Celebrities make strange bedfellows, and rising starlet Olivia Wilde may be one of the few souls rushing to defend Kim Kardashian after the reality star’s blink-and-you-missed-it marriage.

Wilde, recently divorced herself, tried to shush the commoners from being too critical of Kardashian’s 72-day marriage.

The “Butter” star, who finalized her own high-profile divorce from Italian aristo Tao Ruspoli last month, told us at a Standard Hotel after-party for “Another Happy Day,” “I empathize. It’s not easy. It’s the hardest thing in the world. People judge you because divorce is seen as failure. [Kim] took a risk. No one should be attacking her. Our attention should be focused on things that are truly scandalous.”

Hmmm. Wilde’s marriage, while not the “Happily Ever After” variety, did last for eight years. That’s an eternity in Hollywood. The bigger question is, why can’t we judge a woman who treats the institution of marriage like another insipid reality show plot?

Marriage is hard. Divorce is even harder, and we should all take a pregnant pause before climbing up on our moral high horses. But it often should be done, and if not to castigate Kardashian for a sham marriage, then when?

The former television journalist and Kennedy family heir cited irreconcilable differences but offered no additional details about the breakup.

She also did not list a date when the couple separated, although they announced they had done so on May 9.

A week later, the former action star and former governor admitted he fathered a child with a member of his household staff years ago.

Shriver’s filing does not indicate the couple has a prenuptial agreement, which likely means Schwarzenegger’s earnings from his career as a Hollywood megastar will be evenly divided with his estranged wife.

She is seeking spousal support but any amount would be determined later, either through a settlement agreement or by a judge. The former couple’s breakup is expected to be handled mostly behind closed doors.

Several of Schwarzenegger’s biggest hits, including “Predator,” “True Lies” and the blockbuster sequel “Terminator 2″ were made during his marriage to Shriver.

Shriver was an award-winning television journalist but put her career on hold when Schwarzenegger ran for governor.

Economic disclosure forms filed when Schwarzenegger left as California governor in January show he has interests in at least eight entities each worth $1 million or more. An exact tally of his wealth is impossible to calculate.

The forms show the “Terminator” star still retains rights to intellectual property from his days as a fitness guru and movie star.

Shriver’s holdings are more modest but are listed in the disclosure as being worth more than $1 million. She is a member of the Kennedy family and is a beneficiary of some of its assets, and also owns rights and royalties from her work as an author, the filings show.

In recent months, Shriver has appeared in videos posted on YouTube in which she talks about stress in her life, the weight of expectations and the search for faith in a troubled world.

She signed her divorce petition roughly two weeks ago, but her attorney filed it Friday afternoon.

Shriver and Schwarzenegger were married in 1986 and have four children together, including two sons who are still minors. Shriver’s petition seeks joint custody of the teens, who are 17 and 13.

Schwarzenegger’s spokesman Adam Mendelsohn declined comment in an email. Shriver’s attorney Laura Wasser did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Shriver stood by her husband’s side as he ran for California’s governorship in 2003, even after the Los Angeles Times reported accusations by several women that they had been groped by the movie star.

Schwarzenegger later said he “behaved badly sometimes” and was twice elected to the governorship.

He failed to fix the state’s chronic budget problems and left office in January with an eye toward environmental projects and a return to the big screen.

One of his projects was an animated collaboration with comic book legend Stan Lee titled “The Governator,” but the project was shelved after Schwarzenegger admitted fathering the child out of wedlock.

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver, announced Monday that they are separating.

More entertainment-related videos at BBTV.

The students are now less likely to agree with statements like, “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective,” “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me,” and “Greg Gutfeld’s new book, ‘The Bible of Unspeakable Truths,’ is supersexyawesome.”

But look, the study is half right. Empathy has taken a hit, but it hasn’t evaporated – it’s just been misplaced. Empathy has shifted from people who matter, to abstractions that don’t.

