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    ‘White Lotus’ Has an Old-School View of Relationships

    The hotly anticipated final episode of the third season of HBO’s hit “White Lotus” airs Sunday. The show has earned a reputation for revealing the sordid emotional lives of the 1 percent, the types who regularly vacation at five-star-resorts like the White Lotus on fabulous Thai islands.No matter who on the lavish grounds is sacrificed tomorrow night for our entertainment, I predict that if all of the couples literally survive, their relationships will probably survive, too. And the traumatic events they endure will only bring them closer, no matter how much they’ve previously lied to each other and themselves.In many ways, married couples and nuclear families are the two pillars of society that the show’s director and creator, Mike White, doesn’t want to blow up.In spite of the more provocative, sexually transgressive plotlines Mr. White has explored — this season’s Ratliff brothers’ incestuous three-way comes to mind — ultimately, the show has its own old-school view of marriage: ‘Til death do us part.If the pop cultural vogue in relationships emphasizes radical honesty, and talking through feelings in a therapeutic environment, in all three seasons of the show, marriage is about loyalty, strategic deception, and keeping up appearances. This is true even as the characters individually dabble in new age wellness practices like meditation that are meant to get at deeper truths and self-knowledge.The show has a satisfying honesty about the role money plays in marital cohesion, even as we like to pretend that modern marriage is built on love, fidelity and compatibility. As the historian Stephanie Coontz explained in her sweeping 2005 book “Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage,” for millennia, marriage for the upper crust was not about affection, it was a financial and political arrangement meant to consolidate power. “The marriages of the rich and famous in the ancient and medieval worlds can be told as political thrillers, corporate mergers, military epics and occasionally even murder mysteries.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Sunday Read: ‘How I Learned That the Problem in My Marriage Was Me’

    Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioOne thing I’ve learned from being married to my wife, Jess, who is a couples therapist, is how vast the distance is between the masks people show to the world and the messy realities that live behind them. Every couple knows its own drama, but we still fall prey to the illusion that all other couples have seamlessly satisfying relationships. The truth about marriage — including my own — is that even the most functional couples are merely doing the best they can with the lives that have been bestowed on them.This past spring, Jess and I had the first of eight sessions of couples therapy with Terry Real, a best-selling author and by far the most famous of the therapists we’ve seen during our marriage. Real, whose admirers include Gwyneth Paltrow and Bruce Springsteen, is one of a small number of thinkers who are actively shaping how the couples-therapy field is received by the public and practiced by other therapists. He is also the bluntest and most charismatic of the therapists I’ve seen, the New Jersey Jewish version of Robin Williams’s irascible Boston character in “Good Will Hunting” — profane, charismatic, open about his own life, forged in his own story of pain.There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Frannie Carr Toth, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, and Krish Seenivasan. More

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    Our Messed-Up Dating Culture Gave Us Donald Trump. Let Me Explain.

