If Your Marriage Were a Reality TV Show….

Relationships

by Lamar Tyler | on September 29th, 2009 | 5 comments

jonkate

by Tara Pringle Jefferson

Picture this: Executives at VH-1 or Bravo contact you and say that you’ve been on their radar for a while now, they think you’re interesting and they want to offer you a chance to star in your own reality show.

After thinking it over for a little while, you and your partner agree.

Now pause. When the cameras roll, what will they see? When the show’s producers sit down to create an episode, what will they have to choose from?

Will they see a husband who routinely ignores his wife, preferring instead to get caught up on Sportscenter versus getting caught up on the chores?

Will they see a wife who puts her husband down and fusses behind him as he attempts to help with the housework?

Will they see a husband who makes tasteless jokes about the weight his wife has put on since having their children?

Will they see a wife rolling her eyes behind her husband’s back?

Or…

Will they see a couple who stops whatever they’re doing to kiss each other hello when they walk in the door from work?

Will they see a husband who offers a foot massage to his wife with no hopes of anything other than a “Thank you” in return?

Will they see a wife who gives her husband a backrub with no hopes of anything other than a “Thank you” in return?

Will they see a couple who still snuggles on the couch while watching TV?

If you had a reality show, what would your viewers see? Would it be a train-wreck? Inspirational?

Tara Pringle Jefferson is a freelance writer living in Ohio with her husband and two children. Visit her blog, www.theyoungmommylife.com, to read more of her observations about life, motherhood and love.

About the author

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler are the creators of the award-winning blog BlackandMarriedWithKids.com . They also are behind the Amazon.com bestselling DVDs Happily Ever After: A Positive Image of Black Marriage, You Saved Me and Men Ain’t Boys that explores manhood in the African American community. The Tylers are also the proud parents of four children.

Rap Man

Pittsburgh’s G-20 story: Take an expressway from town and disappear into desolate ‘hoods and encounter the civilization of menace. Pittsburgh, a dual city! The glass wonder of PPG Place and/or the G-20 Summit is a faded memory. Here in the ‘hood lives lie abandoned as far as the eye can see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEukcWW5dM0

That is: For the most part, African-American Pittsburgh seems to be invisible, not only to the public relations hucksters who tout Pittsburgh’s successes, but we are equally invisible to the protesters.

Certainly, black Pittsburgh is as proud as anybody in that the black President we worked so hard to elect has selected Pittsburgh as the host of the G-20 Summit. We even enjoy the re-invention of Pittsburgh from a dirty, smoky steel-churning history to the bright, clean, green financial success that the business leaders and politicians boast about so loudly. Nobody is more proud of the Super Bowl winning African-American coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin. But none of that feel-good stuff erases the pain of the stubbornly high unemployment among African American young adults and the staggering dropout rate for young black males from the public school system.
Ayesha

Our show would be inspirational to any couple that’s married or on their way to being married. The show would consist of our real everyday life of raising our kids and struggling to make a better life for them and through all the financial problems that we have we still don’t let it get us down and turn towards each other becuase our love for our children and each other is more important and stronger. A lot of people get marriage and wedding confused and forget that the wedding last one day and the marriage is suppose to last forever and you have to work hard at it if you want it.
lynn

Ummmm! Right now my mother is living with us. It fall so we have soccer, Girl scouts, Spanish club and wrestling. We are also less than a month from closing on our first home that we are building. Vh1 will tape a household of a mom is is a taxi cab,cook and a dad who work 18 hours a day. has this affected our marriage? Yes! Oh yea, I have bipolar disorder and i am stressed out. My brother moved here from NY, and is building his own house, My sister is leaving her husband of 17 years (but her husband does not know yet). I take care of things when everyone is working during the day cannot. By season end, the doctor will put me in a crazy house.
http://www.babybumping.blogspot.com Aja

Our reality show would probably be on HGTV since right now all we seem to do is work on our house.I think otherwise it would be pretty boring going by reality show standards. Work, home, catching up, eating dinner, going out on occasion, pleasant with very little drama.
Anna

My reality show would be so boring it would be on Disney or Nick Jr. LOL, or also like others mentioned, on HGTV. How ever the scene is, we sit around at our dining table with or without food and chat about our day. No matter the company or the extra family, we still sit at the dining table and talk. It can be a family meeting or just sitting watching tv. I think I would make more money writing a book than us being on a reality show. LOL. Reality shows have taken over tv. Guiding Light is now defunct. I am going to tune into tv and one day find that our soaps are really extinct. Reality shows are our new soaps. Hells Kitchen, House Wives, The Amazing race. This all started decades ago with “The Real World”. I don’t want my own reality show, I want ppl so concerned with being loved and accepted to entertain me. I know I do get a reaity check every time I see someone make a fool of themselves having a show named after them.