On the heels of Mr. and Mrs. Dooce Blog announcing their separation comes news of other bloggers who are potentially ending their marriages.
Anissa Mayhew, who evidently came to fame by documenting her health issues, announced yesterday on her blog that she was calling it quits.
The kids know. I wouldn’t think about telling any of you before telling them. They’re hurting, but they also knew that something was wrong. I feel so sorry to them to not be able to provide the home they deserve. I HATE THAT. Especially after what they’ve already been through. But having been through what I have, overcoming the obstacles in my way, embracing my inner happiness….I owe it to myself.
Though the blogger known as MckMama hasn’t specifically said so, readers are assuming the worst based on some odd tweets and blog posts. On January 29th, she posted a vague sentence to her twitter saying “Definitely never thought we’d be researching new places to live right now. Life throws you curveballs, that’s for sure.” On her blog she says she has no internet or computer, and doesn’t “know how or when or if I’m going to blog about this next phase in our lives”. Still not clarifying what’s going on, she tweeted yesterday that “If I had something to say, I’d say it. But I just don’t.”
Other bloggers have long been blogging about the ends of their marriages. Melissa Summers, author of the “Suburban Bliss” blog, has been documenting her divorce since August. Kate Inglis of “Sweet/Salty” has also blogged about her recent separation.
On an internet where weddings and babies make for popular content – and in some cases, big pageviews – it’s clear that life changes are the fastest way to get readers coming around. Whether for personal catharsis or as a way to keep connected as one builds a new life there is no denying that such posts generate plenty of buzz. Is airing divorce or separation just the next logical step for those who habitually share their entire lives online? And what will the next generation think when they can find the inner thoughts and the details of their parents’ disintegrating marriages somewhere in a cache years from now?
And most importantly of all – who will win the race to the book deal finish line?
Actually ”Mckmama” has verified her husband is leaving but only on her ”private” Facebook page. She hasn’t commented yet publicly but yes, it’s a done deal. I like how she includes the kids, ”he is leaving us” when he has always been a hands on parent. As with everything else, she will spin it to make her a victim and monetize the shit out of it.
http://mwopblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2012-01-27-FBP-Counseling-Redacted.png
http://mwopblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2012-01-29-FBP-Moving-Out.png
I hate it when people say “he/she left” when what they really mean is “he/she is divorcing me.” I always get confused. When people tell me their husband/wife left them I assume the other person is no longer in the picture and left them high and dry with their children, which is obviously awful.
There are situations that warrant “left”, but they’re not common. My grandfather skipped town and flew back home to Portugal, never to be seen again. I would consider that “leaving.”
That fb post makes it sound like her husband is dumping her and the kids high and dry. How weird.
I’m not even a fan of her, but I can empathize her standing there in the house with the kids, trying to pack up the house, ASAP.
I don’t buy it. If you are spending time online when shit is so bleak, you have a problem. Call your friends (if you have any), and ask them to come by. Crowdsourcing movers is just another way for her to demonize her husband. My mother always said that no one knows what’s cooking in the pot except for the pot and the spoon. When bloggers do these kinds of things, they always want to come out as the good guy. Truth is, it takes two to fuck up a marriage.
I have to shoot that cliche down, it takes two to fuck up a marriage when it’s a simple case of a relationship run into the ground. But that’s not the case where any kind of abuse, infidelity or mental illness is involved. It’s usually very much to do with one person.
Is there an issue of abuse here? If so, i still stand by the statement, because unless it was an arranged marriage, people pick their mates, and they have to own their part. Maybe I’m just insensitive.
In this case, there were court proceedings regarding domestic abuse (he being charged with abuse).
They’re also in bankruptcy court. Basically a giant hellmess, during which she has blithely given her readers marital and financial advice.
Don’t feel too bad, she new she had to move long before this past weekend. The landlord’s evicting them.
I feel bad for the landlord, who obviously got scammed big.
Maybe if she put as much effort into keeping her marriage together as she did in updating people on its status, he wouldn’t be leaving her.
