Michael, Juanita: Not a Sham

Marriage is hard. Anyone who tells you different, well, they ain’t married. It’s exhilarating, yet frustrating. It’s buoyant, yet demanding. It can lift you up and beat you down – in the same hour. It’s another job. Two or three jobs really because it’s not just nine-to-five. It’s always and forever, at least it’s intended to be.

Marriage requires almost unfathomable strength, boundless faith, buckets of forgiveness and daily compromise.

And today, sadly, its success is a 50/50 proposition.

The recent breakup of Michael and Juanita Jordan prompted much babble and tongue-wagging. Even more than the recent what-took-her-so-long Whitney/Bobby split. After 17 years of public scrutiny, judgment and predilections, the Jordans walked into a Chicago-area courtroom last Friday and, with little fanfare and no public acrimony – and a couple of very high-priced attorneys - asked a judge to affirm that their marriage was over.

They’d already agreed upon a split of the couple’s prodigious assets, and that they would jointly share custody of their three children. They answered a few questions, signed some papers, and that was that. Done.

The news spread widely and quickly. By that evening, my Blackberry was blowing up with comments from people, many belonging to a listserv group created to deal with journalism issues. (What the Jordan divorce had to do with journalism, I still do not know). And the rubberneckers were adding their thoughts to my blog on the regular.

Folks were weighing in from all corners. Some wondered why Juanita waited so long, through years of public embarrassment, the whisperings and the admissions regarding Michael’s wandering ways. Others said, “Hey, she was pregnant with their first child before they got married, so she tricked him in the first place.” And some truly petty folks – and not all of them men - noted that Juanita, 47, was four years older than Michael. Such a winter/summer relationship between an older man and younger woman would never even have been mentioned.

The word sham was used over and over and over again.

Marriage is hard. Anyone who tells you different, well, they ain’t married.

I stayed out of the fray. The scriptures say, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” And I try not to test the scriptures. But as I read the comments rendered, I could not help wondering whether those judging the Jordans like Judy, Mathis, Hatchett or Joe were actually married themselves. I wondered, in particular, whether those who used the word sham had pledged to love and honor through sickness and all, for better (a cake walk) and worse (not so much) until death – and discovered that it just isn’t all that easy.

Some had done so, I’m sure, and God bless them if their partnership has never been pulled by pain, tested by guilt or strained by imperfection. But the general tone suggested that many of the know-it-alls were only marriage observers, not practitioners.

I give the Jordans credit. They endured much longer than many couples might have under such glare and indiscretions. And save for the nasty lawyer tacting a few years ago, when Juanita originally filed for divorce, they pretty much kept any rancorous feelings they might have had for one another to themselves, or at least confined to a close, trusted group. They wore a great public face that obviously masked their private pain.

Even in recent months, long after Michael moved out of the couple’s home, they were seen attending Chicago events together.

More important, way more important that anything else, Michael and Juanita appear to have fulfilled the primary duty of all parents by seeming, at least to this outsider, to have raised three pretty good kids. That is no easy task for any public couple. A monumental one for a public couple in crisis.

No doubt the start was rocky. Juanita, a former homecoming queen, had filed a paternity suit against Michael. But rather than fight on, the couple was married at 3:30 a.m. at a Las Vegas chapel with their 10-month-old son at their side.

And they stood by each other – more or less - for 17 years.

Who knows what Jeffrey, Marcus and Jasmine may have experienced behind closed doors during all those years. Just being Michael Jordan’s kids could have wreaked havoc on their psyche, their self-image (Just how do you live up to that?), and filled them with an unimaginably distorted view of the world. They’re now 18, 16 and 14 years old respectively, so you know they know. And they’ve known for some time, sadly.

Yet through it all they seem to have survived and maybe even thrived.

At the divorce hearing, Juanita told the judge the couple had tried counseling to little avail. One of Juanita’s friends, speaking anonymously to the Chicago Sun-Times said she was not shocked at all by the divorce. “At this point in both their lives, these super-strong, confident and independent people just want and need to move on and create their own lives separately,” she said. “It's time. Their kids are old enough now, they can handle it, and now they all can move on."

It was telling that after leaving the courtroom last Friday, Michael and Juanita went to watch their sons play in a basketball game. Jeffrey and Marcus play for Loyola Academy and are on the same team for the first time in their lives. Mom and Dad did not sit together, but they didn’t make a scene either. In fact, they entered the gym together before Michael sat in front of Juanita. They watched and cheered and fretted, just like every other team parent.

Let’s hope now they can be even better parents. Now that there’s no more need for masks. Marriage is hard.

Anyone who tells you different, well, you know.