<p>First of all the average American woman is a size 14. You read right a size 14. If any woman who’s wearing a size 12 or more is to be thought morally or intellectually unfit, it would probably disqualify 2/3 of the female population. Is that what you’re advocating with your mean-spirited comment about Patricia Abrizzio being a size 12?</p>
<p>Second, if some posters made unkind comments about some size 12 woman in some other threads,they are most likely not the posters who have contributed to this thread. In fact, I don’t recall such a thread–not that it does not exist, but I certainly did not make any such comment (psst–I am a size 12-and I do not eat at McDonald’s or have ever pleaded poverty).</p>
<p>Third, no one on this thread is making excuses for the writer or his new wife. In fact, I would say, the condemnations are pretty deafening.</p>
<p>You know, middsmith, the more you write, the more credibility you lose.</p>
<p>Re post #60 above and generational spending gap, I am not so sure that it is generational, but I will tell you what I have seen. I too was raised by depression era parents, and know how to live on a shoe string if necessary. I see a number of 20 somethings who have very expensive new leased cars (mercedes, BMW) and a salary that does not go with such a car. In my life, I did not buy my first new car, which was a nissan sentra (and paid for in full) until I was a lawyer making a nice salary five years out of school. I remember the day I bought it well, and at the same time, another customer more or less my age was financing the more expensive Maxima (20+ years ago). I have no idea if he could have bought the sentra for cash, but I would never have financed the maxima. I see a lot of recent college grads who have a lot of nice “stuff” that their salaries can not pay for. Mom and Dad pay for some, some of the grads live with the folks and buy stuff, and others must be in over their heads with credit cards. But not all are like this. I do not know people my age who can do this (live with parents, get money from them), but there must be some. I think a lot of people who are blue collar workers and are our age are more careful with money than the 20 somethings with the same salary. About 10 years ago I went to a wedding of boomers’ kids and I was shocked at the plan that the parents would chip in for rent, utilities etc. because one of the couple was in grad school. I thought that getting married meant being independent of one’s parents. Not everyone does think this way, and I saw that their relationship was different than what I knew.</p>
<p>The correlation between these two always befuddles me. I would think that one should get married only when one was able to live independently of parents; but that getting married did not necessarily mean, ipso facto, becoming independent. However, it is very usual for parents to help out with down payment, even when one of the couple is not in grad school.</p>
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<p>LOL! S is going to grad school. The stipend will be just enough to keep body and soul together. I don’t think that we will need to supplement it, but he does have his own savings for that. I have come to the conclusion that dorm life is a nice transition from living in a large house to a cramped apartment.</p>
<p>I work with a lot of Orthodox Jews. It is accepted among them that premarital sex is not acceptable and that people get married young. Both sets of parents agree as to how to support (mostly the guys) education. It seems to work for them – but it is based on responsbility.</p>
<p>My parents lived in a house my grandparents owned while my dad finished his phd. I dont know if they paid rent, but my grandparents lived in a college town, and housing was so tight, my grandparents build one apartment over the detached garage and built a small duplex on one side of the property – so my mom and her siblings (who were all married) could finish school after the war.</p>
<p>Middsmith, you’re being repulsive. You’re talking about this woman – and directly insulting her by calling her “Fatty” – as if she were morbidly obese (not that your language would be remotely appropriate even if she were) and somehow personally responsible for America’s skyrocketing healthcare costs.</p>
<p>None of this has anything to do with the article, or with anything other than the peculiar personal hangup you obviously have with anyone who’s more than an ounce above your standards for ideal weight. Assuming that you’re a guy, I fervently hope you don’t have, and never will have, a wife or daughter who has the least bit of trouble meeting your “requirements.”</p>
<p>I heard this guy on NPR the other day. No Pity. I agree with the “love is blind” and “trying to sell books” theories.
I think he just wanted to impress the new babe in his life and couldn’t say no to her–pretty weak argument–he sounded like an idiot, IMO.</p>
<p>Pet peeve: people who think they deserve stuff they can’t actually pay for.</p>
Unlike the author, I’m not a reporter. I don’t care if you think one way or another.<br>
So her entitled attitude and penchant for fine cheese and JCrew (living beyond her means) isn’t the root cause that brought America to its knee? They are the reason why your salary is cut by 15k.<br>
I’m making fun of a leper and I’m repulsive? I see where your moral and ethical priorities lie.</p>
<p>I’ll give credit where credit’s due. This guy went through a premature midlife crisis without the fast car and the bimbo. His current squeeze is age appropriate and weight appropriate (albeit a bit on the skinny side since America woman average size is 14). Oh wait, had he gone the traditional route, he would be better off financially. Oh wait, there’s a book deal. Now I’m confused.</p>
<p>The credibility I was alluding to was your credibility as a rational person. Your posts certainly give us a fairly accurate image of the person you must be. Dieting must be making you grouchy.</p>
<p>Actually it sounds to me like the guy did have a midlife crises. The wife’s entitled atitude and penchant for the finer things has nothing to do with her size. I’ll guess that there are thinner and heavier people with the same problem. The absolute disgrace is that the people are both parents – and seemingly couldnt care less what there actions meant to their kids.</p>
<p>Most states have no-fault divorce so if one party wants out, the other may have no choice. But it doesnt appear to me that the couple here were the ones that got left behind.</p>
<p>She lived in a community propertity state so she would have gotten half of everything. Half of any home equity (which was riding high in CA at the time) and everything else. So her coming into this with zero is shocking and tells us she most probably had a long term over spending habit. And all he had at his age was a little of his employers stock? They both seem to have had long term problems.</p>
<p>Do it surprise anyone else that their nest eggs were so thin?</p>
<p>It would appear that his mortgage on the old house his first wife now lives in was not small – as that was an impediment to one of the mortgages he wanted. And he sold most of his stock for down payment on the house which is now in foreclosure.</p>
<p>As to her – Yes it seems strange that all she got was some furniture.</p>
<p>Given that the ex kept the house, I’d have to think that she is employed. So he was making $120K plus and lets say she made about the same, wouldn’t the average family have more assets on that? Ans she didn’t have the type of furniture you put in a shack. So something is odd here.</p>
<p>What makes you think Wife number 1 was employed? Full time? She was getting 4k in alimony/CS – which some here thought was high – I didnt – and she was responisble for mortgage on old house (per article), so I assumed she wasnt earning much, if any. So I doubt she was making as much as him. Dont know what type of furniture she had. I assumed the furniture was all from wifey #2.</p>
<p>Usually a non working wife wouldn’t be able to afford to keep the house in a divorce which is why I’m guessing she worked. Wife 2 had some nice furniture mentioned in the article, maybe it was stuff she really couldn’t afford, but they were not like lots of struggling CA families living with Ikea.</p>
<p>The book paints a fuller picture of this couple. Their impulsive style extended to more than finances, evidently. They broke up two families (his and hers) with seven children, combined, to marry one another. And, as several people have already remarked, they couldn’t afford their house from the get-go.</p>
<p>Since when is size 12 huge? I was wearing a size 12 the year I did the Ironman in Hawaii. I was in great shape. I think Middsmith needs to become a little more acquainted with the normal variation in women’s bodies. And I agree with ?Consolation that in the pictures the woman looked perfectly normal sized.</p>