Going The Distance

One of the things which I get crap from my husband for is my deep love of US trashy magazines. Every week, I delight in buying People Magazine and US Weekly. As Mike says often, this habit rots my brain. But very occasionally it has its advantages: when it comes to US celebrity, there’s nothing I don’t know. So when Mike’s mate Brett said that he was going out with Catt Sadler, from E! Entertainment’s Daily 10, I was starstruck. Mike, ever the bloke, had no idea who he was referring to.

Catt, it turns out, is totally wonderful. A genuinely warm, lovely person and mother of two boys despite being reed thin. She and Brett have a fabulous love story and agreed to share it with us. They are four months in, and they are completely smitten, so we got them as an example of the “limerance” phase, when lust and passion still burn strong (oh how we yearn for those days).

They met on a plane. Both had been working out at the Indy 500 races in Indiana, and were heading back to LA. Brett, whose company sponsors one of the teams, had had a great week of high octane schmoozing, and Catt had been hosting an E! special engagement out there. Brett had been assigned the same seat as a large, hostile woman who immediately attacked him when he asked if that was her seat. To avoid her onslaught, he then moved to stand at the side (beside Catt’s seat). Catt, seeing him standing like a lemon, said that he was welcome to sit beside her until the problem was solved and he got a seat. He ended up staying there, the two of them clicked immediately, and they talked for the duration of the 5 hour flight.

The next day, Brett sent Catt a large parcel of goodies for her and her boys with a note saying “Here’s my phone number, but without the last number…”. He heard nothing for a week, and was thinking that Catt was not only not interested but actually rude, so he called a week later with hostile tones and left a message on her machine. At the exact moment that he was leaving his terse message, Catt had headed down to the shipping department at E! to collect a package from friend of hers and found, to her simultaneous delight (huge package for her from Brett) and horror (she realised that it was likely that it had been there for a while without anyone informing her about it), that she had received something from Brett. A tense phonecall between the two ensued, until the issue had been cleared up. And the rest is history. And it’s all in Catt’s blog – it just so happened that she had been asked to write a blog about relationships (how Carrie Bradshaw) for the summer. www.944.com/blog/personalities/cattsadler, so Brett became the “APG”, airplane guy – and she tells their story much better than I do.

It was fun to be around early love. Brett and Catt are still totally smitten, and they giggle, finish each others’ sentences, laugh playfully and flirtily with each other. I asked how it was for her being a known face – does she get approached by guys for the wrong reason? – and she said that she has had some guys just want her for arm candy, but refreshingly, Brett didn’t know who she was when they met. The other thing she said was that in her job, she reports Hollywood breakups and relationship scandals day in day out, so it’s easy to feel jaded – and yet here she was totally in love. It was wonderful to see.

We meet with one of LA’s top divorce lawyers, Stacy D Phillips, to hear about divorce and Proposition 8.

She’s a real powerhouse – named one of the Top 50 women in Los Angeles law – and has represented many celebrity clients in their divorces: Bobbi Brown (ex-Mr Whitney Houston); Darcy LaPier (ex-Mrs Jean Claude Van Damme); and Erin Everly (ex-Mrs Axel Rose).

We wanted to talk to her about divorce rates in California being especially high, about how she feels about divorce (it turns out she’s divorced herself, and an absolute advocate if it gives you the oomph to make life better) and about the passing of Proposition 8 (Californians were recently given the option to vote for or against gay marriage being legal in the state. They did, and they banned it, to the shock of many – and the disappointment of Ms Phillips. She does, however, feel that this is not the last we have heard of the matter).

The wall in her huge, corner office is covered with accolades and photos with Clintons and Gores. Stacy is fiendishly bright, and has often been honoured for her services to womenhood – she’s very good at playing a man’s game without sacrificing anything of her feminity. I was in awe from the get go. She obviously sees a lot of acrimony in her line of work, but equally, being able to offer empathy as well as counsel is valuable in the field of divorce law. She says that divorce is extremely painful, but that it is not necessarily a bad thing to do: it offers individuals a chance at happiness, it can be incredibly liberating once the initial pain has passed, and she delights in setting her clients up with friends.

She is author of the book Divorce: It’s All About Control, in which she details the 6 causes that she sees of divorce:

1. Money
2. Children
3. Health
4. Loss of love/intimacy
5. Growth (professional or personal)
6. Fear (physical, emotional, psychological)

It’s true that divorce is not always a bad thing, and it was very refreshing to hear it from her. It made me wish that we had had more success at finding someone in California – a Liz Taylor type – who had been divorced countless times. The challenge now will be to find one in the more Catholic South America…

Mike’s personal project for LA was to get a pornstar couple. So while I was running around trying to get celebs and experts, Mike was conversing endlessly with representatives of Porn Central, the San Fernando Valley. Elation gleamed in my husband’s eyes when he found a porn couple who have been happily married for 13 years.