Yeah, that’s probably not a fair cop in this case, considering the domestic violence and bankruptcy cases.
Private or not private facebook, what fucking strange conversations to have on the internet. I don’t really understand why people put their whole lives on the internet like that, but its gross. Do these people not have real life people they can sit in a coffee shop with and discuss their divorce? Why does this need to be shared on the internet with complete strangers?
Attention and money. Two of the most popular reasons why.
It’s moments like this when I give thanks for my general introversion. I don’t like attention, hate surprises, and am not willing to give up my privacy to my relatives, let alone strangers. Perhaps I shall never be publicly mocked for being an oversharer… (Oh please, oh please, oh please.)
She’s a narcissist, she needs constant attention. It’s creepy and weird. If my husband left I’d surround myself with my family and friends, not seek solace from strangers on the internet. I sort of think she’s alienated her family and any friends with the whole ‘Mckmama’ persona. It’s sad.
She should have left him years ago, I dunno say around the time he was arrested for physically abusing her.
Better late than never.
Actually, she admitted that she was the “aggressor” in that situation, yet had HIM arrested for DM. But having said that, I don’t believe a word she says. I think it’s yet another ploy to garner clicks from her “supporters.” By the way, she moved weeks ago and is now living at her parents home in WI.
Are we talking Mellisa and the ROBOT here? He hit her???
I haven’t read Melissa’s blog in forever but i’m not surprised he left her. I like her and her writing, but she definitely has a lot of issues. Anyway. I’m fascinated by her divorce posts. She’s so open and so real. Anyway. I have no snark. I hope it’s all Onwards and Upwards for her from now on.
I have LOVED Melissa’s divorce posts. She is totally owning her part in it and has been incredibly eloquent about her experience. I’ve been reading her for several years now and like you, I was not surprised when their marriage ended (though I was surprised and sort of grossed out by his timing and by the apparent response their mutual friends have had) but she has continued to write beautifully about this period.
Also, girl has been taking care of herself and it shows because she has been looking hot in the pictures she’s been posting of herself on Twitter…living well really is the best revenge.
Really? Wow, her posts have seemed batshit crazy to me. One of the craziest overshares I’ve ever encountered online, for sure.
Nah she’s a big oversharer, has been for years, and I find her divorce posts have been restrained! :D
Melissa Summers isn’t doing anything besides proving to the world that she is crazy. While we all sit back praising her for being honest in the form of a tantrum (even though we know she has a skewed view of life due to her mental issues, medication, prior history, lack of empathy, and zero life experience or education, except for surfing the Internet from her couch), her kids are reading those skewed details and will never be able to get away from it. That is the saddest part of all of this.
I like Melissa. I think her husband is a douchebag. She’s probably difficult to live with, but who leaves their partner right after they get out of the hospital for a suicide attempt? Classy, my friend. Classy.
Mightygirl is getting a divorce too, but she’s been pretty quiet about it.
I’m still pulling for the Blurbodoocery.
She used to refer to him as a Robot which says all i needed to know really. That’s a seriously douchey move. Urgh. Breaks my heart.
ouch, sounds like there is a lot of baggage there. perhaps he couldn’t deal with her issues? not everyone is a saint, and if he had his own issues it could certainly be overwhelming. not saying that leaving her is the right choice either, just speculating.
like I said above, I’ve loved Melissa’s posts about her divorce. My hat’s off to her for owning her part in it and for managing to write so beautifully about a shitty time.
I like Melissa too, but she keeps publishing these posts about how all her friends have wronged her and they just make me cringe, they are so petty and immature they are PAINFUL to read. She needs to shut up sometimes.
I get where she’s coming from with those (after my divorce – and I was the one who instigated it – friends that I shared with my husband bailed on me for him…for a variety of reasons but several were righteously mean to me and it sucked balls) but yes, i cringed after reading them as well. In situations like that a lot of times things are better left unsaid. If only because it makes you look like the grownup in the situation!
