Goshengir1

I am also worried about Colleen...the differences in the body language between the two married couples was so striking. Alexa and Brennan were sitting close and touching, but also relaxed and comfortable. Matt was practically on top of Colleen, and had his body in such a way that he was blocking her from Cole, and I don't think she ever even glanced in the direction of the single men. She seemed rigid and terrified, despite her words that they were so happy. Matt to me is the embodiment of toxic masculinity, and she will be walking on eggshells around him for the duration. I do wonder if the hosts didn't question him about their fights or show any clips to protect her. I really wish she hadn't married him. I don't get any toxic vibes from Cole, I think he's young and dumb and he and Zanab were not well suited for each other, at all. He definitely made stupid mistakes flirting with Colleen and telling Zanab that she rated 9/10, but I don't think he deserved the tongue lashing she gave him at the altar. I also felt that he was honestly thunderstruck when Zanab said he came home from the bachelor party with another girl's phone number. It's hard to believe someone would just make a story up like that out of thin air, but I think after Malibu she was upset and wanted to play the victim and manipulated events to support that narrative. She portrayed him as someone controlling what she ate and making her feel bad about her weight, and that the editors conveniently never showed that footage. I found that hard to believe during the reunion, and the cuties footage backed up my opinion. Cole is like an overactive puppy and I can totally see how that would be annoying, but I didn't feel that any of his words or actions in that scene were controlling or abusive which is what her narrative of the story was. When he was crying on the couch I wanted to give him a hug because I felt that he was sincerely overwhelmed and distraught, and I never feel that way towards crying reality show people I find toxic (Big Ed on 90 Day finance, I'm looking at you). I also wonder how his family reacted to these events, I hope they were sympathetic and didn't just give him a big "we told you so" as they (rightly) felt this whole thing was a big mistake. I think he will grow up and make a good husband for someone some day, but it has to be the right person. I got out of a really bad, toxic relationship with a narcissist 8 years ago, and a year later met my now husband. He was 46 and had never been married or even had a long term relationship with anyone before me, and when people questioned that as a red flag I said he was just waiting for me. I think the secret to a good relationship is finding the right person. We watch this show together and just feel so very, very lucky.

I tried couples therapy with my ex, the first one he didn't feel understood the magnitude of our (meaning my) issues and we never went back to her. The second one was a therapist he had seen before by himself and trusted, but once this guy tried to make my ex understand my side of things that was the end of that. Therapy doesn't work with people who absolutely refuse or are incapable of understanding anything outside of themselves, and are always the victim. My ex hated one of my best friends who didn't like him, and he blew up at me repeatedly over wanting to stay friends with her. He said that my continuing to talk to her and spend time with her was the same thing as cheating on him, and the therapist said, "Do you hear yourself?" We didn't have blankies, though. Ed doesn't want Liz to work because the people she works with are 'toxic'...meaning they probably don't like him and he's worried they will convince her to leave him, so he wants to isolate her, and if she is financially dependent on him even better. I left my ex 8 years ago after three years of horrible, awful fights and trying to change my life to please him and make him feel secure, but it was never enough. Now I'm very happily married and last year my husband and I went to Prague on our honeymoon, so I loved those scenes with Yara just for the scenery. I can understand wanting to live there part of the year and be close to her mom, but come on. She acted all like what is the big deal to Jovi, but it is a big deal. If you can't discuss these things with your husband that is a problem. It was almost like she was trying to sneak getting an apartment past him, and if she uses her own money how could he have an issue with that. If I lived in a country where shopping involved haggling with people who screamed at me like that woman did to Jenny I probably wouldn't ever want to do it either. But I do love to cook and I would be trying to learn some new skills, like cooking Indian food and learning the language. Mashed potatoes, that's it? Indian food is SO GOOD. It kills me when people get married and think their spouse is going to change. Jenny doesn't enjoy cooking or cleaning and she isn't going to start miraculously start just because Sumit is gone 7 days a week.

So going from celebrating your engagement and the love of your life to running into the night barefoot and throwing your $13,000 ring into the bushes while being screamed at to come pack your stuff is just a little bit of a red flag that this relationship is toxic. Obviously they never should have gotten back together after 8 nasty break ups much less gotten engaged, but such is the nature of a personality disorder. Big Ed isn't capable of a healthy relationship, and Liz is exhausting herself trying to abide by his crazy-making rules and make sense out of things that make no sense. She also drinks because she's unhappy and needs to get out of that relationship before she becomes an alcoholic. She might already be there. When someone makes you cry all the time, he's not the right person for you. Big Ed reminds me so much of my abusive ex it really is astonishing, I think there is a Personality Disorder playbook they follow. Liz needs to go find that ring, pawn it and then walk away and never look back.