What a couple they are! Nicki is the same age as me, 29, and Josh is a little older at 33. The two of them are high school sweethearts. They grew up in smalltown Florida, got married when Nicki was 17, had their boys and settled down to live happily. A few years later, they went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with a group of friends. They had a fairly debaucherous time and when they got back, one of Nicki’s friend suggested that she supplement her nurse’s income with some stripping at a club. This she did, and really enjoyed it. She’d work the weekends and earn more in one weekend than her entire monthly salary as a nurse. So she jacked in her nursing job and started to do it properly. The clients loved her, and she and Josh decided to make some amateur videos of her (now worth thousands!) which she could sell to the clients for $20 at the end of her encounters. They cost Josh $1 to make and they were selling like hot buns, so to speak. She was doing so well at this that someone in the porn industry saw the videos and asked her to come out to the world’s porn capital, San Fernando Valley, to make a movie. She did, it went very well and now she’s one of the biggest stars in the porn industry. Josh is a porn director – he occasionally performs, but prefers to be behind the camera.

So, LOADS to learn from these two about handling jealousy, the difference between physical and emotional love, and how to keep our sex life spicy…

Nicki is one of the loveliest, sweetest women that we’ve met on this trip. She’s a doting mother, a loving wife and a keen horserider – so we met at her stables where she keeps two horses. The extraordinary thing for me (given that Mike had pretty much surrendered all powers of objectivity at the door…) was that she as so lovely, had such a laugh with her husband, and to all intents and purposes was so normal. Granted, her boobs were the size of babies’ heads, and something funny and distracting was happening with a big nipple – but she was someone I would genuinely be friends with.

In 2006, she was diagnosed with leukaemia. Really really serious leukaemia. She ended up spending 10 months in hospital, during which time one of her sons turned 9 and she was only able to touch him through a plastic bubble which she was forced to live in. Josh had to go back to performing, so Nicki talked about how hard it was to be very very ill, and to have Josh come in to visit her in hospital knowing that he had had sex with other women – in order to pay the hospital bills. What an amazing couple to come through that. She said that was the hardest time for her. Josh equally could see how heartbreaking it was for her, but found himself with no options. The one thing they did say was how amazing the porn community were: porn stars babysat the kids as Josh came to visit Nicki daily, they rallied around to raise money for the cause, and now are very supportive of the charity which she has set up. They even had a star-studded event at the Playboy Mansion to raise funds for her.

In terms of what we learnt from this couple ourselves – Mike learnt that porn stars are real people, I learnt that pretty much anything is possible if you are able to laugh with your partner. Nicki and Josh laughed their way through the interview – they had a great, secure dynamic – which I suppose you have to have for a marriage to survive in an industry like the porn industry (it’s very very rare that relationships survive in it).

(Nicki has a nightly show on Playboy radio: http://www.playboy.com/world-of-playboy/radio/)

One of tests we’d always hoped to add to our arsenal of compatibility forecasts was that of a psychic. With a bit of hunting, I found Lorrie Kazan in Redondo Beach, www.lorriekazan.com. Before we met, Lorrie asked us for our full birth names (that’s Michael Russell Clear and Alanna Margaret Donayre Boylan which we had to share with the viewing public) and our birth date information.
Her place is small, tidy, with seabreezes. And 2 cats. Lorrie was remarkably normal for what she does. Or rather for what we were expecting. No Mystic Meg or crystal balls here. She said that she’s always, throughout her life, been an empath (such that she feels what other people are feeling) She went through a phase of telling people what she could see for them in their futures , but that stopped when she realised people found it creepy – and that she could use that energy much better if she focused it on people who actually wanted to hear what she had to tell them.

We had hoped to get her to take our readings and save up the infomation to tell the camera when the two of us left the room. It quickly became clear that was going to be very difficult, as a lot of it relies on a conversation. So we just went for it. Now, I’m a total sucker for this kind of thing. I find an hour of chat about me, me, me very nice (not least because of how much listening I have been doing over the last few months), and I’m totally prepared to take life advice from a total stranger. Mike, however, came to the whole thing with a healthy dose of scepticism. But damn she was good. Even Mike crumbled a little towards the end. She started by saying that she doesn’t believe that the future is set in stone – so she’s reading more on how we are now than what will be.

What I loved about it was that she got Mike and I bang on. Mike – the pragmatist, the one with the energy and the spontaneity, the engine room of our relationship; me – a little tougher to crack, bossy sometimes, love Mike lots… You’ll have to wait for the film for her predictions, but looks like I might grow a beard.