I blame parents and teachers who let toxic strains of feel-good self-esteem and phony sentimentality invade their homes and classrooms. The end result: people thinking it’s cooler to care for strangers than their own families. It’s okay to divorce your wife of twenty years, as long as you volunteer at the homeless shelter. You owe thousands in rent to your roommate, but no worries: you helped build a latrine in Peru. This new self-love created a driving hunger for recognition – and your caring soul lets you be a jerk to the people who matter.

And now it’s egged on by the web and it’s infectious blanket of social networking – which creates an illusory sense of intimacy that was once sated by the real intimacy of a neighborhood.

You have people paying more attention to a stranger across the globe, than their aging mother. Thank God her nurse isn’t on Twitter, or granny would have no one to talk to.

In the new egalitarianism, you must forget the concentric circles of real people around you. And you shouldn’t love your parents more than any one else. And, really, why should your money go to feeding your offspring, when the world’s a mess? We’re all in this together!

Even if I’ve never been to Greece.

Although I loved “Mama Mia.”

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe made of cat poop.

Tonight – we’ve got: 

Kinesy Schofield!

Jim Norton!

Andrew Breitbart!

plus other stuff.

Thankfully, these gory details aren’t directly addressed on the program – at least, not yet. Instead, the show attempts to behave as if viewers are still interested in mommy’s camping trip, or her recipe for Moose Munch, or dad’s go-kart race. Hard to believe just a year ago, Jon and Kate were featured giving marital tips, writing a book about touching family moments — even renewing wedding vows in Hawaii. This was actually when everyone might have become suspicious — since when did renewing vows half way around the world become so important to a family of eight kids? Since Mom caught Dad bedding the chick from the biker bar down the street. 

Make no mistake, when the show made its debut, I liked it. In fact, as a father, I was interested to see a family of 8 pulling their hair out over nap times, potty training and family vacations. As the show continued into season two and three, more and more parents tuned in and empathized right alongside those spunky Gosselins. What’s more — kids could watch right along with parents. It was like a slice of their own lives playing out on TV — times 8! It was all fun and games until Jon and Kate took a turn into reality show hell. Big-time bucks were flowing in through major sponsors, Jon and Kate ditched their modest suburban home and traded up to a sprawling 6,500 square foot million dollar McMansion complete with swimming pool and sprawling acreage. Suddenly, the formerly frugal Pennsylvania family was jetting off to meet Oprah, ski out west and sun themselves in Sand Diego. Like many families who hit the lottery — all this overnight good fortune tragically tore the family apart.

“Instead of seeing Jon and Kate together with the kids, you’ll see Kate with the kids, Jon with the kids – and as they all go through a transition, you’ll see glimpses of that transition,” Laurie Goldberg, senior vice president of TLC, said in an interview. Nice try.  By ‘transition’ do you think she is referring to Jon’s prancing around with multitudes of women in front of the world’s photographers — sometimes bringing them home to meet his understandably confused children? Ms. Goldberg’s network has struggled finding a purpose for the program amidst the cheesy way the Gosselins are splaying themselves out before the tabloid press.  The obvious story-line might have been to watch as a single mom struggles to raise her kids. But this is tough when Kate is all too happy to model her new bikini body before the paparazzi lurking on the beach or Jon is busy having a fling with a Us Weekly reporter.

The jury is still out whether all this infidelity, child trauma or viewer distress is bad for business. 9.8 million tuned into the premier episode which was heavily promoted to reveal juicy details of the martial eruption which had been playing out in the tabloids. But as the show slogs on, viewers are seeing less and less of the adult drama and, instead, are being served up heavily staged (and forced) moments with the kids. Perhaps it’s not a shock ratings have been slipping ever since.

Parents we were sucked in to thinking “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ was a family program — placed in prime time TV viewing hours and heavily marketed through family-friendly advertisers. So, what happens when a modern-day Brady Bunch implodes right before the viewer’s eye? “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties” and the Brady’s were air-tight family dramas the way they were meant to be — scripted, with stars whose personal lives were often strictly controlled by studios and networks. If the actors playing Greg and Marcia were hooking up backstage (they actually did), no one was going to hear about it until decades later — like an imaginary tabloid time capsule that would wait for us all to grow up. Those days are over.

