How sad this is. I hope there was more to this email than sexy pictures though, some evidence that there had been some relationship between her husband and his assistant. But generally, I believe pretty strongly that where there is smoke, there is fire. But on the other hand, I also believe that infidelity is something that can be worked though, if given a chance, of course.
Explicit e-mail does it for Locklear
Here’s another dire warning from the surgeon general: Sexy e-mails can imperil a marriage.Latest Internet case is the union of Richie Sambora and Heather Locklear, which went from troubled to divorce court in a flash when, report People and the Star, the foxy Locklear discovered an explicit missive to her hubby from his former assistant, Stephanie Heaton.
Heather signed on the split papers’ dotted line, much to the shock of Sambora, who found out from an interviewer and exclaimed, “It’s completely untrue!”
Would that it be, Mr. Bon Jovi Guitar Plucker, but a Locklear pal related, “Heather couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It completely blew their marriage out of the water.”
The explicit e-mails included shots of Heaton in heat, despite wearing nothing but fishnets and boots.
Image - hollywood.com
True, true…this is sad, and from what I have heard, Richie is sad, too, and this isn’t what he wanted. Although I’m sure Heather didn’t want him messing around with his assistant, either, if that’s the truth, and I don’t doubt it. Sad because they’ve been married a good long time now, and have a child. But perhaps this isn’t the first incidence, and she had already made it clear where she stood. But I agree that there is a lot that can be worked out. But you know, maybe she has her eye on some other hot rocker, maybe a younger man perhaps….who knows, she’s been with two of the most lusted-after men in rock (at least in the 80s) the ultra-hot Tommy, and Richie. Although I did like T-Bone better when he didn’t have quite so many tats.
I read that Sambora denied ever having had an extra-marital affair with his ex-assistant. BUT yet he continued to have daily contact with the woman while Heather was under the assumption that all contact with her was severed. That’s just plain wrong and is still considered an emotional affair regardless if anything physical went on. I don’t blame Heather for dumping him or wanting the other woman out of their lives. The story is the ex-assistant was behaving more like Sambora’s wife and mother to his and Heather’s child than an assistant. Now my friends understand why I have a zero tolerance policy regarding my hubby having female “friends” or “assistants”. It more often than not leads to trouble and relationships are hard enough without invited outside interference to begin with.
Very very true franksgurl. Much easier to avoid the problems entirely then to try to repair them once they have happened. However, don’t you think that by forbidding your hubby to associate with women altogether that might eventually backfire on you? Personally I would be a bit afraid to insist upon that with my husband, but we both are pretty in tune with problems that could potentially arise, and I think we pretty much just avoid those situations on our own.
Fair question CC Jones, but the thing is neither my husband or I ever had “friends” of the opposite sex to begin with. To me there’s a big difference between “casual acquaintances” of the opposite sex and “friends” of the opposite sex. Co-workers, neighbors, cashiers at the grocery store, etc are what I consider “casual acquaintances” and are fine. I have no problem with that. But my girlfriends have always been MY friends exclusively and vice versa with his men friends. My hubby does not socialize with my girlfriends and I don’t socialize with his men friends. We have our “couple” friends that we socialize with as couples, but never one on one without the other being involved. It’s not something we ever even discussed…it just is…and has imo has kept our relationship free from “invited” interference, as I refer to it. Recently my husband had a new female employee hired into his department. She’s a lesbian, but displayed suspiciously and inappropriately affectionate behavior towards my husband. She began initiating birthday and other special occassion luncheons in their department and even sent my hubby a personal “get well” e-card to our home computer. I was very uncomfortable with this newfound activity and mentioned it to my husband, but he didn’t think it was a big deal because she’s a lesbian…so that makes her “safe”. Wrong. Next thing you know she starts calling him after hours on our cell phone. At this point my husband put down his foot and she was told to back off. So in my opinion there’s always trouble lurking around the cornerand we have to be careful and on alert. We’ve been married for going on 27 years this coming Spring and I attribute our longevity in part to the fact that we’ve kept our union exclusive. In all our years together we’re the only couple still married and very much engaged with each other. All the couples, but one, that we’ve ever known have ended up in divorce and it was ALWAYS due to innocent “friendships”.
So in answer to your actual question, I haven’t forbidden my husband to “associate” with women altogether. I realize he even has to work with them and deals with them on some level in every walk of life. What I object to specifically tho…is having private/personal friendships with other women that exclude me. That’s a no-no and he has no problem with it. And by the same token I don’t have men friends and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything either. My husband and I can both feel safe knowing that the other isn’t excluded from too personal dealings with the opposite sex. There are no “others” in our marriage.
I feel that Ritchie Sambora has totally disrespected and dishonored his wife and marriage by maintaining contact with his former assistant, behind his wife’s back. There’s something sneaky and wrong with keeping relationships with members of the opposite sex private from your partner…especially when they made it clear they were uncomfortable with that person in the first place.
