The Family Jewels

Gene Simmons' Family Jewels season premiere on A&E was last night.  For some odd reason, I love this show.  I've watched every single season - usually on demand.  For those of you who don't watch it, the last season was short and very intense.  But let me back up.

Gene Simmons is the front man for the band KISS and his long time girlfriend Shannon Tweed and their two college-aged kids are the focus of the show.  The two of them have been together for a VERY long time and are not married.  Gene has a history of cheating on Shannon.  In the last season, Shannon realized that she didn't want to put up with this behavior.  In a very raw and intimate look into their lives, we see them all go to family therapy and experience how infidelity can affect a home.  At the very end of the last show, Gene proposes to Shannon.

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I don't know why I love this show.  I am not a particular fan of KISS but I love to watch it.  Last night's episode was hard to watch.  Shannon accepted Gene's marriage proposal.  When I first started to watch this show a couple of years ago, I loved their relationship.  I loved how easy the two moved together in a dance of love and marriage (even though they weren't married).  But then the "image" shattered of Gene and their relationship as it was revealed earlier this summer that Gene was cheating on Shannon almost constantly.  Whether his relationships with these other women were purely sexual or just "for company" I can't be for sure but it made me angry at him (which is so dumb because I don't know him, clearly).  I also got mad at her.  How could she tolerate this behavior for so many years?  Why didn't she leave him?  Part of me hopes that it is made up for TV but I don't think it is made up.  I think it is very real.

I know why this show upsets me not.  It's because it makes me uncomfortable.  As a relatively newly married woman, I can't imagine my husband cheating on me but I know that it is possible - just as possible that I could one day cheat on him.  I don't want to think about it.  But, there are times even in our early marriage that I get jealous of a female friend or other friends who are in Mark's life.  It isn't often but occasionally it does happen.  I realize that it happens when there are things going on in my life that are making me feel insecure and/or not as connected to my husband as I usually feel.

It doesn't help that two close friends recently got divorced and another friend is "the other woman."  It upsets me that friends of mine are divorced but I understand and support them.  The friend who is the "other woman" is a friendship that I struggle with and am sadly letting go, quietly.  I can't support her life choice.

Luckily, I can talk with Mark and those feelings of insecurity and jealousy quickly passes.  Marriage is hard work.  It takes time, energy and a commitment to each other to stay connected and remind each other how much we love each other.

I also realize that it is my own emotions that causes the jealousy.  In Shannon Tweed's case, it is clear that it is Gene's fault and not her own insecurities.  I hope never to be in her shoes.  I don't know what I would do especially after a long history of shared love and life that those two have and I don't blame her for not turning her back on him.  It is clear that she truly loves him.  I can see that he loves her but I don't know if he is possible to turn his back on his old ways.  I hope so.

I'll probably continue to watch to the end of the season.  I want to know that there will be a happy ending but I also acknowledge that this is reality TV and a happy ending may not be in the cards.  At least for now, there is a happy ending.  Shannon and Gene were married on October 1.

Do you watch the show?  What would you do?