“You never know the truth of someone’s marriage until you’re inside it.” So said the mother of writer Liz Lenz, who long regarded her parents' marriage as a cop-out "an excuse for something else—fear, weakness, shame."
In an article in Mommyish, Lenz recounts the devastating effect her parents' frequent separations had on her childhood. Her father cheated throughout his marriage, and yet her mother stayed with him, for her daughter's sake.
Now, as a mother in her own right, Lenz claims to understand why her mother kept the marriage intact for all those years, and why adultery is no longer the "deal breaker" she once thought it was. She isn't the only one with this attitude, either.
"Daughters need fathers and I know this not just in general, but also personally," wrote Lenz in the article.
"I’m willing to put aside my fears, my humiliation and my betrayal, so that my little girl doesn’t have to go without her father. It’s not noble. It’s selfish, really. I know what it feels like to get hit with the flak of betrayal and be stuck in the crossfires of a war that isn’t mine."
Adultery breaks down trust. Personally, I view the couple as the primary relationship. If that is broken, a family can't work right. It's like a car without wheels.
Is cheating a deal breaker in your marriage? Or, like Lenz, would you stay for the sake of the kids?
Anyone who uses social media regularly knows of its Jedi-like powers to praise or to poison. And no one knows this more than a New Jersey teen by the name of Kara Alongi.
According to an article in Gawker, on Sunday evening the 16-year-old girl tweeted "There is someone in my hour ecall (sic) 911." Cue a deluge of overnight panicky tweets that culminated in a trending #helpfindkara hashtag on Twitter.
But in the cold light of day, local police smelled a rat. "We do not feel any foul play was involved," said Alan Scherb, the police chief from Kara's hometown of Clark, New Jersey.
It seems someone bearing an uncanny resemblance to Kara took a cab from her home to the train station that night.
Meanwhile her precious phone has been left behind. Alongi—who incredibly acquired some 95,000 followers in a single night—will certainly face the wrath of trolls if, in fact, her disappearance was a hoax and not a bona fide kidnapping.
In the realms of social media, people are lightning quick to rush to your assistance, but even faster to drag you down if they feel they've been duped.
As commenter BryanTS18 tweeted: "This kara girl went from the most worried about girl on twitter, to the most hated."
Kara may soon find herself wishing she'd genuinely disappeared.
In North America we're all about Botox, but in Asia the raging beauty trend involves a bagel. If you haven't yet seen the photographic evidence of this long-time trend, be prepared. (Oh, and best not to read this post if you are hungry...)
According to an article in the Huffington Post, the process involves injecting around 400cc saline solution into one's forehead with a needle, then allowing the site to swell with a slow IV. A couple hours later, a thumb-print is administered in the bubble's centre for the full bagel effect. Yum.
But don't fear: the saline gets absorbed by the body and the bump disappears within 24 hours.
In fact, the 'bagel heading' phenomenon is so big in Japan that the National Geographic recently ran a feature about it. This brand of body modification, performed at piercings and tattoos venues, may seem unusual at first glance, yet those in the know claim it's getting harder and harder to find progressive ways to stand out in the crowd. Others simply think bagel heads look "cute."
So I ask you this: is beauty in the eye of the be(hole)der? Think this trend will catch on in the West? And while you're at it, pass the cream cheese...
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