Yeah, he actually asked her therapist for advice on how soon he could leave Melissa after she got discharged. He has always struck me as a giant, controlling douche that is overly concerned with his image. I have always liked Melissa, and also think she’s being pretty restrained in what she is writing about the divorce. And their group of “friends” are pathetic and high school. I feel really bad for her that the people she thought she trusted could turn so viciously mean towards her, especially as it is very hard for her to trust anyone in the first place given her past. I think she is doing awesome now, and I hope that she has many more good days than bad during this whole situation.
Do you think that the blogs got in the way of their marriage?
Probably.
*marriages
when you live life for a blog, it could probably get empty and meaningless fast.
This is why I was kind of interested to see if LLL could keep up the twee blogging and still hold on to her dude. It seemed like their entire life was built around the blog. KERF and Messica too, for that matter.
I’m guessing the marriages got in the way of the blogs
I’m a blogger! I have to blog about this!
With Mck, the blog was their only income for a while…
Yes, but apparently the blog bought in well into the 6 figures as recently as 2010.
How was she making 6 figures and they’re filing for bankruptcy?! Just sad.
Exactly! They blew a ton of cash, homes foreclosed on, cars repossessed, it’s bananas!
Seriously. This just BLEW my mind. My husband and I are busting our asses to get out of debt. We’re driving a rusted-out 1993 Honda Accord until it disintegrates car payments. Our second car is one that I swore we would never have because we could pay cash for it. I cannot fathom taking on multiple car payments, boat payments, having multiple mortgages, etc.
DOES NOT COMPUTE. If we start earning 6 figures, you can bet your sweet butts that we’ll pay everything off, then save for a house. No way am I doing debt again. Just no.
I feel like a lot of these issues can be traced back to a sense of entitlement that I confess I have felt. I should be able to have a fancy phone, fancy car, a boat, new clothes, designer shoes, etc. I deserve it.
Anyway. /end rent
God forbid I ever get divorced, I would never, ever blog about it. There is just no way to do it without sounding like a melodramatic asshole (Dooce and Blurb) or painting at least one of the partners in a bad light, either intentionally or not.
I’m no lawyer (paging Afghani!), but couldn’t these blogs be used by their exes’ lawyers? Like if Jon ever wants full custody, couldn’t Heather’s post about how she considered hanging herself in their garage be used as evidence for his side? A girl I went to school with is getting a divorce and I know her husband’s Facebook profile was used by her defense lawyer when he cheated. Tech these days…
Yes, if it gets contentious, the attorneys will use anything they can find, blogs, fb, twitter, anything.
Oh absolutely. I just recently went to a CLE where this was discussed in detail. I know that my husband used his ex-wife’s facebook in a custody battle a few years ago. He won. Be careful what you post.
This is why I only post stupid links to cat blogs on my Facebook page.
exactly. I’m confounded by all these dumb kids- some of them are my nieces and nephews, who post pictures of themselves smoking weed, a drug references, on FB! I mean really., that stuff doesn’t go away, and clearly they have no idea about that!
What is there left to blog about? Is nothing private or worth keeping to oneself anymore?
Absolutely second this opinion. These kinds of things cheapens human experience and reduce us all, one small peek at a time, to emotionally blunted scopophiliacs.
I think especially because of her children, who will stumble upon this and see all their business on the internet. I’m probably just old school, but I really despise people who are this open on the internet, because they are exposing others without their consent.
My sister is going through a divorce and I’d slap her upside the head if she were doing this. Get a therapist and stfu.
Exactly. I almost feel like some bloggers are boarder lining serious exploitation when it comes to their children. I feel like 20 years ago people would be shocked by this kind of stuff, but now that it’s so common, not many seem to have a problem with it.
+1 for get a therapist and stfu.
You what’s funny too, people like this will argue that the readers are their community and their support, and meanwhile, all the readers usually do is write comments like, “Aw, so sorry. Keep you in my prayers, you’re great, I love you, girl (bc let’s face it, it’s mostly women who blog like this), sending you good vibes, I can’t imagine how you feel, I wish you were here so I could make you soup, etc, etc, etc” Please PP do a post on the most trite comments!!!!
