By RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com, originally filed January 29, 2015
This morning, Bert Weiss of the Atlanta-based syndicated morning show the Bert Show, announced he is getting divorced from his long-time wife Stacey.
"We have done everything we can to try to salvage our marriage and our relationship," he said on his show at 7:35 a.m., heard locally on Q100, where he is based. "And we came to the decision together, honestly together, it's time to move on with our marriage."
We took our wedding promise to each other very seriously. We took our vows to each other very seriously. We sat across from each other at dinner one night and agreed that we are fighters to a fault. That we would stay in the marriage even though we knew it wasn't fixable because she and I always operate with the thought that there always might be a sliver of hope. And that sliver of hope made us fight so hard. Days. Weeks. Months. Years? But at the end we both agreed that pride was our enemy. We both realized that the feelings of love between a husband and a wife weren't there. We both can look at each other and say we really tried everything to the very end.
Bert originally filed divorce papers last month but changed his mind to give it a go one more time. But they still couldn't make it work so he pulled the trigger a few days ago.
The news is sad but not necessarily a shock to regular listeners. Last August, the fissures in their marriage unexpectedly came out on air during what was supposed to be a lighthearted bit where each cast member had a significant other provide a minute of jokes that the cast member had to read out loud.
Bert chose to read Stacey's jokes about him that he quickly realized were less jokes and more legitimate complaints about their relationship, from their sex life to his inability to fix things around the house. (The Bert Show website had the clips from last August available on line until this morning. Sorry. They took them down.)
"I'm painfully embarrassed," he said afterwards.
"It was a little bit awkward," cast member Kristin Klingshirn said at the time.
"It was just mean," a caller said. Another caller said it was clearly an attack and disrespected him.
He thought it was a joke at first but got so angry, he decided to read it on air anyway.
Stacey, Bert said, had a guy friend write the jokes for her and she insisted at the time there was no malicious intent. Bert didn't agree. The following Monday, he said on air: "'When I give you real, I'm at about 70 percent. There are a lot of things I choose not to reveal about my personal life because it's personal. Deep struggles in my marriage is not one I would share on the radio. If I had a problem with her smoking habit, that would be one thing. That seems superficial to what you heard."
Letting all that dirty laundry out on air left him feeling bruised. "I felt so exposed," he said.
Bert said he and Stacey had given each other too much space in their relationship and were ultimately unhappy. They said at the time they were going to see a marriage counselor, something they had done before.
But counseling didn't work this time. They had simply fallen out of love.
"I wanted to be that guy with the really healthy family life and marriage," Bert said on air. "I don't have a lot of friends with that. I wanted to be that. I feel so disappointed that I have to come and say that I authentically can't be that guy."
He has moved out of their Buckhead home (part of which was highlighted in SimplyBuckhead.com last fall) and found a place two miles away so they can more easily share custody easily with their two sons Hayden, 12, and Hollis, 8.
He apologized to the Bert Show cast for "being a sketch at times over the past six months... I couldn't get out of bed some days... I've tried my best to keep it all together. I'm in a really sad place."
The couple first met in 1996 when Bert was working on a radio show in D.C. and married soon after.
The two will also maintain a business relationship with Bert's Big Adventure, a non-profit the couple created soon after they arrived in Atlanta in 2001 to give children with terminal or chronic illnesses a trip to Disney World every February.
In a story a couple of years ago for BestSelfAtlanta, Bert complimented his wife's business acumen: "Stacey handles business so well that I knew when we got into this together that we were in good hands with each other. I never had any doubt that this would work. This is an extension of my business, and I don't trust anybody more than my wife. She's predominantly leading the charge, and I have no doubt that our vision is going to be handled well."
This is the third divorce among Bert Show cast members. Jenn Hobby, now on Kicks 101.5 as a mid-day host, divorced Ryan Newell of Sister Hazel while she was on the show in 2008, then married a principal Grant Rivera in 2010.Jeff Dauler, the other original member of the show, divorced his wife of 12 years Jessica in 2011. Current host Kristin has been in a long-term relationship but has not married.
Bert has been exceptionally open about parts of his life over the years. He discussed his vasectomy in 2007. In 2008, he posed topless after losing a bet. In 2012, he pondered whether he had a drinking problem. His father recently passed away and Bert has talked about their shaky relationship and how he was able to gain some closure after flying his dad to Atlanta for his final months.
In this case, he promises to be "fiercely protective" of his sons and not talk much about Stacey and whatever difficulties they may face down the road.
“If I go silent on this,” Bert said on air, “just know it’s because I got people to protect. These are are my kids. This is the mother of my kids... I cannot be 100 percent transparent. There will be some things I will leave off the table.”
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