The designer definitely took liberties. It reminded me of the costumes from the stylized remake of Anna Karenina with Keira Knightly, with 1950's elements mixed in with Victorian fashion. The necklines with the fabric raised and draped around the shoulders and the huge, chunky jewelry was very 1950's, and Sisi's wedding gown with the applique lace could have stepped out of one of today's wedding fashion magazines. And when her sister cut her hair and was wearing that awful wig...I'm pretty sure the real Helene would not have been caught dead at court looking like that. And what was that weird dance the court did at the wedding? Was it supposed to symbolize how predatory the court was, or was Sisi visualizing something that wasn't even happening because of her internal turmoil over suddenly being married to the Emperor? It was not a life she was well suited for and really had no idea what she was getting into. I'm not sure why a lot of costume dramas don't want to use historically accurate costumes, I think because they are afraid modern audiences wouldn't think the actors are attractive in 100% accurate Victorian fashions and hair or won't connect to the story. Personally I love the dresses from the 1850's and the modern elements are distracting and take me right out of the story. My husband and I went to Vienna last year and visited the Sisi museum at the Hofburg Palace, and I have read a couple biographies of her. I have always found her fascinating and tragic, and I think the show is pretty well done if a bit over the top in some ways.

I'm a sucker for these shows too! The other two seasons of American Crime Story, The Assassination of Gianni Versace and Impeachment, are good, especially the one on Versace. They should all be on Hulu. OH, and Waco is a miniseries on David Koresh and the Waco tragedy that is really good. I was not familiar with the Michael Peterson case and hadn't seen the documentary, so this story was all new to me and I thought it was good. I love Toni Colette and her death scenes were all so well done and horrifying. They set up the owl theory to be pretty compelling, but I tend to believe Michael killed her. There is something so off and creepy about him, and he's a total narcissist.

I agree that Shaeda escalated things in the car (I would HATE to have anyone touching me around the head and face like that at any time, much less driving) and she did it out of anger, because Bilal is emotionally abusive and bringing out the worst in her. All of their scenes triggered me, because I lived with a guy like that. I once committed a huge crime by chewing gum in the car with him, when I knew he didn't like gum chewing and I had to listen to a lecture the entire hour ride home, even after disposing of said gum, that had me dissolved in tears and apologizing over and over just to get him to stop. I never knew what would set him off, and I walked on egg shells and second guessed everything about myself and the way I reacted to things because he found fault with what I considered normal reactions. And it never ended until I apologized and accepted all of the blame, always. I turned into someone I didn't recognize, and once slapped him across the face out of sheer frustration and confusion. I can see that with Shaeda. He is making her question and second guess all of her normal reactions, such as not liking that awful house he first took her to, and when she tries to explain he turns things around so that she is left feeling confused and probably wondering if she is a violent, inconsiderate person. It's called crazy-making because it does exactly that. I finally got away from my abusive ex, and a year later met the most wonderful man who is now my husband, and guess what, he was 46 and had never been married or engaged! He brings out the very best in me, and in 7 years together we haven't had a single fight. We watch this show together and I tell him about some of my experiences with a narcissist and things I did in reaction, and he is astonished because that is so not who I am. I really hope Shaeda gets away from him because it will never get better, she will find herself giving up everything that matters to her if it doesn't fall in line with what he wants, including children.

I enjoyed this episode, as I am enjoying the series because I am a sucker for bio pics and I love Gillian Anderson. Finding those letters must have been so devastating for Eleanor, and that attitude of 'boys will be boys' from his mother and a divorce would ruin his career. UGH. I did give a little chortle at the mother saying there had never been a divorce in the Roosevelt family and it wasn't going to start now, because while FDR and Eleanor stayed married there were about 15 marriages between their 5 kids so that no-divorce trend didn't last much longer! My nit-pick of this episode was when Eleanor said she was tired after she and Franklin arrived back in New York from France, and that it was 2 am in Paris like she was jet lagged. Good grief, it was 1919! They would have sailed by ship and taken 4-5 days to get back, there was no jet lag involved in travel at that time. My mom told me about the Feminine Mystique and how big of a deal that book was when it came out. I enjoyed that scene with the society ladies passing it around like it was pornography.

