Why does it always rain on me?

So I was watching this 5-part, reality TV show on ABC the other day... it's called Ex-Wives Club... Using three real-life victims of the ex-phenomena (Marla Maples, Angie Everhart and Shar Jackson), the show ambitiously attempts to tackle that very potent question - How do you mend a broken heart?

Now, admittedly, this is soppy fare... definitely not for the weak of heart! As I watched along, they profiled two people with heart-rending tales... Rebecca is a well-known journalist, who fell in love with a man who she thought was perfect... until he started verbally and emotionally abusing her right since their honeymoon... Kevin was a nuclear engineer in the navy married to the mother of his 2 very cute children... He thought his life was perfect until, one day, he found out his wife was pregnant with someone else's child and wanted to walk out on him and their two children!

As I heard these two perfectly nice people recount their tales, my jaw continued to drop further with every new tidbit! They looked so simple...so pure... so full of love... Until some asshole came along and ripped their belief in love right out of them! Why them? Why does it always happen to the good ones? Now i know it's fashionable to judge them and say, "how can they let someone else make them feel bad about themselves? If they let that happen then they are just weak!". But I don't entirely agree - I think I can empathize with Kevin and Rebecca, and the scores of others out there who have been let down by someone they've invested their hearts, minds, bodies and souls into...

Life is hard - that's not a news flash for anyone... we all get hit day in and day out and we suck it in and we soldier on... From personal experience I know that this "sucking it in and soldiering on" can be far more stressful than we ever let on - that's why people like to come home and take that hot shower, or curl up next to their dog... or go on vacations... We wind ourselves up so tight trying to stay strong, that we forget how draining it can be... Then, one fine day, we find that special someone - someone you can trust implicitly and love completely... You now have someone that you can "let go" in front of - you don't have to pretend to be strong, you don't have to hold yourself together... Finally, you can just relax, for you now have someone there who will hold you and not judge... who will look out for you and never take advantage of your weak moments... To have such a someone hurt you or cheat on you must be such a self-diminishing event!? I just shudder to think! I can almost see Kevin and Rebecca go through months wondering what went wrong... killing themselves slowly over the notion that it must been their fault... that somehow THEY were inadequate... not good enough!

I could feel their pain... and could taste their tears... Haven't we all, that have dared to love, been there before? Aren't they merely kindred spirits? It was like looking into a mirror and seeing something unpleasant stare back at you... This post is not about what happened next. It isn't even about trying to figure out what drives horrendous sociopaths like Kevin and Rebecca's spouses to destroying the lives of the people who loved them. Frankly, after I heard their stories I just tuned out - the images were playing on the screen, but I was somewhere far far away.

The melancholy had taken hold... and this song by the Scottish band, Travis, kept playing on and on in my head, like it were on an endless loop. And it's funny, 'coz the song isn't even particularly about heartbreak... or anything directly relevant... It's just that the melody embodies the same pathos that I seemed to be feeling. The song's called "Why does it always rain on me?" and it goes something like this: