10 Lessons Learned From Dysfunctional Reality TV Marriages

Kim Kardashian may have said that she'd be with Kris Humphries forever, but apparently "forever" only lasts 72 days. And who said romance is dead?

Though the fairytale is over, the ubiquitous Kardashian sister has built a career on showcasing her life via reality television, and her divorce is no different. The second season of her umpteenth spinoff (OK, fine, it's more like the third) of Keeping Up With The Kardashians airs on E! tonight, this one featuring Kim and sister Kourtney in NYC and appropriately titled Kourtney And Kim Take New York. The series, of course, will also feature their significant others, Humphries and Scott Disick, respectively.

But don't be fooled into thinking the show will be at all about the sisters trying to open up a new D-A-S-H store in the concrete jungle. No, Kourtney And Kim Take New York will undoubtedly focus on the deterioration of Kim and Kris' newbie marriage, dedicated to showing us where it all went wrong in the two-plus months they spent together post-nuptials.

Kim and Kris are hardly the first dysfunctional married couple to grace the airwaves, and they surely won't be the last. There's a certain lesson that can be derived from every trash TV couple: It's OK to watch them making fools out of themselves if we're learning from it, right? Absolutely. So, with that, check out our list of the 10 Lessons Learned From Dysfunctional Reality TV Marriages.

Written by Tanya Ghahremani (@tanyaghahremani)

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When Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt began dating on the now defunct show The Hills, they immediately gained a reputation for being very annoying. Oh, and way too blonde. Everything the couple did was a show for the cameras, to the point where they probably called the paparazzi more than they did their own parents. Botched plastic surgery, outlandish behavior, and a fake separation followed; they even released a book called How To Be Famous: Our Guide To Looking The Part, Playing The Press, And Becoming A Tabloid Fixture, for the total of two people who wanted to know!

As with all trainwrecks, America soon grew so tired with their failed attempts at music and Pratt’s crazy-ass obsession with crystals that everyone eventually stopped caring, and the two have since fallen into obscurity. The couple later attributed their behavior to a misunderstanding of how Hollywood actually works, and Heidi admitted that she thought she "was investing in myself and my brand, like Kim Kardashian."

Now, the two are living in Spencer’s parents home because they’re broke. Which is obviously the key to success.

Donna and Philippe had a strange marriage, hence the name of their show, Strange Sex. Their union was mostly built around their mutual kink of “feederism,” which is basically where one partner feeds the other a lot to the point where they gain a shitload of weight until they’re immobile.

Though the two seem relatively happy with their life decisions in the episode, The Daily Mail reported last September that they’d split up, and Donna planned on trying to lose 230 pounds from her total weight of 600. She blamed her poundage gain on trying to make Philippe happy because he found it attractive. Hey, some dudes like them thicker.

Kathy and Gary had quite a few issues in their marriage, which can be attribibuted to the fact that they appeared on the series Hoarders. See, Gary liked bunnies, so much so that he got a lot of them as pets. No big deal, people get pet rabbits all the time, right? Those people also have hutches for the rabbits to make sure that they have their own safe living in environment; Gary, however, did not. He let the rabbits use his and Kathy’s home (which they were only renting) as their own personal hutch, allowing the rabbits to chew through the drywall and sleep within the walls.

You’d think that Kathy might be a little fed up with Gary’s carelessness and say she’s dunzo, but in addition to being a lazy fuck, Gary was also controlling as hell, with a temper that even scared the therapists and cleaners on the show. Kathy—who is on disability, might we add—often found herself making excuses for Gary’s childish behavior, even when he'd complain that if people thought his home was bad, he’d “like to see how the rest of you live.” Bro, our kitchen isn’t covered in two inches of rabbit feces!

Even if you've never watched Teen Mom, chances are you’ve never heard of Amber. But, at the very least, you may have seen her mugshot. Amber and Gary’s relationship was one of the most shocking things seen on the series, apart from the fact that these kids figured out how to have sex in the first place. Not only was Amber verbally abusive to Gary when their child was around, but she was also physically abusive as well…while the cameras were rolling.

Naturally, MTV cameras caught all of the pound-for-pound dysfunction on film and aired it, which resulted in Amber being investigated by the police for domestic abuse against her husband. Though, he claimed to be fine and is reportedly still hopeful that their relationship would continue as planned. What a dumbass.

OK, we understand why Kristin liked to text—she was a 20-year-old new mom living in a new state where she hardly knew anyone apart from her husband and child. She wanted to keep in touch with her friends back in her hometown, so it makes sense. But, girl, a friendly text every now and then would have sufficed, not the 5000 she boasted about sending every month to every person on the planet.

Kristin texted so much that she couldn’t even stop when she was driving with her child in the car, or during a simple family dinner with her husband. She claimed that Steven didn’t like her texting because some of the people she texted happened to be other guys, not the sheer volume of her typed messages. Ignorance sure is bliss.

Eventually, the two split up (surprisingly not over text message), and Kristin bragged that she’d upped her monthly text message number to 9,500. By the end of the episode, she does curb her texting a bit because she realizes that she could perhaps kill someone by texting while driving, but her marriage with Steven remained broken. Heartbreaking, isn’t it?

They say people will do anything for a dollar, and in Lauren’s case that might just be true. She thought it’d be a great idea to go on a reality show to take a lie detector test in hopes to win money for telling the truth. And thus, arguably the greatest episode of any reality TV game show was created. Although the show didn’t last, Lauren’s episode has been immortalized on YouTube.

Here’s what happened: Lauren is asked a few questions about her exes, in the vein of “Were you in love with your ex-boyfriend on your wedding day?” And, “Would you leave your husband for your ex-boyfriend if he asked you to?” She answers "yes" to them all, despite the fact that her husband is slowly dying inside out in the audience, all in hopes of finishing the test and getting the prize money. Surely, she assumed, her husband wouldn’t mind once the check was in his hand, right?

But then she answered one question “Do you think you’re a good person?” with a lie and lost (i.e., “Yes"). Now, we’re all about honesty in relationships, but to air out everything in front of a audience and cameras is a new breed of heartless. Obviously, she and Frank have since broken up.

Some may say that Jon and Kate Gosselin’s relationship ended because Jon was an asshole and Kate was a controlling bitch, but the way we see it, the real reason was because Jon was an asshole who wore so much Ed Hardy. Seriously, such a fashion preference the anti-swag—where swag goes to die. The blame for their relationship's demise could be placed on the stresses of having eight children, but, no, it was the Ed Hardy.

You know your relationship is bad when it's actually destroying your business. That's exactly what happened in the case of Kata and Marcelo, a couple featured on popular chef Gordon Ramsay's series Kitchen Nightmares. The two were happy once upon a time, happy enough to think that going into a business relationship together was be a stellar idea.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Not only did they clash over every little thing, but their restaurant began suffering because of their fighting and they ultimately separated over it. They stil co-run the restaurant, though, and therein lies the proble: Even though they've broken up, for as long as their restaurant is open they'll always be linked. Had they decided to take on separate business opportunities, they could still be together. Kata and Marcelo had to learn this the hard way. It sucks, but fortunately for us at least it made for good TV.

In their family's reality series Hogan Knows Best, Linda and the Hulkster seemed to be relatively happy raising their two children together in a somewhat unconventional fashion. But most of their relationship drama came out after the show ended.

Linda filed for divorce and started dating someone who wasdamn near her daughter's age; She later revealed that her relationship with Hulk had been miserable thanks to his steroid use and the resulting violent outbursts. Hulk denied Linda's claims, saying that she was still trying to make money off his name. Either way, their failed love is cautionary tale.

Whitney Houston has made a career for herself in music by using her stellar voice, but, unfortunately, she also made a career for herself in reality TV by marrying Bobby Brown. The two married in 1992, and their series, Being Bobby Brown, debuted twelve years later.

With the bad came some good, though. Being Bobby Brown gave us some hilarious clips such as this one, and crowned the Bravo as one of reality television's top networks. It was what the producers didn't show on camera that caused the rampant dysfunction, like heavy drug use and, at least on Bobby Brown's part, a jail stint. Whitney's career suffered greatly from the on-air debacle, and she's still struggling to overcome drug and alcohol issues.

If we'd have attempted to tell Whitney this same lesson before she married Brown, she would have most likely responded in this manner. Glad we didn't.