Hill Harper is extraordinary. I have to confess that I only knew of him as the coroner-turned-CSI, Sheldon Hawkes, on CSI:NY. But that is only the tip of the iceberg – he is an actor, an author, a black activist and a contemporary and friend of Barack Obama.

He graduated from Brown University, then Harvard Law School, then from the JFK School of Government at Harvard. He is now, obviously, an accomplished actor – but he also uses that as a forum for encouraging and inspiring black children. He has written 3 books, Letters to a Young Brother, Letters to a Young Sister and The Conversation.

“I want young women and men to have knowledge of the things that can bring them true empowerment:  education, a strong sense of purpose, compassion, confidence and humility…” – Hill Harper

Mike and I were in Borders when we saw his latest book, The Conversation. In it, Harper turns his attention to understanding the decline of the black relationship (well, relationships in general, but the black relationship specifically). He starts with the shocking statistic that in 1966, 83% of black children were growing up in 2 parent families; and only 40 years later, in 2006, that figure had plunged to 31% (and this statistic is unique to black communities – the same is not true of Hispanic, Asian or caucasian communities). He sets out to try and understand how black male-female relationships could have soured to such a huge extent, to the detriment of black society. Without male role models, young black children see only rappers and basketball players as role models, which gives them a very skewed vision of success.

His business is not to find the reasons behind the decline (though when asked, he cited a number of potential causes: the arrival and epidemic of crack cocaine amongst African American males; the effects of the Vietnam war; the legacy of the familial separation of the slave trade) but to try to inspire the conversation between black men and women which can start to heal the rifts which have grown between the genders. The book is fascinating: he starts by taking the various stereotypes (men: black women are gold-diggers, nags, see interracial relationships as a sign of status; women: black men are lazy, unfaithful, etc) and discussing them with groups of people. Then slowly, he suggests ways that the genders can come together to discuss these misconceptions and be more realistic about their expectations of relationships. It’s a very inspiring and realistic book.

We wanted to talk to him about the state of black relationships (he is says that all relationships can benefit from having the conversation as relationships of every colour and creed have declined, but there are factors in addition to the everyman issues which affect black relationships specifically), and then to find a black couple in a loving relationship to find out what their advice is, when their relationship has lasted against the odds.

Our interview with Harper was fascinating. He is extremely bright and takes his position as a black role model very seriously. He does a lot of work with kids and has established a mentoring foundation called Manifest Your Destiny, www.manifestyourdestiny.org, specifically aimed to inspire youth to succeed. As we left him, I suggested that perhaps he consider following his great friend Barack into politics and he laughed and said it had often been suggested…

Mike was in LA with work a few years ago, and a friend put him in touch with his friend, Brett. Mike dropped Brett a line this time and it turns out Brett is going out with the gorgeous Catt Sadler, presenter of the Daily 10 on E! Entertainment channel. We have a fun dinner with the two of them: Brett is hilarious and Catt is totally lovely. Being a devotee of the show, I am in awe. Natch.

Dr Pamela C Regan, Professor of Psychology at California State University and author of The Mating Game. And she’s totally awesome.

She is Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Social Relations Lab at California State University, Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests are in the areas of close relationships and human sexuality, with an emphasis on passionate love, sexual desire, and mate preference.

She was one of those rare serendipitous finds – a friend of Mike emailed on Monday morning with an article by her, I dropped an email on the offchance, and here we are sitting in her living room the next day. And she’s totally fab: she teaches undergrad students, which makes a difference to us because it is her business to know what everyone out there is writing about relationships. So we are able to ask her what she thinks about the work of all the people that we’ve met, a summation of the work being done in the field at the moment, and to basically get her to gel all of our interviews with experts together in one fell swoop. On top of that, she’s one of the nicest and most fun experts we’ve met en route so far. An hour long interview turns into a 4 hour siege of her house. Brilliant stuff, we were delighted – it was also the first ray of sunshine that LA has granted in a while. We can leave the States now knowing that we have got some really good stuff.

Jeff and Walter live together in the hills of Silver Lake, LA. They met online 10 years ago and have been together ever since. They both freely admit that they were pretty easy before they met, just up for a good time. And yet here they were, the vision of domesticity and love, and they talked about it lasting. What prompted the change?

It’s easy to see immediately that the two of them are very well suited to each other. They laugh lots, gently mock each other, and have a natural domestic ease which makes them very easy and fun to be around. Jeff was about to turn 40, and they were opening the doors to their immaculate house to their mates.

