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Site creates online community for people living through divorce
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WASHINGTON - Just about every week, it seems, another sex scandal breaks: Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino. And that's nothing compared with all the cinematic scripts playing out behind closed doors, the ones most people never hear about.
LousySpouse.com was founded this summer by two women from Alexandria, Va.
The site was started to give support, resources and options to people who have just been knocked upside the head, figuratively speaking, by their husband or wife.
LousySpouse.com provides information on lawyers, private investigators, finances - even movie suggestions to help people laugh off their louse. And, with a nod to Halloween, the Web site also offers some horror stories.
Lousy, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. But the site comes at a time when half of all marriages end in divorce, some studies say at least
40 percent of all spouses are unfaithful, and there's so much demand for an online dating site designed for married people that its officials recently launched an iPhone app. So, a Web site meant to help people get through the morass seems not only inevitable but maybe even necessary.
It's the flip side of all those wedding videos, the beautifully shot scenes with everyone tossing rose petals as the groom scoops the bride into his arms. Southerlyn Reisig, the site's co-founder, knows those movies often have a surprise ending. She looks like Grace Kelly in her wedding video, but a couple of lawyers, a therapist, some painful conversations with her two children and tens of thousands of dollars later, she said she knows a thing or two about ending a marriage - and how much she could have saved had she only known more at the time.
The world didn't need another Web site sponsored by divorce lawyers, the founders figured. They knew options were available: The Jewish Social Service Agency offers sessions locally on ending marriages amicably, for example, and coaches will guide people through divorces for a fee.
But they wanted something people could use at 3 a.m. when they realize their spouse isn't coming home that night - a positive place that is free and always available, where they could rant, get advice, make plans and maybe laugh a little.
The site has links to resources, financial worksheets, advice about insurance, books, supportive comments, a creepy quiz about whether a spouse might be cheating, and a forum blistering with fury and disgust.
Among those who came to the Web site launch party, there was a private investigator (she pretends to be an artist and paints while she spies), some supportive friends, angry exes and heartbroken women and men. They talked about the moment they found out about a cheater and what they did next. (Do you tell your parents or wait in case you patch things up, so they don't hate her forever? Do you call a counselor or a lawyer? Do you shut down bank accounts? Throw him out? Tell the kids?)
A father of four said the best thing the site could do was act as a brake, to stop people from acting on their first instinct and get them to calm down and think things through.
People talked about whether to forgive and how to move on.
There were sad moments. "I never wanted to get a divorce," said Jane Manstof, an Alexandria real estate broker, "even at the very end." Her husband wasn't lousy. It just didn't work out.
Posted in Life on Saturday, October 31, 2009 3:05 am
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