Latest news with #TammyWynette
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
I had a bitter divorce with my ex-husband. I didn't expect his new wife to become one of my best friends years later.
When my ex-husband began dating, I wanted to meet the woman who would be spending time with my kids. Despite some initial coparenting challenges, we bonded over shared experiences and family ties. Now she's one of my closest friends, someone I can depend on in good times and bad. Patti has become one of my closest friends. We go to shows, crawfish boils, and out to eat. We show up at family parties arm-in-arm, and most recently celebrated her daughter's college graduation together. It's a beautiful friendship — one I never expected to have with my ex-husband's wife. I remember the day I met Patti. I'd invited her to lunch after learning my ex-husband was dating her. I wanted to get to know the woman who might become my kids' stepmother and, truth be told, I was feeling a little guilty about the impending divorce. My husband and I had been married for 12 years and had five kids within the first five years. We didn't really communicate much at all. He was a good provider and a great father, but we were more parenting partners than lovers. I eventually began searching for affection and companionship outside of marriage. He eventually discovered the truth and moved out. We coparented amicably at first, even taking turns staying in the family home to provide stability for our children. It was heartbreaking to see the hurt I'd caused, both to the children and to my ex-husband. I think I subconsciously felt it was my mission to help him find happiness again. When I heard he was dating Patti, I wanted to meet her. We had a great meal and conversation at a local Mexican restaurant with me admitting to my shortcomings as a wife and building him up as a husband. I was trying to be both an honorable ex and used car salesman that night. But I did like her and she left with my blessing if they decided to get married. Not long after, they did get married. It was just a couple of months after I had gotten remarried myself. And then it all went south. After the divorce, coparenting became difficult. We fought over custody, family land, and more. By the time the details were worked out, we were so angry with each other that our handoffs had to take place in public. On top of that, my ex-husband and my new husband seemed to hate each other, making communication tough. Through it all, Patti and I were stuck in the middle, with all communication taking place solely between us. No longer friendly, it was cordial at best as we collectively personified Tammy Wynette's song, "Stand by Your Man." With age comes wisdom, though, and we eventually realized blind loyalty to men was overrated. Girl power took its place and over the years we started talking on the phone, bonding over the now-grown kids' antics, our new roles as grandmother, and the ordeals of living with grumpy old men. This started while I was living out of state and Patti was living less than five miles from my parents. She started to take care of them like they were her own. Many people actually thought she was a third sister, not realizing her husband was actually an ex son-in-law. When my second marriage was ending, Patti was one of the first people I turned to. She had been there at the end, listening as I weighed out my decisions and offering her support. She, of all people, knew the struggles we'd had. My ex-husband, who I'd regained a friendship with by then as well, was also supportive. While Patti had always been at family birthday parties and holiday events, our friendship grew even stronger in recent years. She's just like any of my other girlfriends, and has taken me to drop my car off at the mechanic, while I've picked up stuff at the store for her. I know I can count on her when I need to and she can do the same for me. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
27-05-2025
- General
- Business Insider
I had a bitter divorce with my ex-husband. I didn't expect his new wife to become one of my best friends years later.
When my ex-husband began dating, I wanted to meet the woman who would be spending time with my kids. Despite some initial coparenting challenges, we bonded over shared experiences and family ties. Now she's one of my closest friends, someone I can depend on in good times and bad. Patti has become one of my closest friends. We go to shows, crawfish boils, and out to eat. We show up at family parties arm-in-arm, and most recently celebrated her daughter's college graduation together. It's a beautiful friendship — one I never expected to have with my ex-husband's wife. I made the first move I remember the day I met Patti. I'd invited her to lunch after learning my ex-husband was dating her. I wanted to get to know the woman who might become my kids' stepmother and, truth be told, I was feeling a little guilty about the impending divorce. My husband and I had been married for 12 years and had five kids within the first five years. We didn't really communicate much at all. He was a good provider and a great father, but we were more parenting partners than lovers. I eventually began searching for affection and companionship outside of marriage. He eventually discovered the truth and moved out. We coparented amicably at first, even taking turns staying in the family home to provide stability for our children. It was heartbreaking to see the hurt I'd caused, both to the children and to my ex-husband. I think I subconsciously felt it was my mission to help him find happiness again. When I heard he was dating Patti, I wanted to meet her. We had a great meal and conversation at a local Mexican restaurant with me admitting to my shortcomings as a wife and building him up as a husband. I was trying to be both an honorable ex and used car salesman that night. But I did like her and she left with my blessing if they decided to get married. Not long after, they did get married. It was just a couple of months after I had gotten remarried myself. And then it all went south. Coparenting nearly broke us After the divorce, coparenting became difficult. We fought over custody, family land, and more. By the time the details were worked out, we were so angry with each other that our handoffs had to take place in public. On top of that, my ex-husband and my new husband seemed to hate each other, making