Why, Ryan, why?

Reese and Ryan (Witherspoon and Phillipe, the latter pronounced "Fee-Lee-Pay" for some unknown reason by our local DJ) splitting up makes me sad. Maybe because, in another life, I'd have her life. Maybe it's because her daughter shares a name with mine. Maybe it's because -- oh, I know, who cares, right? They're a young hollywood couple who didn't make it. A dime a dozen.

I guess I always admired their admitting to getting couples' therapy. That she confessed to having cellulite (though I personally never have seen any, despite frequent stops at celeb sites). Their working out schedules so one of them is home with the kids.

On some odd level, I identified with this couple. I also married young (24) and though I didn't have kids right away, since I did have children I've often re-thought that decision. As a 40 year old with a bad knee and shoulder, I have to wonder -- is it better to just plunge right in young and stupid? Would I have been more inclined to jump, skip and run? To eschew television and encourage Tae Kwon Do classes? Would the day to day fatigue of raising children have been less of a stress on my marriage?

It's curious to me, since a lot of people respond to Reese and Ryan's news by saing "They married young." Not all young marrieds wind up separated or divorced, G-d knows. My in-laws married very young, in fact my MIL had my husband before she was 30 (right around the age we had our first child). My own parents, married 41 years, were under 25 when they married. Nor do all "older" marrieds/parents suffer more stress.

That said, not all young-ly marrieds live in the white-hot heat of the Hollywood spotlight. Nor do they hold jobs that require them to work on location (read: away from home and responsibilities) with attractive members of the opposite sex. Isn't the point of history not to repeat it? Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Todd. Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

May the details of their divorce remain private and amicable. May their children live through it outside our nosy glares.