So really what these readers do is HURT the relationship more by validating the blogger’s pre-existing assholery. Sorry, I am RAGEY today. I’m so sick of these “open-book” “keeping it real” bloggers.
“THINKING OF YOU!” “YOU ARE SO BRAVE!” Oh well gee, nothing like a misspelled platitude to help a person.
Ugh, “humanity” at it’s most pathetic, this was why I had to close my fakebook account.
Validating someone’s decisions isn’t really helping them, it’s just saying that they were right the whole time. It’s something our society doesn’t need more of, js.
holy fuck, this.
I can’t imagine posting about my personal shit for the whole internet to see.
Exhibitionism is not a trait I find charming.
‘Exhibitionism is not a trait I find charming.’
I’d like to marry this comment :)
totally cosign this.
YES. YES. YES.
I can’t wait for the fashion bloggers and their photo bitch best friend husbands to start divorcing.
I think Selective Potential will be the first to go.
Just curious, what makes you think she’d be the first?
Psh! They actually seem like a severely amazing couple. I’d say Messi. Totally Messi.
Speaking of melodrama, Dooce is really laying it ON, mapel syrup-thick:
“Uncertain
Sitting on the floor
My back against the wall, waiting for a call
From behind the door across the room”
Jesus, woman, get a grip.
*maple
DUH.
IT’S MORNING. HI.
I know Dooce has her problems and whatever, but seriously, she really does need to get a grip.
Dooce is a huge asshole, and her divorce melodrama is embarrassing. For years, her sole purpose in life has been to focus on herself all day, every day. It’s no wonder she’s so screwed up.
What I find amazing is that Dooce and other divorcing mommy bloggers don’t seem to have too much concern for their own children.
I’m new here, but I just had to chime in on the dooce melodrama. um, this?
“Last week life whipped out the shotgun that it keeps in the pantry next to the broom and, after a few too many cans of cheap beer, waved it around a little too close to my head. I’d say, hey, don’t point that thing at me, and life would say, really? Like this? And next thing you know a chunk of my ear was gone.”
really? life and its shotgun?
my friend’s grandma had this word, fremps, which is the feeling you get when you’re embarrassed for someone else and you wish they would just stop.
thanks for the fremps, dooce. thanks.
I made up a word for that as well: wagonhalt
From the German “Stop the car!”
I like “fremps”. I’ve always used “shame by proxy”.
I always get that during musicals.
I love fremps so much that it made me create an account after YEARS of lurking!
And the Germans actually have a word for it: “fremdschämen”. That might be where your grandmother got it from…
@ frempsalot, I bet it is! Our city was mostly German immigrants way back when, so our little dialect is peppered (or was, especially for grandmas, not as much now) with lots of little things that came from German Americans blending home language with new language. Sorry. Nerd Alert. I went to school for linguistics.
hey, i went to school for linguistics too. good times.
No fucking kidding. This isn’t 10th grade. Put on your big girl pants.
I can’t decide if she’s milking it for pageviews or if she’s slowly losing her mind again.
both. she is crazy like a fox.
God.l I know. I KNOW divorce is personally difficult and all but you are NOT the first people to go through this. I feel like someone who didn’t have the help she does and the lifestyle (being able to sit at home and blog for a living) would be much less mired in the pity because when you have a job to go TO on a daily basis and children to run around and pick up from daycare and feed and bathe and bed all alone, there’s probably very little time to sit around and “waller” as we say where I’m from. Divorce sucks, but JFC leave it to Dooce to act like she’s pioneering some unknown territory here.
True. Like when I had to drive to work after dropping off at daycare,. I’d cry in the car,or in the bathroom stalls, but dammit I got through it.
There was no housekeeper, assistant, or millions of dollars to get me through this, JUST me. Also if you have two therapist’s and you’re still doing this, there is no helping you.
The best is where she actually asked her lame readers to continue holding her hand while she publicly flails and feels sorry for herself.