    Joe Rogan. Elon Musk. Representatives of bro culture are on the ascent, bringing with them an army of disaffected young men. But where did they come from? Many argue that a generation of men are resentful because they have fallen behind women in work and school. I believe this shift would not have been so destabilizing were it not for the fact that our society still has one glass-slippered foot in the world of Cinderella.Hundreds of years after the Brothers Grimm published their version of that classic rags-to-riches story, our cultural narratives still reflect the idea that a woman’s status can be elevated by marrying a more successful man — and a man’s diminished by pairing with a more successful woman. Now that women are pulling ahead, the fairy tale has become increasingly unattainable. This development is causing both men and women to backslide to old gender stereotypes and creating a hostile division between them that provides fuel for the exploding manosphere. With so much turmoil in our collective love lives, it’s little wonder Americans are experiencing surging loneliness, declining birthrates and — as evidenced by Donald Trump’s popularity with young men — a cascade of resentment that threatens to reshape our democracy.When we think of Prince Charming, most of us probably picture a Disney figure with golden epaulets and great hair. In the Brothers Grimm version of “Cinderella,” he is called simply “the prince,” and neither his looks nor his personality receive even a passing mention. In fact, we learn nothing about him except for the only thing that matters: He has the resources to give Cinderella a far better life than the one she is currently living. Throughout much of Western literature, this alone qualified as a happy ending, given that a woman’s security and sometimes her survival were dependent on marrying a man who could materially support her.Recently, men’s and women’s fortunes have been trending in opposite directions. Women’s college enrollment first eclipsed men’s around 1980, but in the past two decades or so this gap has become a chasm. In 2022, men made up only 42 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds at four-year schools, and their graduation rates were lower than women’s as well. Since 2019, there have been more college-educated women in the work force than men.Cinderella may now have her own castle — single women are also exceeding single men in rates of homeownership — but she is unlikely to be scouring the village for a hot housekeeper with a certain shoe size. A 2016 study in The Journal of Marriage and Family suggests that even when economic pressure to marry up is lower, cultural pressure to do so goes nowhere. A recent paper from economists at the St. Louis Federal Reserve found that since the 1960s, when women’s educational attainment and work force participation first began to surge, Americans’ preference for marrying someone of equal or greater education and income has grown significantly.Our modern fairy tales — romantic comedies — reflect this reality, promoting the fantasy that every woman should have a fulfilling, lucrative career … and also a husband who is doing just a little better than she is. In 2017, a Medium article analyzed 32 rom-coms from the 1990s and 2000s and discovered that while all starred smart, ambitious women, only four featured a woman with a higher-status job than her male love interest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Lana Del Rey Wed a Swamp Tour Guide, Joining Other Celebrities Who Married a Normie

    The pop singer and songwriter married her longtime boyfriend, Jeremy Dunfre, a swamp tour guide. Other celebrities have also wed someone who’s not rich or famous.The pop superstar Lana Del Rey has made it official with her longtime boyfriend, Jeremy Dunfre, an alligator swamp tour guide in Louisiana.Del Rey, 39, and Dunfre, 49, filed a marriage license with the Lafourche Parish clerk of court in Thibodaux, La., on Friday, according to The Associated Press, which reported that it had obtained the document.A Sept. 26 ceremony was officiated by the celebrity pastor Judah Smith, best known for being a spiritual adviser to Justin Bieber and as the lead theologian of Churchome, a megachurch outside Seattle, according to the document cited by A.P.Questions about whether the couple said “I do” hit a fever pitch online and on social media in recent weeks, and pictures of their wedding flooded the internet. According to The A.P., the singer and songwriter exchanged vows with Dunfre in Des Allemands, La., where Dunfre works as a captain at Airboat Tours by Arthur.It was unclear exactly when the couple began dating, but pictures posted to Del Rey’s Facebook page show the “Video Games” singer on one of Mr. Dunfre’s boat tours in 2019.Here are some other celebrities who have married someone they met out in the world, with no connection to their work or fame.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Citizens Push Biden to Help Undocumented Spouses Obtain Green Cards

    The White House is weighing relief for immigrants who crossed the border unlawfully but are eligible for green cards through marriage to U.S. citizens.When Ashley de Azevedo married in 2012, she knew that her U.S. citizenship would make her husband, an immigrant from Brazil, eligible for a green card. What she didn’t realize was that to obtain permanent residency, he would need to return to Brazil for 10 years because he had entered the United States illegally.“It was a devastating reality,” Ms. Azevedo, 38 said. “I was pregnant, and he would miss out on years of our child’s life.”So Mr. Azevedo stayed in the United States, vulnerable to deportation but with his wife and his son, who’s 12.Now, a policy under consideration by the Biden administration could provide Mr. Azevedo and other undocumented spouses with a path to permanent residency that would not force them to leave the United States.Calls for such a move have been growing in some quarters and could give President Biden a political boost in battleground states with large immigrant populations. But the idea is drawing sharp criticism from some Republicans and immigration hawks, who regard it as an abuse of executive authority.Word of the proposal came just days after the administration took long-expected action to make it much harder to seek asylum, which had become an all but certain path for remaining in the United States and helped drive record levels of migration in recent years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Rupert Murdoch Marries for the Fifth Time

