Can a guy cheat on his wife and be involved in Internet porn and still be a good father? This question is being debated not only in the divorce trial between Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook but in kitchens and cafes and around water coolers across the country.
  
Some of my guy friends have argued that they know plenty of men who are great fathers but have cheated on their wives. And a few have also said that they have watched porn – though not $3,000-worth a month – as though the amount dissolves any sleaziness.

And do you know what I say to them? “How do you define a great father? Sure, a guy can be loving, generous, play baseball or Barbie doll games with their kids and even dote on them and do homework. But they are also the moral template of their children's behavior. If a kid sees that a parent can betray the family, what makes you think that deep down the child will not have trust issues with either men or relationships?”
    
This usually shuts them up.

Children of divorce are forced early on to compartmentalize their emotions. To manage the trauma of divorce, especially when it was a result of an affair, they have to attach themselves to what they like about the parent and accept that there will be qualities they do not. It is a painful juggling act.
 
Although Christie Brinkley is fighting for full custody of Sailor, the 10-year-old daughter she had with Peter Cook, and Jack Paris, her 13-year-old son whom Cook adopted, it is highly unlikely that Cook will not have some access to his children.
 
Many women I have counseled as a stepfamily coach have questioned how their kids could want to see their father after he caused the family so much agony. “Shouldn't he be punished?” they cry. “He shouldn't be allowed to be with our children.”

It really isn't a surprise that architect Peter Cook was seen having a manicure this week. His claws were being sharpened for his divorce trial with model Christie Brinkley. Mr. Cook, who was the architect of his marriage's demise by having an affair with an 18 year old, apparently didn't fully realize how much he would lose, especially custody rights, as a result of his wandering weenie. Life with Brinkley included beautiful children, beautiful homes, a glamorous social life, boats, first-class plane rides and the access his wife's success provided.

And then poof, it was all gone when she threw him out. And naturally, he missed it.

Having been married three times before marrying Peter Cook, Christie Brinkley obviously insisted on a pre-nup. Like many well-heeled people, she thought her lawyers had written a solid agreement.

She married a Frenchman in the 70s and divorced him in 1981. With musician Billy Joel, the divorce was dissolved amicably and both maintained their own incomes and self-respect. Then came developer Rick Taubman, whom she reportedly paid $1 million for freedom and sole custody of their son, Jack Paris, now 13. Having been financially burned by her relationship with Taubman, Brinkley understandably was insistent that the pre-nup with Cook would be ironclad.

“Unfortunately the word ironclad is a bit of a myth,” says divorce lawyer Clifford M. Solomon, partner of Solomon Tanenbaum in Westchester. “Anyone can challenge a pre-nup. And it has worked in some cases. Someone will challenge that the person didn't reveal income or assets in the pre-nup and then the agreement is revisited to their advantage.”

Odds are that when people hear the phrase "single mom" they envision an unwed teen, poor, uneducated, unemployed, and struggling. There is a real stigma attached to being a single mom. A recent poll of “Moms Today” revealed that:

• 86 percent of those interviewed believed that most single mothers are on welfare,

• 90 percent believed that most single mothers are under the age of 25 and

• 77 percent believed that most single mothers didn't graduate from high school.

I used to believe these things too, and then it happened to me. I was married. We decided to have a baby, and when I was eight months pregnant my husband left. Just like that, I was a single mom. I'd never been so terrified in my life. For the first few months I would ask, "How did this happen to me?" I'd try to pinpoint the exact moment that things went bad, thinking if I could just nail that down, everything would make sense. That was the hardest part, the utter shock that I had let this happen to me, that I could be so blind.

After I got over that stage, (I never did find that moment), once the rawness wore off, I started to pick up the pieces. I worked at finding the perfect balance between loving my son, being the best mom ever to him, and taking care of myself and other things I love. Slowly, I've figured out ways to navigate life as a single mother. And I’ve met other wonderful single moms who have redefined what it means to be a single parent. We're educated. We work. We pay our bill. We take care of our kid(s). We date. We have fun. According to the US Census Bureau, this is what single mothers really look like:

• 44 percent are divorced or separated

• 79 percent of single mothers work full time

• 72 percent of single mothers live well above the poverty level

• 69 percent of single mothers do not receive public assistance

• 68 percent of single mothers are over 30 years old

Yesterday in NYC I was walking briskly along with a businessgal buddy when the oddest thing happened. I hooked a man — literally.

I was carrying a suit bag filled filled with clothes on hangers over my left arm as we yapped our way down the street.

An older gentleman and his wife were walking past us in the opposite direction. They obviously passed too close and somehow my hangars hooked on the husband, and yanked me backwards after him.

I was trying to unhook myself from him but his wife thought I was intentionally molesting him and was pulling him away from me yelling, "He's mine!"

She obviously didn't see the hanger.

Strangely, the same thing had happened just three minutes before with a construction guy as I was crossing the street. That one almost cost me a two by four to the head.

So here's what I discovered: You can literally hook a man on the street.

Now I just have to work on my aim.

You've learned to ask for help. You've leaned you don't need to do this alone. You know you don't have to sit there on your miserable little island trying to cope all by yourself.

But then you realize you don't actually know anyone you can call and say, "I am hurting. Please come over." Well, you do, but they can't. They have kids. They live in other states or across the bridge. They are no longer drop-of-a-hat people. (Reason #732 not to have kids: they prevent you from coming to the aide of your single, sad friend with Nalgene bottles of cocktails and a comforting presence, but that's beside the point.)

So, here I am, in my living room, alone, trying to remember that I've learned, in the course of things, to take care of myself. That doing this alone is, in fact, what I've preferred. Because this week I was hit with some pretty bad news. This week I'm really struggling. This week I could use someone to come and just sit with me. And there isn't anyone who can.

Here's what I recommend to all of you pondering divorce: Get yourself some single friends. Friends without babies. Friends who live within 15 minutes of you. Because there's going to come a night when you need someone, when you're in a place where you want that help, and you'll need someone in your phonebook who not only loves you and stands by you, but is actually able to come over.

I'm in a more cynical space than usual, I guess, because I wonder: What's the use of learning to ask for support when, in the end, you're still going to end up on your couch alone?