<p>Oh please! My mother’s social circle is chock full of women in similar situations – women in their 60’s, still full of vigor, who divorced after what were often 20, 30 year marriages, typically after kids were grown. Most of them had reasonably well-to-do spouses so they could still both live pleasant lifestyles; no one’s eating cat food. This is hardly some new phenomenon that the Gores just invented. There is not going to be any sudden trend of couples that age getting divorced to keep up with the Gores, any more than there was a sudden trend of drunken Las Vegas weddings because Britney Spears had one.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think it’s a good thing when my kids see Sandra Bullock leaving her cheating husband and Rianah leaving her abusive boyfriend. </p>
<p>In the same vein I think it’s just fine for people to see the Gores acting maturely and that it was not a failure as many have said, it is fine and normal for people to grow apart and seek something different.</p>
<p>We seek to have our offspring be happy and independent but suggest the only normal route is to stay tethered to one person for life?</p>
<p>ITA, Redroses. Better they act maturely and separate civilly, then to let things fester and before you know it, there’s some infidelity and humiliation and shame and embarrassment. Like I said upthread, it’s almost refreshing that this is a simple “we’re parting ways but we’ll always care for one another” versus one of them found in bed with someone else and the resulting scandal. Haven’t there been enough of those scandals?</p>
<p>In light of all the scandals (Edwards, Sanford, Spitzer - and those are just the heterosexual ones, never mind the ones where the man cheated on his wife with another man) … it’s the GORES who are denigrating the institution of marriage? GMAFB.</p>
<p>Sally Quinn (spouse of Ben Bradlee), a long time friend of the Gores, was asked what she thought caused the split. She said that the loss of the presidency and the long drawn out resolution of the election, including the Supreme Court case, had put a tremendous strain on the Gores marriage and she thought it had never fully recovered from it. (I’m paraphrasing Quinn, but that was the gist of what she said.) </p>
<p>Miami and right wing radio hosts translate that into “blaming Bush.” They also fail to note that this is NOT something the Gores said to anyone. It’s Sally Quinn’s personal opinion.</p>
<p>"The Gores are saying this is Bush’s fault? You have an odd sense of humor. "</p>
<p>I wish that I do. I have none. Sorry for you not being infromed of well known facts. But it is your right. So, how about drugs? I am not informed of those, please, share just as I have shared with you.</p>
<p>I have assumed that blaming Bush is very good idea, so I have tried to sing in tune…and no thanks? Why? Of course, everything in next few decades will be Bush’s fault, unless amiracle happen and the next president will be republican (I do not think so, though!). But, again only this condition can change the course of blame, it will be passed to the next republican president, all will becaome his fault from day #1. I do not think it will even happen, Obama is forever, so Bush is the one to blame for everybody’s satisfaction. Why it does not make you happy?</p>
<p>When I think about it, this is one of the few cases where I won’t be surprised if no third party emerges. There is a good chance that this was a relationship based on mutual political goals, and that when that path ended so did their marriage.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP- Give it a rest. We didn’t want this stuck in the Politics section and you are trying to push it right back there. It isn’t about Bush.</p>
<p>The pictures in this article are great. I would not have even recognized them in the one with their young family. They look like they could have been the older brother and sister of the kids. How cute they were. </p>
<p>They met in high school so they have not had any other significant relationships. </p>
<p>They married in May 1970, forty years to (almost) the month of the wedding. </p>
<p>How is Gore not about politics and not about Bush? And Pizza…mentioned about communist drugs - not politics either?
Pizza…,
You have mentioned about some drugs from White House, where I can get this information?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl writes: (my apologies fornot having mastered quoting in forum form)</p>
<p>“Oh, please. It does nothing to the institution of marriage whatsoever. That’s the same tired argument that’s used to deny same-sex couples the right to marry. Someone else’s marriage doesn’t affect you in any way, shape or form, whether their marriage is flowers-and-roses-til-death-do-you-part or whether it’s a bad marriage.”</p>
<p>Love is a not a feeling or emotion, but a decision that must be renewed day in and day out by by both a husband and a wife. It is a putting aside of self in recognition that the whole of the marriage is better than a man or woman alone. Vows aren’t a life sentence, but a framework to inspire cooperation and unity for the family and society. Divorces happen when this breaks down. There is a selfishness involved when people want what they want more than they want uphold the commitment they made to love and honor one and other. When one acts selfishly we are all diminished, people are wounded, families are broken and society is frayed.</p>
<p>"If you’re going to say that the Gores’ amicable split after 40 years denigrates the institution of marriage, then you must be REALLY furious at:</p>
<p>1) Two drunk people at an Elvis chapel in Las Vegas, getting married after a few hours of knowing one another and getting divorced two days later when they sober up; and,
2) Shows like the Bachelor, which are about picking marriage partners based on superficial how-hot-is-she qualifications.</p>
<p>But somehow no one accuses those things of denigrating the institution of marriage. "</p>
<p>I never said that the Gore’s split denigrated the institution of marriage. I said it diminished it. And your other examples certainly do denigrate marriage, but it makes me more sad than furious.</p>
<p>If a total stranger, celebrity, or anyone else for that matter acts selfishly and leaves their spouse to divorce, I am not remotely diminished. I am still happily chugging along, doing the best I can for my own marriage and family.</p>
<p>Nope. Completely disagree. John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, the guy with the wide stance up in the Minnesota airport, Britney Spears, the marriages that emerge from reality bachelor shows and the drunkards in Vegas – none of their actions impact me or my marriage in the slightest.</p>
<p>Well, and really, it’s none of our business. It’s not our sacred right to know.
And maybe it just is what it is. They loved one another well for many years, but things change and people change and circumstances change and they grew apart and they decided it was better to call it quits amicably and maintain goodwill within their larger family (adult children and grandchildren) than to suffer and have the whole thing turn poisonous. </p>
<p>I don’t know why people think it has to be anything greater or grander than that. Human lives are complicated. So it goes.</p>