I enjoy reading biographies of the First Ladies and I love a good biopic, so I was excited for this and enjoyed it. I liked the scene of Laura Bush giving Michelle a tour of the White House and can imagine how surreal that would be, and also how excited the staff was. I did not like the contortions Viola Davis was doing with her mouth, it was very distracting and unnecessary. I thought the actor playing with Obama did an okay job and I didn't really notice their age difference, but their story was definitely the weakest. I thought Gillian Anderson was believable as Eleanor and I'm interested to see where the story goes with her basically building her own life in the White House. Before he got polio Eleanor found out FDR was having an affair and was going to leave him, but her mother-in-law (a force of nature) said that a divorce would ruin his career and begged her to stay, and they basically worked out an agreement to stay married. Then he got sick and she was his strongest supporter, but they also had separate lives. I know the least about Betty Ford and was reading her wiki page during the show. I had no idea she was a dancer in her youth, and such an activist though of course I've heard of the Betty Ford clinic. I agree Michelle Pfieffer was the strongest of the three portrayals. I live in the DC area and during one of the transitions from Eleanor to Betty in 1973 they showed a flash of the FDR memorial, which I thought was odd because that memorial wasn't built until 1997, but that is probably just me being nit-picky.

The Little House books were my absolute favorite as a kid, I remember picking up Little House in the Big Woods in the first grade and thinking, I can read this! I was so excited. It introduced me to reading and so much else that developed into lifelong passions: history, women's literature, fashion, food. I have re-read the series several times as an adult and the stories hold up well, I just love the writing. I know there is a topic specifically for those books. Another series of books I inhaled as a kid in the early 80's don't hold up as well for adult reading: the Childhood of Famous Americans series. Does anyone else remember those? They were written mostly in the 40's and 50's but my library had the whole set and I gobbled them up. I was mostly only interested in the stories of famous women, I remember Betsy Ross, Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Louisa May Alcott. They are still published and I have tried to revisit them as an adult, but the writing is too simplistic and dated.

In 2016 I felt like every young woman I worked with was getting sucked into selling LuLaRoe, and I went to one popup party at someone's house and tried on a couple things, but nothing in my size was a pattern I liked so I didn't buy anything. I also kept getting invited to parties on FB which I found really annoying. None of them are selling it now, and I wonder what they did with all of their left over inventory. One thing that did appeal to me about LuLaRoe was that they seemed to cater to styles that were comfortable for larger women, and I thought they could be attractive if the pattern wasn't too loud and ugly. So I was surprised on the documentary when it turned out DeAnn was pressuring her employees to be thin and get weight loss surgery, because I thought they wanted to sell to real sized women and it would be a selling point if the associate was curvy and rocking the styles. Then I realized that DeAnn is the worst sort of woman because she says she's all about supporting strong, independent women, and then it turns out she's actually pressuring them to be whatever was considered to be the perfect housewife in the 1950's, including being thin, PLUS maintaining a career as a full time business woman. She made my skin crawl with that baby voice and mannerisms, and the cutesy way she was behaving with her husband. And speaking of the husband, didn't he say he knew from childhood having a job wasn't for him? He's too good to slave away at a regular 9 to 5 job, but can marry an entrepreneurial woman and ride on her coattails I guess.

Ten years ago I was in a relationship with an emotionally abusive man. He would do things like wake me up at 2 in the morning to ask me why a friend of mine hadn't hit 'like' on his Facebook post and what was I telling her about him, and why did everyone in my world hate him. He screamed at me constantly over things that made no sense to me, and had me second guessing myself and everything I felt and did. I turned into someone I didn't recognize in the way I reacted to him. He brought out the very worst in me. I screamed back at him so much I'm surprised neighbors never called the cops on us. I finally left that relationship and a year later I met a man who I still can't believe I was lucky enough to meet. He brings out the best in me. We've been together 6 years and got married last year, and we've never had a single fight. We watch this silly show together and say that no one could make a reality show out of us because we're so boring, and it's wonderful! All that to say, I think it's hard to know for sure who is the abusive one in the Mike/Natalie relationship. I can see her being the nutty/crazy-making one who turns Mike into a screaming asshole, but I can also see it reversed. He makes her so miserable she escapes to her friend's house, and she just sits there while he screams at her because nothing she can say will make any difference. It's impossible to know what is really going on, and then there is all the producer-driven drama because it makes good TV. I do know that they are toxic to each other and just need to go their separate ways and never speak again. Angela is definitely the abusive one to Nigerian Mike. The way she screams at him on the phone and doesn't allow him to get a word in edgewise makes me so uncomfortable, it takes me right back to my old relationship. My ex didn't like many of my friends and tried to keep me from seeing them because they 'weren't good for me'. That is such a huge red flag. She is horrible, and he will never be able to make her happy so that she doesn't scream at him about everything. There is no fixing crazy, you just need to move on and never look back.