    Mr. Murdoch, the 93-year-old media mogul, married Elena Zhukova, a retired molecular biologist, Saturday at Moraga, his Bel Air vineyard estate in Los Angeles.Rupert Murdoch, who retired from the boards of Fox and News Corporation last year, walked down an outdoor aisle under blue skies to exchange vows on Saturday with Elena Zhukova, his fifth bride, at Moraga, his Tuscan-style vineyard estate in the hills of the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles.Ms. Zhukova, 67, carried a bouquet of white flowers and wore an ankle-length, off-the-shoulder white dress with a square neckline, reportedly designed by the London-based designer Emilia Wickstead; Mr. Murdoch, 93, wore a dark suit with sneakers. Notable guests caught by paparazzi on the way into the ceremony included Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, and Robert Thomson, the chief executive of News Corp.The couple met through Mr. Murdoch’s third wife, Wendi Deng, according to The Daily Mail, which first reported their relationship last summer. Ms. Zhukova is a retired molecular biologist who immigrated to the United States from Moscow in 1991, just months before the Soviet Union collapsed. She was previously married to Alexander Zhukov, the billionaire energy investor.There have been few public details about the couple’s courtship, with representatives for Mr. Murdoch staying mum, but The Daily Mail reported that shortly after meeting, Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Zhukova spent weeks vacationing together in the Mediterranean aboard the Christina O, a yacht that once belonged to Aristotle Onassis. Their engagement was announced in March.Mr. Murdoch’s fifth marriage comes after a called-off engagement to Ann Lesley Smith, who is a retired dental hygienist and a conservative radio host. Last spring, he proposed to Ms. Smith but broke off the engagement after less than a month.Ms. Zhukova’s marital history is less well documented. She met her first husband, Mr. Zhukov, now a British citizen, when both were students in the Soviet Union. Their marriage, during which they had a daughter, the entrepreneur and socialite Dasha Zhukova, lasted three years, according to The New Yorker.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist From ‘The Golden Bachelor’ Announce Divorce

    Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist, the “Golden Bachelor” couple who married in January, announced they will be divorcing three months after their wedding.Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist were the first couple to meet and marry on “The Golden Bachelor,” ABC’s spinoff of “The Bachelor” featuring cast members 60 and older.On Friday, the newlyweds announced that they will also be the spinoff’s first couple to divorce.They made the announcement in a joint appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations, and we’ve looked closely at our situation, our living situation, and we’ve come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage,” Mr. Turner, 72, said.The anchor Juju Chang replied in shock. “Three months after getting married?” she said. “I mean, what the heck, guys?” she asked later in the interview.Explaining their decision, Mr. Turner said both were dedicated to their families — each has children from previous marriages, as well as grandchildren — and that it made the most sense for them to live separately. Ms. Nist, 70, added that they had looked at homes near family members in South Carolina and New Jersey but that they had been unable to reach a conclusion.The couple, through a representative, declined to be interviewed for this article.The franchise had positioned the pair as evidence that invigorating love stories can unfold later in life. Before marrying Ms. Nist, Mr. Turner, a retiree from Indiana, was married for 43 years to his high school sweetheart, Toni. She died in 2017 after a brief illness.“People my age still fall in love,” Mr. Turner told The New York Times after he was announced as the series lead of the first “Golden Bachelor” season. “People my age still have hope, and they still have vigorous lives.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Paul Pelosi, el marido que se ocupa de las tareas mundanas

