Splitsville for Jennifarc

If Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony can’t make marriage work, what hope do the rest of us have?

The couple hasn’t given a reason for the split, but my insider source says Marc Anthony was bitter that the media never gave them a catchy couples name like when  Jennifer was together with Ben Affleck and everyone called them “Bennifer”.  After seven years of marriage Marc couldn’t wait any longer and decided to branch out and seek a catchy name as part of another couple.  Jennifer tried to convince him to stay for the sake of the kids, but Marc would only answer, “What about Jennifarc?  Or Jenthony?  Marcifer?  Anthopez?  Lopanthony?  And coming down the red carpet, is that Jennifarc I see?  Has a ring to it, right?”

It always surprises me when celebrities get divorced.  If I ever write a book on the secrets to a happy marriage, I would counsel all new couples to base their marriage on the following celebrity foundation:

Spend 75% of the year apart.

Both partners should have an assertive, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer and ignore-criticism personality typically necessary to achieve a high level of success in entertainment.

Both partners should spend most of their time with a staff of enablers who are paid to tell them they’re always right.

Constantly meet beautiful people who desperately want to sleep with a celebrity.

Have millions of dollars available to easily enable escape and the starting of a new life.

But somehow this magic formula never seems to work, even though celebrities are better than the rest of us.

I’ve been using Jennifarc as a benchmark to measure the success of my marriage and now it’s hard to tell whether my wife and I are happy or not.  I’m going through the same crisis of confidence I experienced when Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman split shortly after I got married.  I only got married because I wanted what Tom and Nicole had, and if Tom Cruise couldn’t make a marriage work, what chance did I have?

Marriage can be hard when your wife is as difficult as mine.  When I performed in Twelfth Night, she only came to four out of ten shows.  I bet Marc Anthony watched Jennifer Lopez on every episode of American Idol, but their marriage still failed.

It gets worse: just last week my wife went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for this dip I really like and the store didn’t have any ripe avocados, so she bought a canned avocado spread, and as I ate the dip I couldn’t help thinking, why does marriage have to be so hard?  I bet Marcifer has an avocado tree on their estate and has ripe avocados every day.  But they still didn’t make it.

One time on my birthday my wife and the kids wrote and performed a play about my life, but the blocking and the stage direction weren’t as crisp as I would have liked, and one of my sons clearly hadn’t memorized his lines and was improvising.  I wrote a review and posted it on the refrigerator, awarding the production two out of four stars and making clear one of those stars was awarded solely based on the riveting subject matter.  I bet when Jennifer wrote a play for Marc’s birthday it was full of incredible acting, music, dancing, and special effects.

But Lopanthony still couldn’t make it work.  What hope do the rest of us have?