communication tough. Through it all, Patti and I were stuck in the middle, with all communication taking place solely between us. No longer friendly, it was cordial at best as we collectively personified Tammy Wynette's song, "Stand by Your Man." The women took a stand With age comes wisdom, though, and we eventually realized blind loyalty to men was overrated. Girl power took its place and over the years we started talking on the phone, bonding over the now-grown kids' antics, our new roles as grandmother, and the ordeals of living with grumpy old men. This started while I was living out of state and Patti was living less than five miles from my parents. She started to take care of them like they were her own. Many people actually thought she was a third sister, not realizing her husband was actually an ex son-in-law. My relationship with my ex came around, too When my second marriage was ending, Patti was one of the first people I turned to. She had been there at the end, listening as I weighed out my decisions and offering her support. She, of all people, knew the struggles we'd had. My ex-husband, who I'd regained a friendship with by then as well, was also supportive. While Patti had always been at family birthday parties and holiday events, our friendship grew even stronger in recent years. She's just like any of my other girlfriends, and has taken me to drop my car off at the mechanic, while I've picked up stuff at the store for her. I know I can count on her when I need to and she can do the same for me.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
That's me in the spotlight: Michael Shannon on swapping Hollywood for an REM covers band
Michael Shannon was a teenager when he first heard REM. 'I was out at my cousin's trailer; he lived in the country. He put Document on his little cassette recorder, and I sat in his room with him and listened to it. Any art I find compelling is usually because it seems singular, like the people who are making it are the only people that could be making it.' Shannon is used to making singular art himself, as a distinctive presence in notable films for many years: Nocturnal Animals, Knives Out, The Bikeriders, The Shape of Water, Bullet Train and more. But he can also sing – in George and Tammy he played the country legend George Jones opposite Jessica Chastain as Tammy Wynette, doing all his own performances. Not for him, though, the vanity album. Instead, Shannon has taken to the road, with a band put together by US indie-rock lifer Jason Narducy backing him as he performs REM's back catalogue. First it was 1983 debut Murmur played in full, now it's 1985's Fables of the Reconstruction, a show that is coming to the UK later this year. Shannon turns his face away for most of our video call, but leans in with questions about their London dates: 'What neighbourhood is the Garage in? Is it near the Almeida [theatre]? I want to be there. We're coming over to your flat before the show!' Shannon and Narducy first met in 2014, when the musician Robbie Fulks invited them to help him perform Lou Reed's album The Blue Mask in Chicago. The two took that ball and ran with it, playing a different classic album in that city every year – the Modern Lovers' debut, Neil Young's Zuma and the Smiths' The Queen Is Dead among them. But REM was the mother lode, and for Narducy part of why he started playing music. 'They had a punk rock ethos,' he says. 'They were anti-Big Rock Band, but they didn't sound punk rock at all. So they were mysterious to me, but immediately engaging. And I think a lot of that had to do with the sadness in the music. Mike and I talk about this all the time, about how decades later, this music is still so profoundly moving.' Shannon chips in. 'And I certainly think as a lyricist, Michael Stipe is a truly unique and very effective communicator, considering that people tend to go on at length about the inscrutability of some of his lyrics. I would argue that there's not a more efficient and direct communicator in the history of rock'n'roll frontmen.' Playing Murmur in 2023 got them offers to gig nationwide. When they played at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, in February 2024, the whole of REM turned up; when they returned in February this year, REM didn't just turn up, they all played with Shannon and Narducy. 'It was emotional,' Narducy says. 'There were people crying and screaming. You couldn't help but get wrapped up in the emotion of it.' Shannon is more circumspect. 'Honestly, the main thing I'm thinking when [REM] come up is that I want them to enjoy being there. It's their moment. It's their music. It's their house. It's a big leap of faith for them to walk up there and do that with us.' Narducy says that his and Shannon's versions of REM songs 'don't sound much like REM did when they played them at the time'. Again, Shannon counters this a little: 'We are very faithful to the records. The one exception is me. We're steeped in the source material; we spend a long time studying it before we even get together in the room. Everybody takes a lot of pride in paying attention to the little details: if you listen to early bootlegs of REM live, they sound a little sparse and they're not able to do everything on the record.' Is it a privilege to have the status that you can get a crack backing band – with REM themselves or not – to play these songs you love, for you to sing? 'Everything is a privilege,' Shannon says. 'I'm just glad I'm not on a plane to El Salvador. It's a privilege to be able to walk around freely.' But, he concedes, 'the world is very dark, and the timing of this has ended up being a beautiful thing. We did our first press for this the morning after Trump had won, and we were both pretty despondent. But the tour seemed to give everybody a boost, including us. It's wonderful to remember there's music that can transport people to a time and place in their lives that's separate from all the insanity.' He must really take pleasure in singing to go out on tour doing it. 'Pleasure? I don't know. I sang when I was a boy. I was in a choir. And I've written some of my own music and sung that from time to time. No matter what I do, some people will appreciate it and some won't. It's not a numbers game for me. It's a lot more spiritual than that.' Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy's Fables of the Reconstruction tour of the UK and Ireland begins 19 August