A friend of mine loaned me a book some time ago called “Not ‘Just Friends’”, by Shirley P. Glass, Ph.D. It explores the phenonomen of infidelity via “friendships” and offers guidelines and suggestions to help strengthen and protect relationships from outside interferences. Little did I know we’ve been on the right track the whole time.
Hey Franksgurl you’re right on. Me and my husband have been together for over 20 years and we’ve never had close friends of the opposite sex either. I couldn’t stand it if my husband had a close personal relationship with another woman and I know he wouldn’t be keen on me getting too cozy with another man. It’s just asking for trouble. I even find myself keeping my eyes on most other women these days. Even the casual ones. I don’t know what’s up with people these days. Some women just get too friendly with my husband for my liking so I make sure my presence is known. I think I lost alot of respect for Ritchie Sambora. I used to really like him and would like to give him the benefit of the doubt but it’s just not looking good for him. He shouldn’t have had anything to do with that other women especially after his wife wanted her fired. I’d be devastated if I ever found out that my husband carried on a long term friendship with another woman behind my back. Especially if she was sending him nude photos of herself. Speaking of which. I saw the assistant’s picture on-line in an article when I did a Google search and was surprised at how plain and homely the woman looks. If he’s been having an affair with her he needs his head examined.
Nurse Lola and Franksgurl, thanks for your insight, it is most appreciated, especially from two women who have been so successful in your marriages - congratulations, you definitely have the right ideas!
I do have a bit of a different view of infidelity than a lot of women do, admittedly, but you are definitely right about avoiding the situation altogether being the way to prevent problems. I don’t care how good the candy is at home, you can’t dangle different candy in front of a man and expect him not to taste it, that is for sure. Even if the home candy is Heather Locklear!!
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one on the right path of fidelity. Thanks, Nurse Lola. I’ve noticed throughout our marriage that the other couples who’ve had the problems were the ones who were too open and lenient about letting outsiders in. My best friend cheated on her husband for two years before they parted ways, so I know more than I care to about the dynamics of how it’s done. I know all the tricks and pitfalls and trust me when I say it’s just not a good thing to let another woman get too close to your man.
CC Jones, you say you have a bit of a different view of infidelity than most women do. Can you elaborate please? I’d like to hear about it.
I feel sorry for Heather Locklear. She trusted her husband to do the right thing, and by all appearances he really deceived her. Schmuck. Who knows…if he actually didn’t have a physical affair with the woman there’s a chance that some marriage counselling along with some major sucking up on his part may still save their marriage. But that depends on the extent of the damage and of course we’ll never know all the details. There has to be alot more to the story for her to have so abruptly filed for a divorce. I wish them luck.
Oh I don’t mean anything other than what I stated in the post, that I personally don’t see infidelity as necessarily an automatic “deal-breaker,” for me anyway - assuming it is a sexual relationship only rather than an emotional one. I guess I have a pretty one sided view, like I also said before, that if you dangle candy in front of them, they are going to bite. I think it is a natural instinct for them, and a very very strong one that is nearly impossible to defeat. You both are very right in the way that you believe that “keeping them out of the candy store” is a very good thing.
I agree, it must have been a bad scene in the Sambora household for her to so abruptly call things off. I feel sad for the whole family, from appearances, they had a really good thing going.
I guess what it boils down to is we’ll never know for certain exactly how we’d react to infidelity unless we came face-to-face with it. We may react opposite of what we think we’d do. I worked with a woman who was quite liberal in her thinking where her relationships with men were concerned. She claimed it didn’t bother her if the guy had dinner with female friends or spent weekends hiking or whatever with the female friends that she was excluded from. That is till she met “Mr. Right”. She then suddenly found herself feeling very uncomfortable and insecure about those types of situations and could no longer handle it.
I’m going to assume when you said that if you dangle candy in front of them they’re going to bite…that you didn’t mean every man in every situation. I’m thinking you meant that in a general term. I think it really depends on the guy. My husband is actually quite shy around other women and his sex drive’s a little on the low side, compared to mine…and he just never seems interested in what’s going on with other women. Yet I’ve known guys who are just plain horny perves with no scruples whatsoever who would jump at every and any opportunity regardless of what their relationship situation was…good or bad. Not all men will stray, but I’m sure alot of them do. I’m thinking that if I ever knew for CERTAIN that my husband had an affair…that it would be over for us. Trust is very difficult to rebuild.
You are definitely right about not all men being that way, I was indeed referring to it in much more of a general term. I have known quite a few women who have been in lifelong marriages, and I hate to say it, but each and every one of them have confided in me over the years (as their manicurist..LOL) that their husbands had strayed at some point or another and they were able to work through the infidelity. That is much from where my feelings originated. Again, a “love” affair is an entirely different breech of trust in my opinion than a sexual one.