    La pareja de Nancy Pelosi fundó una firma de inversión en capital de riesgo, pero desde que la presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes optó por la política, es quien compra las toallas de cocina y el guardarropa de ella.WASHINGTON — La presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, estaba pegada a la transmisión de CNN la noche que siguió a las elecciones de 2020, mientras su esposo, Paul Pelosi, sentado cerca de ella, abría un paquete.“¿Qué es eso?”, le pregunta a su marido en una escena del nuevo documental de HBO, Pelosi in the House, dirigido por su hija Alexandra Pelosi.“Toallas de cocina”, le responde el hombre con un ápice de ironía mientras revienta el papel burbuja del embalaje. Nancy Pelosi sonríe y luego vuelve a concentrarse en la cobertura electoral.Este es solo un ejemplo de una dinámica que se observa a lo largo de todo el filme: Paul Pelosi, quien fue brutalmente agredido en la residencia de la pareja en San Francisco por un atacante cuyo objetivo, según se dijo, era la presidenta de la Cámara Baja, se ocupa de lo que su familia denomina el “negocio de vivir”. Esto le da a su esposa, quien dejará su cargo el 3 de enero cuando los republicanos asuman la mayoría de la Cámara de Representantes, la libertad de enfocarse en su trabajo político.Es el tipo de relación que las mujeres que se dedican a la política rara vez mencionan, pero que a veces puede marcar la diferencia entre el éxito y el fracaso: una pareja dispuesta a ocuparse de las tareas mundanas y del rol de apoyo que tradicionalmente recaía en las esposas de los políticos. Y aunque los Pelosi tienen una buena posición económica y pueden contratar toda la ayuda que necesitan en su hogar, el documental muestra que ser cónyuge de una figura política puede significar simplemente estar presente y luego hacerse a un lado.En el transcurso de la película, mientras Nancy Pelosi atiende asuntos por teléfono con el exvicepresidente Mike Pence, el senador Chuck Schumer o Joe Biden, quien entonces era candidato a la presidencia, Paul Pelosi, de 82 años, un empresario multimillonario que fundó una firma de inversión en capital de riesgo, a menudo está en el mismo espacio atendiendo las necesidades cotidianas de la vida en común.En una escena, la dirigente está en pijama elaborando estrategias en una llamada con el representante demócrata de Nueva York Jerrold Nadler, sobre el primer juicio político al presidente Donald Trump mientras Paul Pelosi, sentado frente a ella, habla por celular con un contratista que está intentando entrar a su casa en San Francisco para reparar una ducha averiada.“No sé qué le pasó a esa llave”, dice Paul Pelosi, usando una palabrota.La pareja se conoció cuando eran estudiantes universitarios en un curso de verano en la Universidad de Georgetown en 1961. Se casaron dos años después y tuvieron cinco hijos en seis años. Nancy Pelosi dedicó los primeros años de su matrimonio a ser madre y ama de casa en San Francisco y no se postuló al Congreso sino hasta cumplir más de 40 años. Lo que sucedió después fue algo que Paul Pelosi jamás pudo haber imaginado para su esposa ni para su familia, según su hija.“Creo que esto no era lo que él tenía en mente en 1987”, dijo Alexandra Pelosi en una entrevista, en referencia al año en que su madre fue elegida por primera vez al Congreso. “Él solo tuvo que aceptarlo”.La pareja tuvo cinco hijos en seis añosPeter DaSilva para The New York TimesSegún su hija, a Paul Pelosi nunca le picó el bicho de la política. Le prohíbe a su familia hablar del tema en la mesa durante la cena. Pero con el correr de los años, ha estado al lado de su esposa en sus momentos políticos más importantes y ha asumido muchos de los deberes domésticos. Lava los platos, lidia con contratistas, paga las facturas y compra la ropa de Nancy Pelosi.“Ella nunca ha ordenado toallas de cocina en su vida”, dijo Alexandra Pelosi. “Eso es algo que él siempre ha hecho. Él hace las compras, desde las toallas de cocina hasta el vestido Armani”.