Phil however seems to think otherwise. He seems to think that he has all the answers and that if you do things other than the way he thinks is right, then you are doing them all wrong. There is no in between with him, only black and white. It's very annoying.

Word word word word WORD to all y'all. Don't know where to start quoting!

I got married at 19, divorced at 26. A so-called "starter marriage", no kids, no mortgage, no muss no fuss. Then a long relationship, no marriage, that ended when his DSM IV PDs (personality disorders) went from being mere quirks to full fledged pathological behavior. We're still friends, believe it or don't.

Then married at 37, baby at 38. I'm now 39 with a 4-month old. So yes, your fertility drops remarkably, and you might have difficulty getting pregnant beyond 35, but then again maybe not! It doesn't look like we'll be able to have more than one, since I had vicious blood pressure problems and have been advised to wait 18 months. That's a bit old for me mentally if not physically.

timeonmyhands: what you said. It's conceivable that my first marriage could have worked. A lot was stacked in our favor, even though we were both hideously young. I don't necessarily regret that marriage. I regret more in the second relationship: not educating myself to PDs out of sheer ignorance until things became freakish.




Ah, but Professor, why don't you? Because he always puts his hand-picked experts in the audience, below him physically, as if they just "happened by" and wanted to see the show. They never get more than a couple of sentences. (Robin gets more air time.) And they are usually edited to show when they're nodding along with DP. (TWoP has made me so much more aware of editing!) And remember that DP has said on multiple occasions that he approves all the editing.

He much prefers guests that are in crisis and oftimes pretty clueless who just needed the great and powerful Shill to kick their butts. ("Our children all sleep in the room with me and my husband and even in the same bed. I can't understand why we don't have much of relationship anymore!" "My husband had cats before we got married and now that we're married he wants to keep the cats!" "I don't approve of birth control for teenagers but my daughter dates and talks back and my marriage is a crappy example and now she's pregnant."

Uh, duh? Du-uhh?

DP's message board started a new thread a few weeks ago called 1st things 1st which is "dedicated to recovery from a fatal disorder' (fat). It already has over 3000 posts in it's own unique I'll-never-find-mine-again way. The opening post is all about using the seven keys, no arguing, blah blah and this:

Something about this really angrys up my blood. It's like saying that if you're down in the dumps and not feeling real up-beat today, we don't want to hear from you. This explains why most of my DP posts are deleted. Too negative, not cheerleaderly enough. Thank God for TWOP where whiney negative bitches are tolerated if not exactly celebrated. Heart smiley to you all!

I've been lurking for months and thanks for all the laughs! The PTB don't like me on the Dr. Phil board and most of my posts don't pass muster. I wonder if that's because I can spell. hmmmmm.

Anyway, thought you might be interested in this: http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/03/19/tv.ps...y.ap/index.html

And I'd say it's about time people started paying attention to this psuedo doctor with his quick fix psychology.

Okay, the best thing about the CNN article? The extremely unflattering headshot of The Man. (I had read the story sometime last week on the AP newswire, but the headshot is totally worth revisiting it....)

Hee!! It's funny cause it's true. I don't know why, but I've been laughing at that for far too long. Thank you.

DP is an idiot (not that we didn't know). Different times for marriage work for different people, plain and simple. The majority of my friends are getting engaged/married/pregnant at this point (I'm 21), and that's fine for them. That just happens to be my personal nightmare right now. Not forever, but for now.

Double Hee to the cat line! People like that always say; I don't want anything bad to happen to the animal, I just want him to find it a good home. Like folks are just lining up for middle-aged cats when even fluffy little kittens have to be put down every day. I can just see someone taking my fat, old, grouchy dog - hey wait where does she get that? I bet she wouldn't be allowed to post on the DP board either.

Oooh thanks for the CNN link, Tallulahbabe.

That was a good point.

First of all, ComplicatedGirl, your odds are greatly improved since you and the Huz took eachother for an extended test drive and married after the neurochemical honeymoon was over. If you can make it past year 7-8 stay committed to understanding and nourishing eachother as you grow and change and continue to meet one another's needs you should do OK.

The Mega High, which is created by extremely elevated in-love hormones doesn't last beyond year 4. At that point, a relationship has to stay together for reasons other then the evolutionary biology which powered it to begin with.

And people are marrying later and later and having children later and later. My own stepmother did not marry until 40 and then proceeded to become naturally pregnant at 42, 44, and 46. The point is that many women (either by choice or because that's the cards that fate dealt them) are braving a New Frontier of delayed Motherhood. Other good news is that the technology to freeze eggs has almost been perfected so soon women will be able to put away their Grade A best when they are younger.