Free Life Is Not a Reality Show by Kyle Richards

friend of mine came to me once very distraught. Her husband had had way too much to drink and he strayed, just that once. He was torn up about it. My friend was so angry and hurt. “Should I leave him?” she asked me.
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Put a Wall Around Your Garden
    I mentioned before that I’m not wild about guys’ night out or girls’ night out. I figure you can see your friends at lunch. My sister Kathy and her husband, Rick, never did that—every time they went out with their friends they went together. Nights should be reserved for family or for going out with other people as a couple. Oh sure, maybe once a month, now and then, go out with the boys, have a girlfriends’ night, go to the movies… But be careful. I’ve seen couples get in fights with each other that all started when she was out with her friends, or vice versa.
    I don’t see the point of purposely tempting fate, introducing risk, flirting with danger—or flirting with other people!
    I know some people say that flirting can be totally innocent and harmless. Maybe so, but I believe that a relationship, even after marriage— especially after marriage—needs to be protected and sheltered from outside forces that could potentially undermine it. Even the strongest of relationships have a certain fragility that requires respect and TLC.
    I confess that one reason I never flirt with people other than my husband is that I just seem to be incapable of it. I’ve been married the majority of my life, and I feel very shy and awkward around that kind of thing. If a man is hitting on me, I get so embarrassed and flustered! I immediately start talking about my husband and my kids. “Okay, I’ve got to go pick up my seventy-five kids at school now, bye-bye!” Ha-ha!
    But I also think that because I am so genuinely attracted to my husband and so honestly content in my marriage I couldn’t even fathom seeking the attention of other men. If you’re feeling the need for interaction with or validation from men outside your marriage, I wonder, is it an indication there’s something within your marriage, or your own heart, that needs to be examined?
    To each her own. I’m just saying, be careful.
    In my marriage? No! Never, never, never, never, never! My friends don’t believe me but it’s the truth. “Not even Tom Cruise?” they’ll say, because when I was younger I had a crush on him. No. If he—or even Mark Ruffalo, who I guess would be my actor crush now if I had to pick—were to ask me to dinner, hand to God I wouldn’t go. I am seriously only interested in Mauricio, who to me is much better looking than anyone, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, anyone. (And by the way, Mauricio cannot say that anyone is pretty but me—except for Michelle Pfeiffer, because he’s had a thing for her since he was a kid. Ha-ha!) I’m half joking…
    If you want to call it jealousy, fine. I myself am not entirely unfamiliar with the green-eyed monster, though mostly from when I was much younger. Sometimes Mauricio is just too nice, though, like during our White Party that was filmed for season 1 of Real Housewives .This woman sidled up to my husband and was hanging all over him, saying really inappropriate, ballsy things. The look on his face was like, “What do I do?” But he’s too nice to be rude. Like I said, too nice!
    You may have seen the episode, but what you didn’t see was one of my daughters coming up to me crying, saying, “Mommy, that lady’s scaring me!” So that’s when I said to this woman, “You wanna get a Manolo in your eyeball? You stay away from my family!” I’m definitely like a mama lion when it comes to my family. They’re my cubs and nobody better mess with them.
    Mauricio is funny; he deals with the idea of being jealous by pretending that he’s the only man I’ve ever known in my whole life. He jokes around, “Oh, you know, Kyle wasn’t born till I met her!” Ha-ha!
    I just look at my husband and see the ideal man. To me he’s flawless, inside