I am so glad I am writing this article, because so many women are married to male actors. It’s such an odd industry and not the way you’d think it would be by any means. Let me start by telling you about us.
OUR LOVE STORY
My husband and I met on Match.com. After 4 years of unsuccessfully dating lots of different types of men, I had about had it. I was done with the dates. Some we boring. Some were fun. Some were just not right at all. When I met my husband for the first time, I had been unemployed for 9 months. We had starting text chatting during the holidays, which is a particularly lonely time for me and singletons in general. Some call the Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s the misery trinity, some call it the Bermuda Triangle. But every holiday season I would fell crappy about myself. And even more so when I was single. Was I not lovable? Was I not attractive enough? Was I not rich enough? Was I not funny enough? Who knows, but I ABSOLUTELY HATED being single during the holidays mainly because my worth was based more on the person I was dating rather than myself. I didn’t feel good about myself, and my self-confidence was in the toilet. After a few months of texting and going through hard times with my job situation and family situation, I decided to meet my husband for the first time IRL (in real life for the old timers out there, love you).
Our first date was a The Turtle Club ironically, as we met and married within the first 9 months of knowing each other. I remember walking to the restaurant in the evening, and seeing him with a nice long polyester dark grey jacket with semi long hair above his chin. His back was against the wall and he had on foot on the ground and one foot on the wall. Almost like the James Dean image below, without the cigarette.
As I approached him, I saw he was very handsome. Later I found out that he was very well-educated with a Master’s degree. I was so excited. It all sounded like stability to me. Then I found out soon after we moved in together that he hated his job, and that he wanted to become an actor. That was his dream all along. What a change in perspective it was for me.
So many things happened after, but to sum it up:
- We got engaged in New Hampshire
- We got married in New York City at the courthouse then had a small party at The W Hotel in New York City.
- We moved to West New York.
- We got pregnant with twins.
- I got a new job.
- I had my twins boys.
- I had a C-section, had a blood clot post birth, and almost died.
- My husband quit his job.
- I quit my new job.
- We moved out to LA.
As you can see, that was an eventful 3 years. The next 5 years have been quite the hustle to say the least. But luckily we were able to get the kids into a great school district in a well-known area that is comfortable and familiar. He was able to build his acting base with some good practice and realities on how the industry looked for a newbie.
Drum roll please! As for me, I have worked hard at home and in the office. Bouncing from job to job to boost my pay and build a solid crew, that I can truly relate to and enjoy has been tough. But the good news is that the older I get, the more wiser I become. I am starting to value my experience and love myself more than I ever have before.
I’ve ran into some really odd jobs that I wasn’t jazzed about. Working in New York City was easier than working in Los Angeles too. They are two very different cultures.
In New York City, they say if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But Frank Sinatra must have completely forgotten about working and living in Los Angeles when he wrote that song! It’s the City of Angels, but at the same time it can be the Land of the Lost or the City of Broken Dreams. Like a casino gambling floor, the house always wins and the winner takes all. Seeing the struggles of the city and the reality of living and raising children here, I wanted to make a lists of truths about the ups and downs of being married to an actor.
1.REJECTION + THE IN BETWEEN
Sometimes I feel like my life has been on big rejection. Marilyn Monroe
Rejection is constant. The up’s and the down’s are all there. The contemplating on whether or not we are on the right path, the arguing about what will come next, and the waiting game are all a part of the deal. We apply, and we wait. Then we rinse, wash, and repeat. We have gotten some stellar opportunities, and we’ve run into some scams. It’s all a part of the hustle. It is a game of patience and a game of luck. The more applications we get out there, the more likely we are able to win the next act.
2. JEALOUSY + PERFECT STRANGERS
Jealousy is an inner consciousness of one’s own inferiority. It is a mental cancer. B. C. Forbes
Sometimes I get jealous of his hip actor friends. I am not in the IN crowd and it bothers me. I feel like the unpopular kid that’s pick last at gym class, and then pushed aside as I am unwelcomely welcomed in an industry I know nothing about, really. But the positive is that we meet a lot of new people all the time, so it makes it easier to network and make fast friends. Most of the relationships are short term, and only the right ones have stayed friends through the long haul.
3. LOCATIONS + LONG HOURS
We’re not lost. We’re vocationally challenged. John M. Ford
It turns out movie sets have very long hours, and you never know where they will be shot. They will say 4 hours on a production, they 12 hours later it wraps up. The timing is completely unpredictable. We don’t know when things will actually start and actually end, really ever. We could film and big production pilot then not hear from that set in years. Post production, editing, and distribution can take years. Seeing a project come to fruition from soup to nuts is wild. Forrest Gump says, ‘life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.’ We are right there with you, Forrest.
To wrap it up, being in the movie industry is exhilarating and unpredictable all in one great big box wrapped up in a bow of all the emotions. It is up, it is down. It is dead, it is alive. It is tiring, it is exhilarating. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.
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