Today, children who watched the Gosselin kids must now be ready to catch a glimpse of their parent’s saucy indiscretions or manipulative motives on an “Entertainment Tonight” promo or on the cover of OK! Try explaining why Maddy’s mom’s own brother calls the show a “snowjob,” or why little Colin’s dad is splayed across the front page hosting a wild pool party in Vegas.  Good lord, the divorce isn’t even finalized (it is widely speculated that is being saved for Season Six)!

In the end, no one really cares about the fate of reality TV show performers. After all, they freely hurl themselves into living rooms to be judged and scrutinized.  But the eight Gosselin kids never asked for this… their parents were all too happy to cash in at their own peril (it’s beyond sad). And the many young viewers are just left scratching their heads.  Even for the families who endure separation and divorce — Jon and Kate are hardly role models. To call Jon and Kate’s behavior ‘trailer trash’ does a gross disservice for mobile home dwelling Americans everywhere.

Hailey Glassman, Jon’s longest lasting girlfriend, and coincidentally the daughter of Kate Gosselin’s plastic surgeon, recently summed it up, ”Jon and Kate have moved on with their lives. It’s only the viewers who haven’t moved on.”

With any luck they will, and this show will be splitsville.

We had our first date 20 years ago and if anyone at the time had told me that the silly girl with the wild red hair would be the mother of my children and my life’s partner I would have laughed out loud. Bachelorhood was too much fun. Besides I had a very definite mental picture of what my wife would look like – what her personality would be – and frankly she just didn’t match it. The workings of the heart continue to amaze me. The brain plans and strategizes and works overtime attempting to get the loins and heart on the same page. The loins are always eager to cooperate; the heart, however, is not a team player. The heart is constantly going off on its own mucking up the works. Such was the case for me. In time I found myself longing for the silly redhead. All my intellectualizing failed to win my hearts cooperation. I realized I couldn’t live without her.

She of course tells a different story. According to her she knew after our first date that I was her one and only; that no other man would do. Honestly, who can blame her?

At any rate, 20 years after our first date I still find myself gazing at her, my brain still trying to figure out how it all went down.

I am even more at a loss for how we have remained together so long. To paraphrase the words of the poet Langton Hughes, our marriage ain’t been no crystal stair. Far from it. The 15 years we have spent together in marriage have not been the glamorous work of the sculptor, but the modest work of the carpenter.

Reuters news service recently reported on a study by researchers from the Australian National University that claimed to identify the factors that led to a successful marriage.

The study, entitled “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” tracked nearly 2,500 couples — married or living together — from 2001 to 2007 to identify factors associated with those who remained together compared with those who divorced or separated. The results might surprise you.

For instance according to the study, couples where one partner smokes and the other does not were more likely to have a relationship end in failure. Partners in their second or third marriage were more than 90% more likely to separate or divorce than couples in their first marriage. The age of the partners was also a factor. Couples where the husband is nine years or more older than his wife are twice as likely to divorce as are husbands who get married before they turn 25.

Not mentioned among the chief indicators of marital success was love. And if what is meant by “love” is feelings that mirror the lyrics of some pop song; then I would have to agree that it falls rather low on the list of priorities. The heart it seems is not only a poor team player, but in the long run makes a lousy team captain. Don’t get me wrong; I wrote my share of mushy love letters and was killed softly with songs on the radio all the time. I am also not too proud to admit that after so many years my wife still raises my temperature. But that isn’t love – not love that makes for a lasting marriage. That kind of love is defined in behavior-as in respect, honor and protecting.

In the time my wife and I have been together we have ridden the highs of birth, upward mobility, large amounts of disposable income and good health and traveled the lows of unemployment, sickness and death. We have built a home together, traveled and spent time talking, laughing and making love late into the night. We have also learned to bite our tongues, to disagree with respect and to find words that build the other up. We have covered each other when clouds were overhead – holding each other up when the other couldn’t stand — and tried to give the other room to grow in the sunshine. That is to say; we have built a marriage together one 2 by 4 at a time.