Definitely, and I say this as someone with a predilection for melodramatic wallowing. When I’m feeling depressed I totally want to live in a hermitage made up solely of wine and pajamas, but what ACTUALLY makes me feel better is when I am forced to go about my everyday life taking care of practical stuff and not spending all my time inside my own head. I hate when sixteen-year-old me is proven to be full of shit and my mother is proven completely right.
The thing is she HAS to make it as dramatic as possible to keep people reading. Her entire income for the last several years is based on getting people to come read about her ferris wheel of life drama. She has a huge house and a lot of people depending on what money she can squeeze out of dooce.com. She can’t afford to be classy or respect boundaries about anything anymore.
During the time I was going through my divorce with a husband who didn’t feel like holding down a job during nearly our entire marriage, my mother nearly died from a fungal infection. I finally got my divorce settled (the amount my ex pays in child support covers less than half of child care) and my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And my parents are 1200 miles away since we moved to our current city when my ex got a job here (which he didn’t hold). So yeah, it sucks all around. But I have always thought I was fortunate, I have a job that pretty much covers my expenses, my child and I have health insurance, I have awesome friends who help me cover child care when I’m in a bind, and my father faces every day optimistically even though he has chemotherapy every 12 days and his bad days outnumber his good.
So while I guess Dooce’s situation sucks, I still think OMFG – get some perspective woman! Being a woman going through a divorce and having to pretty much not worry about finances or an abusive ex and having family support nearby is HUGE.
I’ve done a lot of work with a non-profit that helps many divorced women and this is just pathetic. A lot of those women are struggling to survive, as in they’ve been stay at home mom’s for years and then have to struggle to find a job in this job market, or don’t know how to pay checks since their ex’s handle the finances. They don’t have time to fucking blog emo poems.
ignore spelling errors.
Ha! I should just make “Ignore Spelling Errors” my GOMI alias.
I know my posts are crap and hard to follow. I appreciate everyone’s patience. I’m like the little slow bird of the bunch, with all of you stronger chicks being nice enough not to push me out of the nest.
I’m not really sure why my cognitive skillz go into lockdown when I post here, but they certainly do.
Everything you need to know about MckMama can be found at http://www.mwopblog.com including bankruptcy info and the real scoop on her “mean awful landlord”. Maybe her husband was tired of playing along. No sympathy from me, except for the kids.
You’d think with her kids being so sick all of the time, she wouldn’t have the time to blog.
People think GOMI is crazy, but sites like that, dedicated to digging deep into one blogger’s life make us look kind.
Yeah seriously. I have no interest in delving that deep into some nobody mommy bloggers life, thanks.
Whoever compiled the site must have quite a bit of time on their hands..
That’s more research than I put into writing my thesis.
I’m not involved with the site whatsoever, but I think when someone like MckMama has made a lifestyle of misleading her readers and depending on them for donations, ad revenue, etc. this sort of thing is bound to spring up. Surprised there’s been no mention of her on here before. She’s a trip.
The thing is that she actually ripped some of these people off. So it’s not just idle curiosity, it’s personal anger and resentment.
That said, contacting the judge was cray.
The best part is the recipes section. What?
I didn’t even get that far lol.
i legit laughed to myself for 10 minutes about that! i like a good crock pot recipe when i am LOLing at someone
That site is like whoa.
I’ve read that site before and those people are seriously sad. I don’t know who’s more messed up, MckMama or the people who are obsessed with her life.
Her. I think a lot of the folks who contributed to that site felt that she had ripped them off with charity appeals for money that she actually spent on buying shit, while she was simultaneously stiffing her landlord and utilities, etc. I can understand their impulse to be Internet vigilantes, because it is personal for them.
The people who wrote to her bankruptcy judge spelling out the discrepancies between her bk petition and blog finances? Scary.
http://mwopblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/McKinney_Bankruptcy_Letter_2_Redacted.pdf
http://mwopblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/McKinney_Bankruptcy_Letter_Redacted.pdf
It’s one thing to think she’s full of shit; it’s an entirely different ball of wax to contact a bankruptcy judge with a letter full of blog and FB cites.