Anyone who claims that emotional affairs are a different breech of trust than a physical one has never had to learn the truth about it first-hand. My previous husband had a long time emotional affair with another woman and it completely devastated me. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t have sex with her. Just the thought of him sharing that inner most of part of him with her while he carried on the charade of a happily married man with children killed me. He may as well have slept with her because I lost complete trust in him as it was. Whether it’s emotional or physical the trust has been breached. Period. I know. He betrayed me and I couldn’t deal with it. There was no working through it. And I’m not alone with my feelings about it. I joined a support group and surprisingly alot of the people there were in the same boat as me. Trying to come to terms with a spouse who had had an emotional affair. A breech of trust is a breech of trust. How it happened is inconsequential.
I’m sorry, I think you misunderstood me totally. I meant that an emotional breech of trust is much worse on a relationship and much more difficult to work through, and for me would be very nearly impossible to forgive and forget. And yes, I have been through both situations myself as well. I am not just speaking from hearsay, this is what I feel and what I have learned in my life.
Christina, are you saying that it would be easier for you to work through a sexual affair as opposed to an emotional one? I think I’d find either one equally intolerable. In fact if my husband had sex with another woman I don’t think I could stand to have him near me again. Just the thought alone of him swapping bodily fluids with someone else is a total turn-off. Not to mention I’d be afraid to have relations with him again in fear of having some ungodly sexually transmitted creepies invading my body. To tell you the truth I’m pretty certain whether my husband had an emotional or physical affair I’d leave him either way. I pray to God I’ll never be in the position of having to deal with that situation. I’m sorry to hear you and Pat have both gone through it.
I keep checking for follow-up stories on Heather and Ritchie, but to no avail. In the meantime tho I enjoy discussing this topic with you…and anyone else who happens to chime in.
I sure hope you never have to go through it either, it is not fun. But, yes, that is what I am saying, and that is where, admittedly, my feelings on things differ from a lot of other people. It is not something that I like to think about, but yes, as long as the love was still there, and it was an affair of the “other head” rather than of the heart, I would not find it terribly difficult to forgive and forget. Just don’t go sharing your heart with someone else, that I couldn’t bear. To me, the devastating part of an affair is the part where you have lied to your partner and confided in someone else things that are normally shared between you and your partner. The body is just that, a body, the heart and soul are so very much more. IMHO, of course.
I told my hubby we were talking about this here, and was hoping he would find the time to chime in, maybe he will get to it this weekend. He feels the same way I do, but I would venture to say that he would have a harder time forgetting my affair than I would his. I think. He may differ in his opinion. In fact he probably will - he is just that way. LOL
I am enjoying the conversation too, Franksgurl, I appreciate your thoughts and experience. And lets hope that Heather and Richie can work things out, they seemed like the perfect couple!!!
Oh I hope your husband does say a few words about this. It would be nice to get a man’s perspective on it. When I met my husband he was just divorcing his first wife. Condensed version is he came home early in the middle of a night shift because he was sick with flu…to find his BEST FRIEND sound asleep in his bed next to his wife. I think that’s why my husband to this day has no close male friends. He luncheons with the guys at work and on weekends we socialize with other couples…my friends and their men, but otherwise he just doesn’t have much going on socially outside the realm of work and our marriage. I guess that’s why the topic of opposite-sex friends has never been an issue for us. I think we both subconsciously avoid it. In fact it never occurred to me to have men friends…it just seems inappropriate, but I’m not sure why. Maybe because men are always ogling me so I just can’t see being friends with another man. I’d love to hear what Dr. Phill would say about it. lol
On another note I saw some new pics on-line of Heather and her daughter. She looks absolutely radiant and is in fact glowing. I remember seeing pics of her last fall and thinking she wasn’t looking her usual bubbly-happy self. Now I guess we know why. It must have been an incredible relief to finally get it out in the open and now be able to work towards putting an end to the suspicions and hurt feelings. I remember how sickenly awful I felt when that co-worker of my husband’s was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. The mind is a dangerous weapon if it has no outlet.
Take care for now, Christina. I’ll check back periodically for messages and I’ll keep up with the Sambora/Locklear saga as it unfolds. Do encourage your hubby to post.
Oh that would be rough. I imagine that it is a non issue between you both really as it is between us, because we know what happens, and choose not to put ourselves in that position. At least I do. I feel funny speaking for him now as he will no doubt read this. LOL But I do feel a little sad for your husband, I bet that really affected his trust of the human race as a whole. What an awful position to find yourself in, awful from so many angles.
You take care too…we will see if Mr. Marshall will chime in over the weekend, if not, then it has been a joy talking to you, and all the best to you and your family.
I have enjoyed reading all the posts. This breakup hit me hard in a way. They just seemed so happy together and were married for quite awhile. I did see a picture of Stephanie Heaton and I was also suprised at how unattractive she was in comparison, although affairs (yes, I feel this was an affair) really are never about looks, IMO. My husband would never do something like this to me, although I think he on some level expects some guy to come along and take ME away, as he often makes joking references to my “boyfriend”. But we also are strictly NO friendships of the opposite sex. I do not even engage in casual social conversations. Work related only, unless my husband is there. I see married men in my office lurking around single women, buying them lunch and doing all sorts of things and socializing, and I think it is just completely wrong and it is just being careless with and disrespectful to their marriage.