Oct. 22--I don't buy the notion that starring in a reality show (or any show, for that matter) makes you fair game for cultural scorn and judgment when life takes a bad turn.
(And by bad turn, of course, I mean checking yourself into a Nevada brothel and mainlining herbal Viagra.)
But I do think we can look to the lives of celebrities to inspire nuanced conversations about uncomfortable topics.
So. Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom have reportedly called off their pending divorce in light of Odom's slow recovery after being found unconscious at the Love Ranch in Crystal, Nev. Employees say he was using cocaine and Reload, a Viagra substitute that the Food and Drug Administration has warned against, though toxicology results from blood samples are still pending.
Kardashian had originally filed for divorce in December 2013, but her attorney filed a petition Wednesday to dismiss the filing, according to reports.
Let's acknowledge right off the bat that Kardashian and her handlers could be sticking around because they smell a juicy plot twist for their reality show empire. Let's also acknowledge that we have no idea what sort of demons each of the players in this tragic tale is battling, and that drug abuse and sex with strangers are more likely a cry for help than they are gleeful debauchery.
In other words, there's a lot we don't know.
What we do know is that a whole lot of people get divorced in this country (I'm one of them -- been divorced since 2012), and a whole lot more people consider it at some point.
On Thursday morning, I called Michele Lowrance -- a divorce court judge-turned-mediator who co-wrote "The New Love Deal: Everything You Must Know Before Marrying, Moving In, or Moving On!" -- to ask her a few questions that the Khloe and Lamar saga prompted me to ponder.
Is it wise, I asked Lowrance, to call off a divorce when one half of the couple experiences a crisis? Job loss, addiction flare-up, death in the family, you name it. Won't the problems that led them to split still exist once the crisis has faded?
"There are times when people see the light during a crisis," she said. "That happens. If someone is going through a hard time, does it change the recipe of the relationship? It could."
It could also merely compound existing conflicts, she said. The decision to proceed or postpone, then, can't really be made based on whether the troubled party will rebound. It's impossible to know.
It's often a decision of conscience more than logic, Lowrance said.
"Most people are ambivalent about getting a divorce anyway," she said. "Very few people are so absolutely sure that they're doing the right thing, because it's such a confusing decision to make, so that when a crisis happens it destabilizes resolve, which was not so strong to begin with."
Many people, she said, weigh how they'll feel about themselves if they continue the divorce -- even more heavily than they weigh whether the marriage will improve.
"The person not going through the crisis has to live with themselves if they don't give the person that last chance," Lowrance said. "It becomes about how they want to see themselves. They may need to know they did everything possible in the end -- that there was nothing left to try, and they weren't the person who left someone who was in trouble."
A mental health professional can help individuals sort out that complicated stew of emotions and priorities, Lowrance said.
"Showing up for somebody who's really compromised is noteworthy, but the question always has to be what is the effect on the healthy person?" she said. "It's like a black hole in the solar system. How do you know the strength of the black hole? You have to see what the drain is on the companion star."
Nobody wins, after all, when one person's toxic ways contaminate another's. That's not sticking around in sickness or in health; it's allowing one person's sickness to defeat another person's health.
hstevens@tribpub.com
