Bitchy Review: Who The (Bleep?) Did I Marry?

Who The [Bleep] Did I Marry? debuted on the ID Network last August and from the previews I saw, it looked rather interesting but I was never quite able to catch it. I saw the newest episode on Saturday and wasn't disappointed. The premise of the show is about a couple who (obviously) gets married and not long after, one of the pair suspects something in the sink isn't quite clean about their new husband or wife. The story then unfolds, with commentary from the innocent party, from the beginning to their current state.

The episode I caught was about the former governor of New Jersey, James Greevey, and his marriage to Dina Matos. We all know how that story ended, so there's no need to rehash. The show's premise is certainly intriguing and even though I watched this particular story come out in full, humiliating detail in the press along with everyone else, there wasn't this much insight into it then so I still walked away having learned something about it. The press was mainly focused on the sordid details surrounding the entire situation, and since that is their job I can say they succeeded on making the story as juicy as possible. But underneath that, someone was still hurt--very much so--by having this happen to them, and in the public eye no less. When this story broke in its entirety, it went national immediately and in the blink of an eye, Dina Matos was no longer just the First Lady of NJ, she was a target. She was a target for meaner-spirited people who asked how she could not have possibly seen the signs sooner, for being a golddigger for marrying an "obviously" gay man to get in the public eye, but mostly she was a target for people's pity.

Personally, my heart went out to her, but it was because she had to maintain such a level of professionalism almost to the level of detachment about the whole thing because it was in front of the entire nation the whole time. She had no choice but to take the high horse and be quiet and that, I would imagine, has to be unbearable. There really was no way for her to save face except to pray for the next big story to come out so she can quietly fade away, which is exactly what she did following his resignation and their subsequent divorce. And sure enough, when the next sordid story hit the press, most of the national outlets forgot about her. Jim Greevey was thrown to the lions, and he deserved it. But people wanted to know about the jilted wife and what happened to her; Who The (Bleep) Did I Marry? answered those questions.

Bitchy Review: The show, although the enjoyment comes at the expense of the jilted spouse, is quite interesting because it shows that you never know who you're marrying. In this day and age, its not too hard to do your work and find out. It's not being suspicious or anything like that, its simply reassuring yourself that you're making the right decision in that manner. Of course, not everyone's life history is able to be found online so I suppose no method of investigating yourself is fool-proof. If nothing else, this show serves as a huge PSA to be careful of who you allow into your life. I like that the show is only 30 minutes; it's not full of irrelevant details, and is a firsthand perspective from who the events happened to, not third party commentary with speculations and assumptions. I would imagine also that for these people, this show gives them the chance to tell their story as it happened to them and how they got through it. Some of the craziest things you hear end up happening to these men and women--yeah, there have been more than a couple of these stories in which the woman was in the wrong, not the man. The show helps to end gender-based stereotypes as to which gender does dealbreaking things in a marriage and I enjoy watching it.

Bitchy Rating: 3 (out of 5) just bitchy enough

If you're interested, Who The (Bleep?) Did I Marry? comes on every Saturday at 8pm EST on the ID channel, that's Channel 192 for Dish subscribers and 285 for DirecTV subscribers. Repeats of the episodes will begin airing on the OWN Network next month as well; Dish subscribers will find this on Channel 189 and DTV subscribers on 279.