I just read an article in The New York Times SundayStyles section about a man and a woman who met at an event at their kids’ school, became friends (as did their spouses), went on family vacations together, couldn’t stop thinking of each other when they were apart, professed their mutual love one night in a bar, left their spouses and married.

She is Carol Anne Riddell, 44, a former local TV reporter in NY. He is John Partilla, 46, soon to be COO of an ad agency. “The part that’s hard for people to believe is we didn’t have an affair,” Carol Anne said in the article. “I didn’t want to sneak around and sleep with him on the side. I wanted to get up in the morning and read the paper with him.” You are a saint, Carol Anne.

The "loving" couple met four years ago. The little girl in John Boy's hands doesn't look like she's four. Whose daughter is she? And look at the older gentleman in the back. He looks like he's saying: "I can't believe I'm here."

Their collective children (there are five) were “devastated” and their spouses “distraught,” the piece says. But Carol Anne and John Boy were “soul mates,” so they were “brave enough to hold hands and jump.”  Brave enough? Do you believe this. BRAVE ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to devastate their children.

I understand that people fall in love outside their marriages all the time. I did, and I left my husband and hurt my two little kids when I was 41. But why in God’s name would these two uncontrollably narcissistic people agree to a newspaper interview and subject their former spouses and children to the pain all over again? “I will always feel terribly about the pain I caused my ex husband. My kids are going to look and me and know that I am flawed and not perfect, but also deeply in love,” Carol Anne said.

Who cares whether you’re “deeply in love?”  You’re deeply pathetic. You both turned my stomach by flaunting yourselves the way you have.

And why would The New York Times feature this couple in its wedding section? There are thousands of great couples failing in love and getting married who have far more interesting and uplifting stories to tell about their unions.

FOF friend, Vivian,  is married to a man who complains on a daily basis that he doesn’t feel well. His back hurts. His legs hurt. His stomach hurts. He’s exhausted. Some of his maladies are legitimate, Vivian says.  He suffers from diverticulosis, for one thing, which has to do with the lining of the large intestine (half of all Americans over 60 have it). But he doesn’t always renew his medications and then starts complaining about his aches and pains. There are also grimaces, sighs and a few moans. “That drives me crazy,” Vivian said. “How can I feel bad for him when he doesn’t help himself? The medications make him feel better but it’s pretty dumb if he doesn’t take them.”

I once read a book by a woman whose cardiologist husband had a heart attack and became fixated on himself. He was so worried about his heart, he could think of nothing else, including his wife. The medications on his nightstand took over his life.  I believe his wife left him, if my memory serves me correctly.

Vivian’s husband is as bad as the cardiologist. One doesn’t take care of himself and complains, and the other treated himself like a china doll. No FOF woman I know has a world of tolerance for either.  Even my sister, Shelley, who loves brother-in-law Russ with every fiber of her soul, can become exasperated when he starts acting like a baby about a little twitch here, a cramp there.

Gentleman, we’re here for you, but we’re not your mothers. And you’re not five anymore.

I love connecting people who will benefit one another.  I don’t mean on dates (although I do that, too). I mean in business. I always hope the people whom I’ve connected will be grateful in one way or another, but that isn’t always the case.  Here’s a story I will never forget.

I was the top editor of the leading trade publication in the home furnishings industry, so lots of executives in fields such as furniture, cookware, gifts and electronics, would call me to talk about their businesses. One exec, planning for his retirement, asked me to recommend some candidates who could take over his company. I recommended two men and called to tell them.

Months later, I was sitting at my desk and heard that one of the men I recommended got the job. I was actually pretty friendly with him so I was taken aback that he hadn’t called to personally tell me the news.I knew he had gone on a number of interviews. I dialed him right away: “Congratulations, Paul. I heard you got the job. Why didn’t you call to tell me?”  (The Internet didn’t exist then).

“Oh, we had to wait until it was officially released,” he said, as if he had become the new Pope.

If that wasn’t thoughtless enough, Paul refused to advertise in the trade publication I ran, blaming the owner of the company (who asked for the recommendation in the first place).  “You know Jack doesn’t believe in trade advertising.”   Paul gave me the news the weekend my husband and I spent with him and his wife in Terre Haute, Indiana, where his new company was based.

This guy turned out to be a real grade-A jerk. He was fired eventually. Can’t say it made me cry.