Dear Heather,
When I saw your blog post come across my Facebook feed this morning, I have to say I was surprised. My initial reaction was to wonder how a lesbian couple had managed to raise a child with a prejudice against their own community. But after reading your letter, I have come to understand your position a bit more. However, I continue to disagree with your logic.
I’ll start by introducing myself. I am 19 years old, and my parents are divorced. They divorced when I was 7 years old after a few years of chaos that I did not fully understand until much later. Past kindergarten, I grew up in two separate households with very different rules, structures, and procedures. I was a classic case of split custody.
I know that divorce is a very traumatizing experience for children....
Lifestyle
Dear Mom and Dad,
Only now after my own marriage has ended can I come to understand what it is like and what it must have been like for you to have made the decision to end yours.
In some ways my story seems to mirror yours while in other ways it is as different as can be.
All I know is that I really tried. I tried to be perfect, I tried to be good. I tried to make you happy. I tried to make him happy. In fact I tried to make everyone happy. The only problem was that deep down I harbored the biggest secret of them all. Although I smiled from ear to ear, I was miserable. I was so disconnected from myself and therefore from my life and everyone around me. I was struggling. I was heavy, I had shut myself off so much that I couldn’t feel a thing. I couldn’t even feel those sweet...
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Dear Elayne Angel,
In 2014, you experienced something approximately 50% of married couples in the United States face: divorce. Whatever the personal and relationship reasons for that, they aren’t really the business of the public. I greatly respect your right to privacy and the expectation that divorce proceedings in the most general sense should be left to those parties involved and not a matter of public spectacle. However, you decided to marry an activist. And not just any activist, The Man with a Pussy, the individual who’s made it his mission share his story in an effort to advocate for radical gender acceptance and Respect by way of sexually empowering self expression, Buck Fucking Angel.
So when you go to court and petition the United States government to declare that someone...
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Guys –
I feel like we need to have a little sit down.
I’ve noticed by your Facebook posts/Tumblr updates/Tweets that you are pretty peeved at Kim Kardashian for divorce-bombing Chris Humphries a mere 72 days after their fairy tale wedding. You’re saying things like, “how dare she!” and, “her career is done,” and, “reality TV has gone too far.” I even saw a few of those clever memes people are making with really mean things about Kim, things like, “and they think the gays are destroying the sanctity of marriage?”
But, see, here’s the thing – Really? REALLY?! You’re actually upset? You actually, legitimately feel fooled, duped, and wronged by this latest celeb divorce development?
When Kim and Chris got married on national television in a 20 million dollar affair after less than...
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Dear client:
I am pleased that you have hired me to represent you in your divorce. I’m pleased because I need the money you and others like you pay me. I’m tired of working with people like you who are always fighting and never happy, and often unhappy with me, but I feel trapped now and don’t know how I could change my practice at this point in my career without a huge financial setback, so I hang on and do the best job I can, the best way I know, for clients like you.
If you’re like most people going through divorce, you’ve heard a chorus of voices — from your mother to your neighbor to the person who cuts your hair — warning that you better get a mean “junkyard dog” lawyer. I don’t like being a junkyard dog lawyer, and I don’t think it would be in your best interest for me to be...
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Dear Strong Child,
Although we may not know each other and our paths never crossed, we share a bond that can never be broken. We have both been through something that has brought so much hurt and heartache into our lives. And this was something that we had no control over. We are both strong, we are both survivors, we are both children from a divorced home.
No matter what age you were when your parents initially split, it still brought pain that you never imagined you would have. All the dreams of growing up in a perfect family were broken. Your family was torn apart, and you may have been forced to start a completely new life. The life of a divorced family became your new normal.
This does not make you any less of a person. You are just a strong as everyone else, and maybe even...
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Dear ex-wife,
I want you to know how proud I am of us. We have done a really good job of being ex-spouses. We did not receive a guidebook for how to behave as a divorced couple when we received our divorce papers. We had to blaze our own trail through the post-divorce wilderness.
We’ve all seen couples who break up and spend the rest of their lives bitter at each other. From the start of our new lives apart, we did better than most ex-spouses at dusting ourselves off and moving on. So I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the gracious way in which you have treated me.
I also want to share the three things which make me proud about the way we have handled our post-divorce lives.
I am proud of us for treating each other with respect.
In the heat of a divorce, it’s easy to...
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Dear ex-husband,
It wasn’t long ago that I was getting into my wedding dress, walking down the aisle and saying the vows I intended to keep forever. It wasn’t long ago that I felt like the most loved woman on the planet because my best friend was by my side and promising to stand by me until the end of time. It wasn’t long ago but it feels like an eternity has passed since then.
It's been a whirlwind of trying to understand what happened -- of trying to make sense of why it had to end. The year that's slipped away has left me with so many unanswered questions but at the end of each day, I remind myself to be thankful.
So, I thank you. I thank you for our good moments and for the times you stood by and protected me. I thank you for the laughter we always shared and for the...
2,818
Dear Doubters,
I would like to give you all a warm welcome! Are you shocked that I'm doing something positive with my life? Your lack of faith in me used to have a negative effect on me. I once believed everything that you said.
"You're not going to be anything in life."
That was something that stuck with me for a while. Then I thought about it, how can you predict what my future would look like. As far as I knew, you weren't born with physic abilities so you wouldn't know which way you were going to turn next, let alone how my future would turn out.
I do want to let you know that every obstacle that came my way, I overcame it when you thought I would not. I'm sure you're still looking at me with your lack of faith, however, it doesn't phase me anymore.
My future was...
2,204
Ms. Hesse,
Please find below a joint open letter signed by 2366 people from across the United States. I composed the open letter and offered to collect signatures by email as a simple way for people to express their views on the Proposed Final Judgment.
I certify that the following list of names was compiled from email sent to [email protected]; that return email was used to provide some small degree of assurance that each submission came from a valid email address; and that I have verified to the best of my ability that all co-signers are US residents or citizens.
I am sending the document (http://www.kegel.com/remedy/remedy2.html) referenced in the joint open letter under separate cover as my personal Tunney Act comment.
Sincerely,
Dan Kegel
901 S. Sycamore
Los Angeles,...
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