I gave a little squeal during Tiffany's segment because she parked on Patrick Street and met her friend at Cafe Nola, one of my favorite places in downtown Frederick. Great food, coffee and drinks. I lived in Frederick from 2010 - 2017 and I loved it, a really fun, beautiful area with great shops, restaurants and breweries. I moved because I met a guy online from Manassas, Virginia, about 90 minutes away, who is now my husband. Our third date was at Cafe Nola. I haven't been to Frederick since before the pandemic and we definitely need to make a trip up there soon! Maybe we'll run into Tiffany and encourage her to ditch Ronald. I find Ronald scary, like he could turn mean quick.

True, but wait for how long? There are no promises that we'll be able to have the reception we want next year, we certainly didn't expect this when we started planning last year. My reasons for wanting to go ahead and get married now have absolutely nothing to do with money, we are paying for everything ourselves and I'm not expecting gifts, or even legality or logistics...it's simply that we've been together 5 years, I love him to pieces and am ready for him to be my husband. I am almost 48, he is 51 and we feel so lucky to have found each other, and we want to celebrate that. That's it. If we can't have the reception next year it just won't happen, but we will still be married and that is really all that matters. I wish I could say Stacey and Florian had the same reasons, but I'm not too sure about that lol.

While normally I would agree, I am giving people a bit of a pass with weddings getting royally screwed over due to a global pandemic. My fiance and I started planning our wedding for October 10 over a year ago and I was very excited after finalizing our venue and had my 2020 calendar all planned out with when to send invitations, RSVP deadline, etc...and then Covid hit. We decided in June to postpone the big reception to next year for the safety of everyone, but neither of us wanted to wait to actually get married so we are having a small ceremony in our backyard on October 10th with a few members of our immediate family. I am struggling with the logistics of it all, and I guess we will be renewing our vows next year along with the reception. I hope no one thinks of us as indulgent or attention seeking. I'm still sad that I can't have the ONE wedding I started planning last year and wanted to have with all of our friends and family, but when life hands you lemons... October 10th, 2020 is the day we will celebrate as our wedding day. I wonder what type of wedding dress Stacey wore/will wear, because the dresses we saw her and Darcey try on during one of the previous shows were awful!

I grew up in Northern VA, and I was 20 years old and home from college when this story broke in the Washington Post. I remember laughing over the unbelievable details, but didn't follow the trials or think much more about it except for seeing some of the comedy sketches. My memory was pinged when I saw the documentary pop up on Amazon last week, and I started the first episode out of curiosity. Then I was like, OMG, this all happened in MANASSAS? I currently live in Manassas, Virginia...the apartment complex and the hospital are a few miles from me, the courthouse where the trials took place is right down the road. I was really drawn into this story. I didn't remember the outcome of the trials and was horrified (though not surprised) that John was acquitted, and relieved that Lorena was found not guilty. I finished the last episode last night, and I'm surprised that John actually agreed to participate in this documentary because his true nature really comes shining through. The porn, the botched penile enhancement surgery (he said, 'I did a lot of research and this is the best doctor in the world'...cut to articles about hack doctor losing his license 😂), the fact that he is too dim witted and violent to even keep a job as a bouncer at a brothel, the horrifying details of his abuse of other women...it's all too outrageous to be true, and yet it is. I think he must truly think that his version of what happened, that his wanting a divorce made her so upset she cut off his penis in a fit of rage, and that he's been a victim of greedy women, is believable. Sorry dude. Even your friends told the truth about you bragging about rough sex because they were so horrified. I'm just sorry that what happened gave him even a modicum of fame that he was able to cash in on. I'm happy that Lorena is settled and happy with a family, and that she works with victims of domestic abuse. I'm surprised and yet not surprised that he still contacts her and writes her letters, because that is what abusive men do. Again, he probably believes that she contacted him first looking for money. My emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend would come up with his own version of events that astonished me because they were so blatantly false, and yet he convinced himself they were real. Finally, I just have to mention the hideous fashion of the 90's...and I was a young adult then and fully participated in the atrocities. Yikes!