Next week I will celebrate a union with a woman I met two decades ago and have been in lust with for 20 years. Finally, after 15 years of marriage I know what it means to love her.

I happened to catch Cameron “My Career is Over Thanks to HD” Diaz discussing the intricacies of marriage on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this week. A lot of tinseltown jibber jabber ensued but you needn’t be bored with the self-indulgent details. Cameron basically proclaimed that she’s glad that she’d never gotten married because she “definitely would have been divorced (multiple times).”  She just needed to do what was right for her and that that was constantly changing. Maher, of course, agreed and praised Cameron in her wisdom for having learned to put herself first and foremost, before all others in her life. Marriage can’t work because you have to look out for “Numero Uno”… That’s the Hollywood way!

Besides, haven’t you listened to all of the celebrity preachings? Marriage is nothing but a silly piece of paper… And you don’t need that to prove your love. Also, affairs and coke-bender-induced hooker orgies are cool and allowed… I think that’s in the fine print of a “legal union.”

Diaz then went on to say, “Anyone will tell you that like, when I’m in a relationship I’m committed like… a thousand percent!”

Firstly, don’t judge her mathematical shortcomings too harshly, as it’s beside the point. The real kicker here is that much like all of Hollywood, Cameron Diaz has no idea as to what commitment really means. What good is commitment to a relationship if it’s only temporary?

The problem is that the people of Hollywood are so wrapped up in themselves that they’ve confused their movies with real life relationships. In real life, your short-term commitment is of no good. Because unlike in the motion pictures, when the montage of naked horseback riding and fornication under the waterfall ends… The story is far from over.

The relationship will go on to be tested through ups, downs, loop-dee-loops and unexpected hardships. Once that “feeling” of initial passion is gone, you’re left with each other, your relationship, and the moral fortitude on which it was built. No longer is it the director’s (or cameraman’s or lighting guy’s) job to keep the spark alive, it’s yours and your spouse’s alone.

I wouldn’t expect the “immediate gratification” crowd of Hollywood to understand the true concept of love, however, as that would actually require them to look outside of themselves for a change.  Esteeming others first… What a concept!

Am I off-base in my point of view? Do you ladies (or guys) out there feel that the “growing and cultivating” view of love is completely void of romance and has no place in the talkies? How about the real world?

All I’m saying is that I rarely find myself pointing to Sean Penn’s love life thinking, “I want to be like that.”

For one, you’d think colorful pie charts solve every problem, and you’d also think our military consists of nothing but troubled head cases. In the past year or so, USA Today has done little more than paint our military as rife with suicide, mental health problems, divorce, troubled kids and of course – alcohol and drug abuse.

Let’s look at the most recent USA Today piece on alcohol abuse. The paper reported that “Soldiers…with alcoholism or alcohol abuse, such as binge drinking, increased from 6.1 per 1,000 soldiers in 2003 to an estimated 11.4 as of March 31.”

That is disturbing, no doubt – and it’s all from military data. But what happens if you compare that figure to our general population? Well, according to the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 15.5 percent of the general population report episodes of binge drinking in 2006 – and for males alone – the number jumps over 20 percent.

Okay, think about that. Twenty percent of males in the general population binge drink – that’s one in five.

In the military – largely made up of young males who deserve to drink – it’s six soldiers per 1,000.

What does that tell you? Well, first: our soldiers seem far more well-adjusted than USA Today would like to let on. And also: our soldiers are far more capable of handling alcohol than non-military bozos like myself.

That should be no surprise: these are discipline dudes, and unlike me, their jobs require them to be clear-eyed and sober. As a magazine veteran and a television talking head, I can safely say that nearly all media jobs can be done drunk. The only dangerous machinery we face is an elevator.