Holy shit. Yeah it’s time to step away from the keyboard and put some effort into their own life, not some mommyblogger’s.
This is the first I’ve been aware of her or her blog, but it completely infuriates me.
If I lived in Fergus Falls or its county and was aware of the pretty significant discrepancies in their bankruptcy filing, hells to the yeah, I’d be pissed. Especially factoring in the two (two!) properties that they essentially let be foreclosed.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought that was nucking futs. I thought it was pretty fucking presumptuous, they essentially said “her paperwork doesn’t say mckmama anywhere! Fraud! FRAUD! I’m gonna build a case against her!” Crazy.town.
holy fucking shit.
Hold up–does that mean some full-time bloggers will have to get….a real life JOB? Egads!
Even if J. Quirk got divorced, she would never ever in a million years drop that last name. There is a website on the line, for Christ’s sake!
Ah heck to the yes, this stuff is HEAVEN SENT for a lawyer. Why you used to have to hire a private detective to dredge up some of this stuff in person and people put it right out there. HEAVEN SENT. A fellow lawyer I knew won a custody battle for dad when she found mom’s blog (poorly hidden) and it detailed affair after affair, drugs, but the worst part was that she revealed she herself was abused and that a boyfriend had abused the child they had together. The fact that she had been abused TECHNICALLY should not have been taken into consideration but judges are people who wear a black robe.
You should not even reveal anything bad about your childhood on the internet. Parent was an alcoholic? A contested divorce? The person doing the evaluation WILL ask about how you handle that. ARE you unstable because of an abusive childhood?
Keep it between you and your mental health professional.
That’s like 500 layers of wrong that they took her own abuse into consideration? Was this the south?
Sure it’s wrong, but life isn’t fair…and I think the idea was that somehow this woman was not recognizing the dangers of involving new boyfriends’s in her daughter’s life instantly due to her own untreated issues. Probably you are thinking, “wouldn’t that make her extra paranoid?” In an ideal world, yes, but she was seriously effed up like she was by the child abuse. The idea was not that she was abused, it was that she had no gotten any therapy except You Go Girl stuff on the internet and since her parents had not set appropriate boundaries she had no idea how to do it either.
And none of it would have even been revealed except for her roman a clef blog.
And this was in a hugely liberal blue state.
I read this wrong. Blaming lack of coffee, it’s brewing now. I read that it was abuse from when she was YOUNGER. Gotcha!
I was totally confused for a second myself.
LOL @ that “suburban bliss” blog. Guess the whole suburban bliss thing didn’t work out. zzzzzz
She’s never been “blissful.” That entire blog is a catalog of all the ways she’s been miserable. Melissa had a messed up childhood (her father molested her, then killed himself when she was 16), she never had a smooth relationship with Logan’s family so she never felt like Logan’s had her back, she got married young and then started having kids, and she was married to someone who cultivated a career and hobbies and a social life while leaving her to keep the home front going. Reading back through the archives, it seems like those two were always mismatched in terms of background, personality and goals. Throw in her childhood issues and her mental illness and it’s only surprising that the marriage lasted as long as it did.
Hey, I inspired a post! Go me.
Considering the divorce rate in the US it’s not surprising that bloggers are getting divorced, but I think it usually comes as a shock because it seems like they’re blogging so openly about their lives, when obviously there was a lot going on behind the scenes; and also they go from blogging openly about their lives to obscure sad posts and “RESPECT MY PRIVACY PLZ” which is just…ridiculous.
Well, you can’t have it both ways in my opinion. If you have made thousands of dollars by exposing your life to the internet you cannot turn it off without offending and upsetting the people who made you a thousand/millionaire. Sure they’ll read through the train wreck because they are curious, but you’ve spit in their face and when the furor dies down, your fans are gone.
The public does not know much about Hollywood stars and are not offended, but they rise to fame by playing characters–and they have publicity people to advise them on how to keep their TRUE private life just that. But when you are starring in your own reality show, the rules are different.