Jon & Kate R Us

Why have I been consumed with this sad, sordid cliche? The truth is: There but for the grace of God goes my own marriage.

I'd never seen Jon & Kate Plus 8 until a Friday morning last month, when I was on the elliptical trainer at the gym, flipping channels to find CNN and happened instead on a two-year-old rerun of the show. By then the whole country had heard that the couple's 10-year marriage was on the rocks. I was curious. Would I be able to spot clues to their future problems?

In Pictures: Five Things Every Married Woman Needs To Hear About Divorce

In a word: Yes. In three words: Good grief, yes. And then came the queasy realization that's had me glued to this train wreck ever since: There but for the grace of God goes my own marriage.

Well, except for the boatload of children. The Gosselins are raising twins and sextuplets, all conceived via fertility treatments within the span of a few years. Not surprisingly, given the chaos in their home, she seems constantly overwhelmed and compensates by trying to control everything she can. He seems constantly overwhelmed and compensates by checking out as often as he can get away with. In the episode I saw, she'd asked him to install shelving in the garage and proceeded to pick apart every little thing he did. He, meanwhile, sulked and acted put-upon.

In other words, they're your typical overworked, overstressed couple with kids. Maybe more children than your average household, but everything about the Gosselins is mythic in its proportions. That includes their now-defunct union, in which he starred as the quintessential bad-husband archetype, the clueless manchild; and she as the ultimate bad-wife archetype, the domineering shrew.

Naturally, it all culminated in every wife's archetypal nightmare. Unhappy in his marriage--because it is he who seems to have been the miserable spouse--Jon could have taken any number of steps to make things better. He could have sought counsel from leaders at his church or suggested couples' therapy. Instead, he played to type, spurring action by--oops!--getting himself photographed with what looks very much like an Other Woman. And now, also a cliché, most everyone seems to be blaming that witch Kate for driving her man away.

So why have I been consumed with this sad, sordid tale? The truth is, I wanted reassurance. Watching Kate micromanage Jon as he installed that garage shelving, I thought, Do I sound like that? and knew with certainty that I often do. I adore my husband and am happy in our marriage. I think by and large he is too. But I can be overanxious. I try to compensate by making sure my life is super-organized. Busy and stressed, I don't often (read: pretty much never) take the time to phrase requests so they don't sound like orders.

For expediency's sake, I'll bark, "Could you empty the dishwasher?" instead of saying, "I know it's my job"--which it is, and I'm fine with that; he does his fair share--"but I'm running late this morning. Do you have time to help?" As my husband, who's neither clueless nor a manchild but doesn't exactly address relationship problems head-on, empties that dishwasher, I'm left worrying just exactly how henpecked he feels.

Since the Great Gosselin Divorce announcement on Monday, my anxieties are running high. Suddenly I'm wondering whether I'm a strident kitchen martinet and, if so, whether my husband will leave me over it. I suspect I wasn't the only wife watching Jon & Kate in the hope that this strife was all a big, ratings-grabbing misunderstanding, that Jon would embrace his wife and say he loved her despite her shortcomings; that he hadn't cheated and never would; that if she would try and change, he would too; that he was eager to start a new chapter in their marriage.

As we now know, that didn't happen. And I'm not sure I'll be watching Jon & Kate anymore. The show, apparently, will go on, as Jon and Kate separately parent their Plus 8 as divorced spouses--joined by, as one insider has suggested, Jon's reported girlfriend, 23-year-old Deanna Hummel.

So much for reassurance. I'm not ready to imagine my own marriage ever being filmed with a third party, from two different locations.

In Pictures: Five Things Every Married Woman Needs To Hear About Divorce

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