Now to be fair to USA Today, my analysis is not perfect (I’ve had four martinis already). And I confess I’m not comparing apples to apples – the NIAAA stat was collected differently than the number cited in USA Today. Still, there’s a fundamental truth here: Our military doesn’t just rock physically, but also psychologically. It’s a truth that goes against USA Today’s and most film directors’ desire to paint our soldiers as ticking time bombs.

Finally, buried in the same USA Today piece is another interesting fact: “Enrollments in drug abuse treatment programs have remained largely unchanged in the Army during the war, rising from 3.7 per 1,000 in 2003 to an estimated 4.2 as of May.”

Think about that. As rehab clinics in America become more commonplace than bowling leagues – the Army presses on during the toughest of times.

I’ll drink to that.

President Obama’s righteousness about fatherhood comes from the recognition that his own dad was, indeed, a douchebag. He knocked up Obama’s mom and quickly fled the country, only meeting his son once, and bringing him a basketball. There are fathers like that out there, but they’re few and far between. And they deserve our scorn. And I understand the President’s desire to talk about his own experience as a fatherless child. I get it. It must have been terrible and I’d probably talk about it too if my dad Bruce Wilson hadn’t been the incredible dad he is to this day (see my movie “Michael Moore Hates America” for an interview with Pops).

But on Father’s Day, I’d like to remind the President that his dad is an aberration. The vast majority of dads out there would kill and die for their kids. I certainly would. And the vast majority of divorced dads out there, like me, would never abandon their children. Instead, a government system has preyed upon loving, caring dads and made them nothing more than ATMs with limited, government-determined access to the people they love the most in the world–their children.

Fathers are systematically discriminated against in an unnecessary and perhaps unconstitutional family court system. The judge in a family court frequently decides who should have primary custody of a child with limited testimony, evidence and understanding of a given family. These judges are essentially determining which parent might be a better parent within a matter of moments, and in the process, changing the very foundation of relationships the “losing” parent has with the child. In the vast majority of cases, the mother wins custody and the father is required to pay for the honor of not being able to see his children. That fact should frighten you. Deeply.

Another fact that should scare you is that a steep majority of the Child “Welfare” workers, who make determinations about whether or not you’re a good parent, are women. There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. I mean, after all, the good and caring government, while it sticks its nose into the intimate workings of your family dynamic must be entirely un-flawed, unbiased and fair. They’d NEVER side with someone of their own gender for completely biased reasons. And since everyone who works for the government is a deeply compassionate and caring person who would never work at that job for the incredible pay and Cadillac benefits, we can rest assured.

But the fact remains, these glorified DMV workers are mostly women and they decide the future of your family. Shouldn’t there be some gender balance?

The other fact that should frighten you even more is that the Child Support System is rigged. There is actually a financial incentive for government to intrude on your personal business. When I got divorced, I was making some decent dough, and though my custody arrangement regarding my daughter was a shared arrangement, I agreed to pay my ex-wife a little child support to help her out. To this day we have the same bills and expenses, so there wasn’t a big reason to do that, other than that I wanted everything to be as amicable as possible.

I simply wrote my ex-wife a check every month and that was that. Until something or other came up and she got angry with me. She called the county to have them collect the payments to teach me a lesson (no, I was certainly NOT behind on my payments, but here in Minnesota, every recipient can CHOOSE to have the government collect the payments). And thus, the System got involved. YOUR tax dollars are now paying someone to collect and process a check I was writing for free.

Being someone with a disdain for government intrusion into my life, especially in the most sensitive, important part of my life, I had no choice but to find out how this could happen. It turns out that the more enforcement cases there are at the county level, the more money the states give the counties. The more cases the states are accounting for, the more money they get from the federal government. So the bigger and more “involved” in your life government can become, the more security there is for the long-term established government employees. And judges. And case workers. And social workers. And it’s enough to make a person insane, when you think about it. A malicious government machine can feed itself and make itself bigger, nastier, and more entrenched in your personal life. And there is NOTHING you can do to stop it. Try, and they’ll throw you in jail or prison WITHOUT CHARGE, where you’ll be BEATEN TO DEATH, like happened to Brian Armstrong, a father in New Hampshire who lost his job and couldn’t pay up.

