Danielle is a clinically obese middle ager, around 43 years old. Mother of several teen or adult kids, she has, apparently a bad cystocele - this is when the bladder, full of urine tends to leak under pressure. You can be born with one of these - I was - but it gets worse after childbirth. They do a surgery to fix it but it isn't really that fixable - I know this, because my mother had surgery on hers several times and it still did not fix it which is why I wear "briefs" rather than seeking surgery. Mohammed is a 27 year old, rather good looking man who either has had an unsuccessful marriage or has not been married - we are not told which one or why. He is Islam but obviously not really into the religion and of course, Danielle doesn't seem to be into religion either. And if I may say it, some real religious belief on the part of both, might have saved the marriage. From what I can tell, the two of them met when Danielle was traveling - Mohammed is from Tunisia - they had a whirlwind romance and then, continued their relationship in emails, possibly phone calls and letters. Danielle apparently misrepresented her financial status, giving Mohammed the impression she was wealthy - (and keep in mind, many from third world countries think all Americans are wealthy anyway!). She did scrape together the amount needed to bring Mohammed to the USA but what she didn't tell him was, it was her last penny. They quickly got married but things did not go well. Mohammed, possibly due to lack of education and/or skills, combined with being Islam and a foreigner without a green card, at a time this is not the most popular thing to be in the USA, and the fact that he and Danielle lived in a smaller town, tried to find work but had no luck in landing a job. In my opinion, the marriage was doomed from the onset - they didn't really get to know each other and bottom line, neither fully disclosed - what might be possible issues. Needless to say, wedding night "funsies" didn't work out as Danielle emptied out her bladder on Mohammed.
In a loving marriage, intercourse is not the bottom line - practically speaking, it's mostly for having kids and I do believe the Lord made it fun because humans would not bother doing it, if it were not fun. But of course, if you listen to TV, fun is the bottom line of intercourse but that's TV. Hubby and I are in a long term marriage where he became unable to indulge, due to atherosclerosis, in the 23rd year of our 51 year marriage (which by the way, none of his medical providers figured out that this was a sign of atherosclerosis and that info is easily accessible, even to lay persons on the internet) and we discovered that our practicing celibacy has not only brought us closer to God but has increased our spiritual love between each other - I can attest to the fact that, other than conceiving kids, intercourse really isn't that important in the overall scheme of things.
In the last meeting of several of these folks on this show, "90 Day Fiancee", Mohammed said things which really hurt Danielle about her difficulty with intercourse and bladder problems. When the other folks tried to point that out to him, he got very angry with the whole crowd and walked off the stage.
I didn't notice this the first time I watched the show but when I re-watched it today, I realized that both Danielle and Mohammed have a temper, and neither of them wants to realize that there were problems on both sides - his AND hers.
And that's the bottom line, why that marriage was a train wreck. To sum up... Danielle should have given Mohammed full disclosure about her cystocele and the problems it could cause during intercourse. She's also likely in perimenopause and so might not be able to bear Mohammed's offspring. Mohammed should realize that he knew her age and the fact that she might not really the one for him in marriage, if he wants to start a generation of offspring. This marriage was doomed from the beginning and both of them should have left the relationship in area of a friendship rather than a marriage. Mohammed did use Danielle to enable him to come to the USA and she spent her last penny doing this. But apparently, neither of them are very employable and so they had serious money problems - Mohammed somehow felt that Danielle had a lot of money and could support them both.
Full disclosure is important before all marriages and full disclosure might have saved both Danielle and Mohammed, a lot of sadness. But a strong belief in God whether through Islam or Christianity, might have saved the marriage also and shown them the way to true love.
Here is a story about this couple in 2017
A charming, animated blond lady on TV (TLC - "the Learning Channel") named Theresa Caputo, has intrigued many of those who have cable TV. She calls herself, "The Long Island Medium". In show's introduction, she claims that although she thinks of herself as a "typical Long Island (NY) housewife", she has a special ability - she can talk to the dead, later explaining that "spirits", presumably of dead people, come to her and she feels compelled to tell those around her about this, apparently at a decent profit to her - enough to have enabled her hubby to sell his business and become a "house husband". Truly, not many "typical Long Island housewives" earn $400,000 bucks for each TV Season and that's not counting what she gets for private readings (estimates range from $100 per to $500 per reading) for which I last heard, she's booked solid for 2 years or more in advance). One blog estimated Theresa' net worth as over 2.4 million bucks. (ibid)
Caputo has her share of loyal, believing fans, enough to fill auditoriums on her tours even though a seat in the audience is far from inexpensive, prices ranging from $100 to 4 figures (for the "good seats in front").
