As predicted on GOMI nearly two weeks ago, Heather Armstrong (of dooce.com fame) and her husband are “taking a break”.
According to her latest post, her husband is no longer living in the House That Blogging Built. Her husband put up his own post titled “Yes, I’m Currently in a Trial Separation” explaining the situation:
Things have changed between Heather and I. This is true. They needed to change. I recognize that. I’ve felt that we were headed in the wrong direction, but I have allowed other issues to block me pushing for the changes. I’m not sure that I have the words to explain the devastation, pain, regret and sorrow I’ve felt the past couple of months. I’ve tried. After a very painful holiday season, this is where my life is: away from my kids; away from my wife; away from my dogs.
He goes on to say that he and Heather “are on speaking terms. It could be a lot worse. I recognize that. It doesn’t make the pain of saying goodbye everyday any less severe. ”
Dooce has also asked her husband “to find work outside of Armstrong Media.” Could this be the beginning of the end for the Dooce blog empire?
Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Also, that’s a shame. I hope they figure out a situation that makes them both happy.
Meh. Just gives her new blog content, which she’s been desperate for since her traffic has been down considerably in the past 12-18 months. The whole HGTV thing fell apart and she realized she couldn’t hold down anything permanent or in contract with someone else, so she has to rely on her own blog to generate $$. Dooce grieves! Dooce divorces! Dooce moves on! Dooce’s first date with someone not her husband! Dooce finds love!
Barf.
What was the HGTV thing? I read her so rarely now.
Do you honestly believe that? Or are you just saying it because it fits in with the tone of this website?
I don’t know which answer would be more sad.
If that makes you sad, I have some bad news about Santa Claus :-(.
idk, I don’t think Lauren’s alone here in finding a family falling apart to be less snarkworthy than the usual Messica-fucks-up, That-Husband-is-a-douche, fare.
Pot, meet kettle.
Lisa, that idiom doesn’t make contextual sense here…?
And Super Nintendo… doesn’t make ME sad… IS sad. Different meanings.
Santa Claus isn’t real. Heather Armstrong is.
Husband drops a Dooce..
HI-YOOO
Wow. You’re cold. @Lisa
Also, seeing as you know everything about everything, can you tell me, how are my emotions today? With my partner? And cats.
We saw it coming but I’m still a little shocked, to be honest – she’s always written that he was her soulmate.
Anyone who’s not fourteen years old knows that this “soulmate” garbage is just that – garbage.
Agreed, but from when I used to read dooce (years ago), I thought they seemed really happy and compatible. Obviously, things change. I’m sad for them.
Yeah, but people portraying happy and compatible does not equal what goes on behind closed doors. Only yesterday on Fakebook, I clocked a “in a relationship with Miss Somebody New” update from someone who 3 months previously was all ” I HAVE THE BEST WIFE IN THE WORLD, I AM SO BLESSED. ” People are nuts, and full of shit. Full of nutty shit.
I’m a firm believer that anyone who feels the need to say how lucky they are to have their spouse, significant other on fb or twitter, is really covering up that things are horrible in the relationship.
I know someone who had theperfectcouple.net domain name where she posted fluffy photos & only happy times. I had the inside track that her site wasn’t very accurate. She was 25, and that was her site with her second husband. She’s on her third husband now, and that site is a distant memory to her, I’m sure. Only posting the good stuff is asking for trouble, I think.
I have a friend who is always going on about how much she loves her husband and how glad she is that traditional gender roles don’t play out in her relationship. I think that’s great, but she spends a lot of time talking about how he doesn’t make as much money as her, how she could support both of them if she wanted to and how she’s always standing up for him in various situations. At this point, I’m beginning to think it’s less that she’s happy she’s in an “egalitarian” relationship and that she just wants to keep him in his place. Honestly, her actions creep me out as much as they would if she were a guy and I’m rooting for him to come to his senses and tell her to stop denigrating him on FB and her blog, but I doubt it will happen because he’s a pushover.
I am obviously not cold-hearted enough for this, because it’s just making me sad. I’ve read Dooce a long long time. This is how I felt when Brad and Jen broke up – if those rich, successful, equally attractive people can’t make it work, what chance do the rest of us have?
I feel bad for her kids. I hope they can at least remain on good terms for their sake.
Sometimes it’s the rich and successful part that’s responsible, at least in part, for the breakup.
Freaky; I was wondering about this just yesterday. I’m sad for them. I hope they can work it out.
:(
I was JUST coming here to see if there was anything posted.
I feel bad for her. It’s not easy. I dumped my fiance last night and I feel like ass today.
Sorry :(
S’okay. It was a long time coming, and I’m already divorced, so I’ve done this before. The hard part is that he is financially dependent on me/will be essentially homeless and I am trying to figure out how to balance not throwing him out on the street vs. enabling him.
Yikes, that is a difficult situation. I wish you the best
I’m sorry to hear that. If it helps, I was in a similar situation as you were, and my ex was just fine after our breakup, when he had to be. I’m wishing you the best too.