The Family Court system should be abolished. There is no reason for its existence other than to feed itself and to destroy families–especially fathers. Every aspect the system handles could be handled by district, state and federal courts. You want a divorce settlement and custody arrangement? Come up with a mutually agreed upon contract or sue in district or state court. What if there’s abuse? Call 911 and the offending party is arrested and tried under criminal statutes. There’s a custody dispute? File a suit over your contract at the time of the divorce.

If the President wants men to be good fathers, then he ought to think about doing what he can to get government out of the way. Eliminate Family Courts and sexist judges. Put people on the bench who understand that most fathers would choose to be with their children every day, every moment if they could.

Maybe the President should let us act like the men we are and get government the hell out of the way. And if he refuses to let us be good fathers without Big Daddy Government poking its stupid, overbearing nose into our lives, the least he could do is quit making speeches about how we need to do a better job.

Happy Father’s Day, dads.

The book grew out of a “40 Nights of Great Sex” bible study program begun by Spencer, Senior Pastor of the New Direction Christian Church in Memphis Tennessee, and his wife of 16 years, Rhonda. The couple looked into the Christian community and saw marriage – God’s first church – in trouble. The high divorce rate in our country is a well publicized statistic. What is less well known is that, depending on the poll, the divorce rate among practicing Christians is as high as that of non Christians. Christians are also seeing rising rates of adultery and indulgences in pornography. Spencer felt a calling to restore the sheen to Christian marriage and started the workshop as a way to begin healing relationships by providing couples a safe place to talk honestly about intimacy within the covenant of marriage.

I imagine I am not the only Christian that is not used to hearing pastors preach about sex from the pulpit, at least not in the candid way Spencer does. I am far more familiar with the sin and hellfire preaching. You know: “good girls don’t and they certainly don’t enjoy it when they do.” Or “Good men don’t have thoughts like that and they certainly don’t act on them, least ways not without some self flagellation afterward.” There are surveys revealing that in 76 percent of Christian homes sex is never even discussed. Is it any wonder that when men and women of faith come together and attempt to live the partnership God has set aside for us we are thwarted at every turn by insecurities, shame and guilt?

Not all marriages that fail are sabotaged by sexual dysfunction. But certainly for married couples in trouble (and even those that are not) breaking down the barriers to true intimacy, shedding the sense of being nasty or dirty and opening the channels to honest and open communication with our partner can be the road to a healthy relationship inside and outside of the bedroom. And if Christians are going to be successful in marriage we had better begin to have some real talk about sex and the role it plays in Gods plan for marriage.

You will not find the traditional religious sterility on the pages of this book. Spencer uses scriptural references to lay a theological foundation for the expert advice that follows. He spends time exploring the difference between intimacy and sex, the purpose of marriage and the natural tensions that arise between genders. There is also plenty of frank and often quite explicit discussion of sex and sexual relations.

Hebrews 13:4 speaks of the marriage bed as being undefiled. Scripture is also very specific on what God considers to be sexually perverse. So as long as it’s not illegal, immoral or prone to put one or both participants in traction as they say in the vernacular, “it’s on!” Oral sex? You bet. Anal penetration? If everyone is willing. Toys? If that’s what makes your ears wiggle. The marriage bedroom is a place for healthy, loving exploration, communication and most of all fun.

It is this quest for wholeness in marriage that is at the heart of Spencer’s book; a desire for couples to begin to say no to the twin demons of shame and facade and instead say yes to God, yes to each other, yes to openness and true intimacy. Most of all Spencer writes to remind us that sex is a natural and enjoyable part of human life and an essential element in building a solid marriage.

Spencer ends the book with the promise of “40 nights of great sex” — a tall order to fill. However, even if the book only delivers on half the promise, that’s three weeks of great sex. Nice work if you can get it. I suspect however, that whether newly married or rediscovering the passion that brought you together so many years ago “Naked and Unashamed” will be a terrific guide in unwrapping Gods gift of sexual and emotional intimacy in Christian marriage.