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" Call me delusional, but despite the endless rumors on TMZ and Perez about custody, prenups, and settlements, I still can&amp;#039;t believe she&amp;#039;s getting divorced from Guy Richie. The most upsetting part, though, is that most people are assuming it was inevitable, all her fault, or both. I don&amp;#039;t for a minute imagine she was an easy person to be partnered with. Stories swirled that she spent four hours a day at the gym and didn&amp;#039;t have sex with her husband for over a year (this is &amp;quot;Erotic, erotic, put your hands all over my body&amp;quot; Madonna we&amp;#039;re talking about). I read gossip items about her pushing Kabbalah on him, railroading him into adopting, and being a self-absorbed workaholic. But that was Madonna just being Madonna. Presumably he knew that going in; just by listening to the lyrics of &amp;quot;Holiday,&amp;quot; he&amp;#039;d have known the girl can&amp;#039;t take a day off. I see Madonna, and lots of other alpha-women, as being stuck in a Catch-22: If after the wedding, she&amp;#039;d quit work and traded her bodysuits and bad-girl attitude for mom jeans or, worse, gone all meek and Stepford, we&amp;#039;d say Richie was sold a bill of goods. On the other hand, when she kept being the self-absorbed workaholic she&amp;#039;s always been, she gets blamed for ruining her marriage.  Sure, Madonna is exceedingly type A, the ultimate ball-busting alpha woman. But I haven&amp;#039;t heard anyone question Richie&amp;#039;s role, how maybe he couldn&amp;#039;t handle her never-ending string of successes while his once-ascending career sputtered out a series of creative and commercial flops (she bounced back from Swept Away; him, not so much).  Well, why should a stranger&amp;#039;s marriage mean so much to me? In 2000, when they wed in a fairy-tale-perfect castle in the Scottish Highlands, it proved that the belief about men being intimidated by powerful women was an antiquated load of bull. A successful husband, an adorable family, a killer body, a substantial bank account, and a rockin&amp;#039; career? Madonna&amp;#039;s happily ever after assured me a modern woman could have it all. Don&amp;#039;t get me wrong \u2014 I don&amp;#039;t think Madge and I are identical bosom buddies. But if controlling overachiever Madonna, the ultimate ball-busting alpha woman, could find a cool, supportive guy to spend her life with, couldn&amp;#039;t we all?  Which is why I was crushed when their marriage finally split. None of us will really ever know exactly why they divorced \u2014 maybe she did step out with A-Rod. But the point is that everyone thought it was inevitable. &amp;quot;How could a woman like that pull this off?&amp;quot; was the sentiment. What I&amp;#039;m left wondering now is ... can&amp;#039;t we? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a2284/madonna-divorce-guy-richie/>