Thanks. I really hope he will be okay/figure something out, because I care about him very much.
xxx
eat yer green, baby grrl.
and your greens, too.
I did that a year ago with a man I slept next to for 7 years, and though I miss who were we together, it was the right decision for all involved. For about a month, I couldn’t walk into Trader Joes without breaking down. Things will get better and you will pull through very nicely bc you’re a Type A Catlady just like me.
Sigh. That’s no good :(
Divorce sucks, no matter how rich and privileged you are. Mostly I just feel for the dogs and kids.
Also, him working outside the house will probably be the best thing for both of them.
I was thinking the same. Being married to your business partner might not always be the best idea.
Kitchen Nightmares and Judge Judy have taught me to never, ever go into business with a friend or family member. Or to even lend a friend or family member money.
Money poisons everything.
Amen.
And now Dooce gets another book deal.
MTE.
I wonder how much she’ll blog about the divorce – kind of tricky when your personal life is how you pay the bills but your husband is your business partner.
Maybe she’ll go on a worldwide trip to find herself a la Elizabeth Gilbert.
With her bff Christy!
Are you kidding? She is going to blog the whole thing. There is no way in hell she wouldn’t. She overshares her life until people threaten to stop talking to her, like her family did about her mormonism critiques.
This is sad — and a cautionary tale for putting it all out there.
Makes this post from May kind of depressing: http://dooce.com/2011/05/26/found-what-i-was-looking
I suppose bloggers face the same risks all of the reality show people take when signing up, and their divorce rate is HIGH. Bottom line is that you need to keep the world out of your bedroom, and your home.
That’s too bad though. Maybe it’s not too late for them to fix things.
It seems stepping out of The Truman Show and back into the anonymity of the real world would be best for their marriage. A blog of eternal self-examination is bound to eventually drive anybody mad. In a sense it’s like solitary confinement. I think looking outwards and jumping back into the maddening crowd would add some healthy/fresh experience and blood to their relationship.
(And I add my two cents as someone who has thoroughly no idea of what’s going on behind their closed door.)
I find a lot that when bloggers get divorced, you can go back and find entries like that in the recent past. It seems like a common phenomenon; they get one good day in what was probably a long string of bad, and everything seems hopeful and great, so they write about it, but they just can’t sustain it. I’m wary now whenever I see a blogger who doesn’t frequently gush about their relationship suddenly start doing so- it’s like that cricket the sisters hear in “Practical Magic” that lets them know their husband is going to die- you see those posts and the end is coming.
That post implies they’ve been having marital problems for a long time. Wow. Well, I can see how their blogging would put an incredible strain on their marriage.
Here’s another post which shows the cracks in their relationship.
http://dooce.com/2010/02/10/featured-community-question-yet-another-reason-couples-therapy
I can’t tell if the first comment, which I assume is from her husband, is meant to be serious or sarcastic.
I’m sad for them, too. It must also really suck for Jon to have to find work outside of the company that is in his name (although I understand she built the brand, essentially).
He will be snapped up VERY quickly. I think finding work away from his wife will be quite liberating. He’ll see he has value without her as an anchor, and can stand on his own two feet. He calls out the codependency as a specific issue — glad to see he groks it.
Snapped up by who? I think spending his career working for Armstrong “professionalism is not my brand” Media does not bode well for his resume. Probably he should have seen that coming before he got himself shitcanned, though.
I don’t know what his specialty is but designing/programming a site of that size and popularity is going to be impressive to somebody.
Maybe one day he can hire me.
Touche.
Believe it or not, there’s a bit of a frenzy going on within brands and other organizations about the possibility of working with an influential (and, sorry, but he is) daddy blogger who has semi-decent design, coding, and writing chops. Yes, this kicked off within minutes of his and Heather’s blog posts going live. We’re in a talent shortage for this combination of skills.
I agree! Also the company name is Armstrong media – his last name that she took because they got married. That probably stings.
Unless he was a complete idiot, he should own half of the company.
Didn’t he quit his job to work for the dooce empire? It would be incredibly sad if he was nothing more than Dooce’s employee and winds up with nothing, considering she will probably spin all of this into more pageviews, revenue, and another book.
This, what Party Pants said… call me cynical but this will all be spinned to watch Heather be a single Mom!
You mean SINGLE MOM!!!, right?
I agree.
Unfortunately, I think he needs to lawyer up to protect his interest as she seems done with him.
Jon sounds enormously entitled in his blog post regarding the type of work he is looking to find. Yeah, I’d love some bullshit internet job where I get to be the “ideas” guy, with flexible hours, and to work from home.
Well, who wouldn’t?
+1
He always comes off as sounding incredibly entitled (to me). It sounds like he can more or less call his own shots though, and I’d personally love to live where I want and travel when needed for meetings. I’m just a jealous basement dweller.
Cubicles are DEATH!!!!
This is where he realizes that the self-titles he’s assigned himself for years don’t translate to real people jobs.