She also has her share of naysayers. She claims she doesn't care if people don't believe in "what she does" but I suspect at least according to one article, she may care more than she says - she apparently, had a naysayer removed from the auditorium in a Boston appearance... supposedly, this women claimed (rather loudly) that Theresa's reading was incorrect. I would bet this might have happened more than once.
It appeared that Theresa did not want to be wrong or she felt so strongly about the message that she seemed to almost forget about the other 2,999 people witnessing this. She overheard the woman say this is “bullsh-t” and all hell broke loose. By this time Theresa had lost her temper and requested that security physically escort the woman out of the Wang theater for disagreeing and I suppose disrespecting her. After all it is her show.
For the show, "Long Island Medium", she has been said to spend 45 minutes in private with each person who appears on the show.
People have been asking themselves if there is a way to discern the truth of her claims from the TV show. Although the belief that dead people are readily available for visiting the living is widespread (people don't want to believe in more of a separation), it is in opposition to Christian doctrine which states that after death - we either go to a place to complete our perfection in preparation for entrance into Heaven ("Nothing imperfect shall enter Heaven") or occasionally, as in the case of a handful of saints, we go directly or almost directly to our eternity. In any case, people who have passed would not be easily available for "readings".
Ironically, Caputo has said more than a few times that she is Catholic - although, it is unknown whether she regularly attends Mass. That being said, there are some Catholics who work as mediums or "soothsayers" despite the fact that this is opposed to Catholic beliefs. Unfortunately, many Catholic people seem confused about what our church teaches and sadly, even in asking a priest about things like ESP, at least some priests will opt out of a definitive answer, by saying "well the church says it's not true but who really knows?" (a quote of an answer I got from an elderly priest).
A more pressing question in some of our minds is, is Caputo real or merely a good entertainer?
Caputo appears to believe that what she does is the real thing but if she actually believes it, is unclear. It's clear that she's the highest paid medium or soothsayer in the USA (a fact which seems to raise a bit of ire in others in her field).
In watching her work, even on TV which is greatly edited, it's rather clear that she is employing a method called "Cold reading" in which the "reader" throws out general statements to a large audience and allows the believers present, to fill him/her in on the details.
Example: the medium will say to an audience, "who is the young male who passed?" and at least one person will speak up and give the details. (The chances of one person or more in an audience having suffered a recent death, are good). The medium jumps on the details and claims to be contacting the person who passed who is giving the individual a message. In Theresa's case, the message is usually "he/she wants you to know that she/he's at peace and watching over you!". People who want to believe, seem very consoled at the moment but whether they are really consoled after extracting themselves from Theresa and her charismatic presentation is unclear as I have not met any Caputo audience members personally to interview them about their feelings. People who have been to other readers whom I've interviewed seem divided - most take the readings as entertainment but not something upon which to make an important life decision which is likely a good idea.
It's not clear how many people really "believe" in her but though many say that she's not doing any harm because she appears to be consoling the grieving - the question rises if consoling people with possibly false information is really consoling beyond the excitement of the moment, in the audience.
Theresa appears to cleverly read people's body language etc and she's quick witted, intelligent and charming. She's also entertaining which actually raises serious questions about the truth of her readings - often the prominent thing on folks' minds is not the positive but a pending divorce, a recent death or even physical illness, and reading this type of thing is anything but entertaining.
It's possible that she may be using telepathy (mind reading) but the idea that dead people simply hang out around earth is contrary to most religions and doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it. Why would people want to hang around earth rather than moving on to better things? Could she be contacting satanic angels who are play acting the beloved dead? If she really were contacting spirits, perhaps this would be a possibility (and a scary one - people don't want to mess with this - which is why there are warnings in the Bible etc) however I'm not convinced she's doing anything more than sizing up people, using a system of clever guessing (only positive things, of course, she assures us).
Theresa is above all, a talented, charming entertainer which is how she not only scored a high rated show on "TLC" (The Learning Channel, somewhat euphemistically named i.e. I haven't seen much there which transcends the realm of good entertainment into being truly educational!). People who don't have a strong religious belief and thus, are searching for God, readily find in people like Theresa, a good "God substitute" at least at the moment however, Theresa doesn't offer much consolation for life's rough places or as the old saying states "There are no atheists in foxholes".
The "Inside Edition blog" summed it up well - Enjoy her show but watch it with a "huge grain of salt"!
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