I think what really struck me about this interview is that there is no certificate, no social code, no expectation holding them together – and they are together and remain so despite that. They choose, no ifs or buts, to be together – nothing holds them together in terms of society’s expectations. Surely if people choose to be together, don’t just fall into it in manner of every other heterosexual marriage, they should be allowed to have that union recognised by law? Am now very anti-Proposition 8 indeed.

Erin and Davey – our long-distance lovers turned Mr and Mrs! An email courtship, and totally romantic story.

They have an energy which I’m not sure that Mike and I ever had – and I think it comes from the fact that, because of their distance apart and what it takes for them to be together, they are their own little unit.

They met about ten years ago, at someone’s party, or someone introduced them, or they crossed paths, or something equally hazy. They thought little of it, until about 3 years ago, Erin was working on a project and needed to get in touch with some advertising folk. She dropped her mate in London a line on MySpace, and as she clicked on his page, up popped a picture of Davey. Erin remembered that he too worked in advertising so send an email to him too – asking for his help, prefaced with a “you may not remember me, but we met very briefly some years ago…”. Davey replied by saying he was too busy and important to help, and Erin thought he was a bit of a tit. He then did get back to her, to which she replied, and a romance quickly developed. When they tell the story, it sounds like You’ve Got Mail: both would really look forward to receiving emails from the other, they never had to wait longer than a day, and they poured their hearts out over email, and being really candid about how they feel about everything.

The natural next question was how it was when they met – it’s very easy to be totally candid over email, but how was that moment of real awkwardness when you come face to face with someone you know really well (they corresponded daily at least for 4 months) but is a total stranger physically (Davey only had her tiny picture on MySpace to jog his memory). They had arranged a meeting in Venice Beach when Davey was over on holiday, and Erin was in LA for work (she lives in New York, he lives in London). Neither had told their friends the backstory, and they met with others around. They talked for 4 hours, with Erin’s friend saying afterwards “who is that guy? You have real chemistry with him…”. They ended up in James Beach, the very bar where we met them to interview them.

After the meeting in LA, there was no doubt in either’s mind that they had something really special, so from then on, they would commute to see each other in London and New York. It was exhausting, and as the end of the weekends would dawn, one would have to sneak out early in the morning so as not to prolong the agony of goodbye.

It was really inspiring to see a relationship where they had had to choose to be together against the geographical barrier. They could have given up at any time, but instead persevered until Erin finally agreed to jack in her job and come over to the UK to see if they really were meant to be. She couldn’t work, and she didn’t have many friends, so her life consisted of sitting in the flat as Davey left for work. It sounds like it was a very tough time for her – she left family and friends behind, but the two of them never had any doubt that the love they share is worth it. And that, I think, is part of what you feel when you’re around them: a completeness, a sense of having to give up a lot to be together, a real conviction in what they have.

It was great for Mike and I to take some of that away with us. I have no idea if we could have survived separation – Mike is terrible on the phone, so we tend to limit our conversations to less than a minute. But there is something similar in our 24/7 dependence on each other now – though perhaps that’s not comparable, because we are both out of our comfort zone, whereas in Erin and Davey’s marriage, one (or both) of them will always be away from home. I just don’t think I could make that sacrifice for Mike, or at least, I’m glad that I have never had to – our lives are very intertwined. As I type, they are currently waiting for Erin’s British visa so that they can return to the UK for their London wedding. They were having a bit of a nightmare with it, so fingers crossed it goes through…

A snapshot of just some of the wise words we have collected from the great and the good:

1. Dr Helen Fisher: Biological Anthropologist, Research Professor at Rutgers University Author of Why We Love and Why Him, Why Her?
2. Dr John Gottman and Dr Julie Schwartz Gottman. Co-founders of The Gottman Institute. Co-authors of over 40 books including John’s bestseller,The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
3. Dr John Gray: Author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Bestselling relationship author of all time with over 40 million books sold
4. Dr Judith Wallerstein.  Psychologist, researcher and divorce expert. Author of best-selling The Good Marriage
5. Dr Pepper Schwartz: Professor of Sociology, University of Washington. Author of 12 books including Love Between Equals: How Peer Marriage Really Works
6. Professor Stephanie Coontz: Social Historian, Professor of History and Family Studies at Evergreen State College. Author of Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage
7. Dr Dan Wile: Couples therapist, developer of Collaborative Couples Therapy. ”Wile is a genius and the greatest living marital therapist” – Dr John Gottman
8. Eric Holzle. Founder of Scientificmatch.com. Website dedicated to matching couples through their DNA
9. Dr Diana Wiley. Sex Therapist and Gerontologist (aging and sexuality). Expert in sex over 40