“Tiene a Armani guardado en sus números de marcado rápido”, añadió, en referencia al diseñador italiano Giorgio Armani, uno de los favoritos de su madre. “Es esposo a tiempo completo”.Alexandra Pelosi compartió más detalles: “El vestido que usó para la cena de Estado, lo mandó pedir él y se lo envió a mi hermana para que se lo probara”. (Se refería al vestido de noche dorado de lentejuelas de otro diseñador italiano, Giambattista Valli, que su madre lució en diciembre en una cena de Estado en la Casa Blanca para recibir al presidente de Francia, Emmanuel Macron).El documental, que se centra en el ascenso y los logros profesionales de Nancy Pelosi, deja entrever cómo estar casada con una pareja comprensiva ayuda a crear un espacio laboral para una mujer que, durante años, fue la fuerza política más poderosa del Partido Demócrata en los tiempos recientes.Con excepción de Hillary Clinton, pocas mujeres en la política han alcanzado la estatura de Pelosi y no hay muchos esposos como el suyo. El expresidente Bill Clinton fungió un papel de pareja de apoyo durante las dos campañas presidenciales de Clinton, pero luego de haber tenido él su turno.Doug Emhoff ha asumido el papel de reparto como pareja de la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris, pero eso ha significado que él mismo se ha convertido en figura pública por derecho propio. Pelosi nunca ambicionó nada como eso.“Él es una persona privada con una vida privada y una colección muy interesante de amigos, algunos de los cuales son republicanos”, dijo Alexandra Pelosi. “Él no buscaba este estilo de vida”.Sin embargo, se adaptó, aseguró su hija. “Toda mujer necesita a un Paul Pelosi”.Los Pelosi se conocieron en 1961 durante un curso de verano en la Universidad de Georgetown.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn una escena del documental, Pelosi estaba limpiando los platos de desayuno en bata mientras su esposa hablaba con Pence. En un momento, ella se puso en mute y le mandó besos volados a su marido.En una escena filmada en la campaña presidencial de 2020, Nancy Pelosi estaba al teléfono con Biden aconsejándole “no te vayas mucho a la izquierda”. Paul Pelosi estaba sentado junto a ella, leyendo su iPad y medio poniendo atención a la conversación de su esposa.Él parecía cómodo con su papel de reparto.“¿Estás haciendo fila para tomarte una foto con la presidenta de la Cámara?”, le gritó detrás de la cámara su hija a Paul Pelosi en una reunión en el Capitolio de Estados Unidos antes de uno de los discursos de Trump, mientras Nancy Pelosi estaba haciéndose fotos con gente que quería retratarse con ella.“Ay, sí”, bromeó él.El año siguiente, ahí estaba una vez más, sentado y botaneando mientras Pelosi trabajaba.“Me enteré que Paul Pelosi andaba aquí”, bromeó su hija.“Solo vine por los pistachos”, dijo él.Cuando ella se preparaba para ingresar al recinto de la Cámara —donde al final rompería el discurso de Trump y lo desestimaría como un “manifiesto de falsedades”— su esposo estuvo con ella en el despacho ofreciéndole apoyo moral.“Te ves fabulosa, cariño”, le dijo Pelosi.Pese a sus apariciones en el documental, Paul Pelosi no siempre está al lado de su esposa, como sucedió en mayo, cuando sufrió un accidente automovilístico en el condado de Napa, California, y después se declaró culpable de un cargo de conducir bajo el efecto del alcohol. Nancy Pelosi estaba al otro lado del país, preparándose para dar un discurso de graduación en la Universidad de Brown.“Está presente en los días importantes”, dijo Alexandra Pelosi. “En realidad solo lo hace porque ella le dice que tiene que ir. Las personas de este ámbito necesitan una familia que las apoye en los días importantes”.En octubre, Paul Pelosi fue atacado con un martillo en la residencia de la pareja en San Francisco por un hombre que más tarde se dijo que buscaba agredir a la presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes. Aunque sufrió lesiones graves en la cabeza, en los últimos días se le ha visto acompañando a su esposa en diversos eventos, como la ceremonia de develación de su retrato en el Capitolio y la celebración de los Kennedy Center Honors.Sin embargo, la cineasta afirmó que su padre aún debe enfrentar un largo camino para su recuperación. “Tiene días buenos y días malos”, explicó y comentó que tiene estrés postraumático y se agota con facilidad.El ataque contra el hombre que ha sido el pilar silencioso de la vida de la familia Pelosi ha ocasionado estragos en todos sus integrantes. En una entrevista reciente con Anderson Cooper de CNN, la presidenta de la Cámara Baja dijo: “Para mí, esta es la parte realmente difícil, porque Paul no era el objetivo y él es quien está pagando el precio”.“No buscaba a Paul, sino que iba por mí”, agregó.Su hija expresó que uno de los aspectos más incómodos de esta terrible experiencia ha sido la atención pública que se ha centrado en una persona que siempre ha intentado eludirla.“Él ha evitado el protagonismo todo lo que ha podido”, afirmó. “Casi llegó al final sin que nadie supiera quién es”.Annie Karni es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Anteriormente cubrió la Casa Blanca y la campaña presidencial de 2016 de Hillary Clinton para Politico, y cubrió noticias locales y política en Nueva York para el New York Post y el New York Daily News. @AnnieKarni More