Snapped up? He walked out of his last non Dooce job. Quit without notice. We are in a very depressed economy and ad agencies, etc. are laying off people faster than the war debt is adding up.
And he wants someone to pay him big bucks to stay at home and “create synergy” or something like that. He hates cubicles. Cubicles are death. Man, talk about grandiose delusion!!! I don’t think it was wise to put that out there. Now what if there’s a great job out there that would God Forbid require him to work in a cubicle? One of the 500 other applicants will get it.
No, agencies cannot hire quickly enough right now. I’m charged with doubling a sizable team and there are not nearly enough solid candidates for all the work that needs to be done. People are demanding — and getting — crazy good perks, like working from home, flexible hours, signing bonuses. Jon will have no trouble getting work, and he will be able to name his price (six figures for a FT role).
If you have ft jobs I would like to introduce myself. I’m your new best friend. Nice to meet you.
I emailed you a few months ago but didn’t get a reply.
Was it when gomi was moving servers? I didn’t get a lot of email, apparently. I did get a lot of yelling for not responding to emails, however.
Will hit you up tomorrow on the toxicwhore addy.
I also have alice@alicewalkerwright.com.
I will be soooooo happy for you PP if something comes of this!! *fingers crossed*
No, he won’t. This is 2012, not 2002. He has no design skills to speak of, and not even enough technical skills to code up dooce.com using Drupal (one of the easier site-building frameworks out there) when she revamped her site. They had to hire some programmers to do the work.
His photography is crap. Well done technically, he tweaks his stuff in photoshop to improve contrast and colors, but his sense of what makes an interesting composition is on a par with your average 10 year old. If he wants any kind of job he’s going to have to go back to school and update his skills. I don’t think his ego will allow him to do that.
It’s been hinted at for a while, and she’s been posting and tweeting a lot more in recent weeks (looking for an outlet?) but this is so, so sad.
I’m not surprised. If i had to live and work with my SO i’d go completely insane. It’s too much pressure to put on a relationship.
There are probably other issues too but just this in itself would be hard to make the relationship work in the long run.
I think as long as they can remain friends, who cares? Children get over it. They’ll both have more space and freedom. Hopefully they’ll both be happier in the long run.
Divorce doesn’t equal death.
I reckon she’d be a pain in the ass to live with though so well done to him for putting up with her for this long. Snarky? Yes.Oh well.
Er, oops. Internet fail. That wasnt supposed to be in reply to bunk. I obviously just liked the username!
Boy I feel bad that he has to move out of that palace and into a “preferably skeez-free place” where he doesn’t have to spend his time “fending off rodents, bugs or addicts.”
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
I wonder if he’s even thought about the fact that he needs a place where his children can come stay. I always think the idea of the kids staying in the house and the parents rotating in and out makes a crazy kind of sense. They have the money for it. Or is it all in her name? I don’t know why exactly, but I hope he gets a share of it.
This x a million with the parents switching houses scenario.
Didn’t he do the vast majority of renovations/repairs? He’s got to own at LEAST half of that place.
They’re married = he owns half.
Armstrong Media = unless he was very stupid and the business isn’t also registered in his name, he owns half.
This is when divorces get fun. And how divorce lawyers get to make a lot of money.
No kidding. I hope for everyone’s sake they don’t get sucked into the petty, duke-it-out shit that often goes down.
considering their advertising income, business value, and home, their lawyers will be getting Jennie Perillo-type “fuck you money” merely on the retainers.
How do you know he owns half of both those things?
They’re the legal rights you get with marriage.
Not really unless you live in a communal property state. Utah is not a community property state. I think you’re technically right that they own 50/50 because that’s what’s fair in a marriage, but there are definitely other possibilities.
Where is Afghani to give us the inside scoop on every contract, law and piece of excrement involved in this very personal matter?!
“This is when divorces get fun. And how divorce lawyers get to make a lot of money.”
yes. and this one seems like it would be particularly fun. it’s also the reason you need 2 or 3 cell phones, so you can keep track of calls and bill them properly. or turn the phone off to duck them for a while. i bet these two will run up a massive legal bill–no prenup, a bunch of young kids, massive house where he invested sweat equity, co-owned business where they’re emotionally connected, etc. and it’s in a state (utah) with interesting views and laws regarding divorce. so jealous of both of their lawyers. :(
Are you saying you would represent both parties at the same time? That’s a glaring conflict of interest.
UGH sorry Afghani – didn’t finish reading your comment.
family law clients tend to need a lot of hand holding, that’s the reason for multiple phones. easier to keep track of billing and to keep them off the main phone. i got my current job because i’m willing to do contentious divorce. no one else in our office wants to touch those cases and they were referring a lot of things out. divorces tend to bring in very nice retainers as well.
Everyone I know who grew up with the “kids stay in the house, parents rotate” situation (three families total) hated it beyond words. Also, it’s more expensive, because in most cases the parents each want an apartment of their own, not to be virtual roommates in the crash pad.