Be Glad You're Not Married to THIS Guy
Dr. Sheila's advice: The key is how and when you
tell her [ Mrs. Fowler ]. It is important here to stress to your friend your concern
for her welfare and happiness. Invite your friend out for coffee, tea,
or a stroll in the park. Tell her there is something very important you
want to talk to her about. Let her know how much you care about her and
how important she is to you. Then tell her that you have "noticed"
something. Tell her that you "noticed" that her husband [ Mr. Fowler ] doesn't treat
her very well and that concerns you. Ask her if she agrees with your
assessment. Give examples, if possible.
Be sure to NOT
husband bash. Don't call him names, etc. Just stick to your concern for
her. Decide in advance what support you can provide her and then offer
it. It maybe that you give her a book to read ("The Emotionally Abused
Wife" by Beverly Engel is particularly good) or the phone number of a good psychologist. You might offer to go with her to the
first appointment. Make sure your friend knows how serious this is and
how serious you are and that you are there for her.
There is a caveat I must offer here: Sometime the truth hurts and your friend may not welcome your comments or believe them. That's okay. You were a good friend sharing your concern with her. If she can't hear it now, maybe she'll be able to hear it later.
taken from http://www.momlogic.com/2009/03/stephen_fowler_wife_swap.php
I can't believe the wife of that jerk Fowler ever married him. She actually did that on purpose? I am so glad someone started this web blog because I could not believe the way the swap wife was treated by this pompous ass. I felt so badly for her to have to deal with his rude, degrading, humiliating and downright mean remarks to her. The other husband should have taken that scrawny little worm outside and punched his lights out. I did wonder myself if Fowler actually speaks to his real wife that way. You could clearly see how she cringed at the final meeting when both couples got together and she had to hear how her pompous ass husband treated the swap wife. I'm sure it has cost her a few clients in her weight loss business as well.
Reply to this
Let me tell you about this jerk Fowler....I knew him many years ago, for many years before he was married. He was deprived as a child, did not have very loving or encouraging parents growing up. HE DID NOT HAVE A GOOD EDUCATION. He became an accountant. He did not go to University and did not have a degree. He dated loads of women and two timed them. He dated women alot less intelligent than this nice lady Gayla he treated so badly. In fact he dated someone for several years for physical reasons. HE HAD HUGE HANG UPS. As he met people more educated and more accomplished than himself, he felt the need to improve on his "lack of" accomplishments, but also on his social circle. He started hanging around with (in his eyes) "better people"....he dated a girl just because she went to Cambridge and had influential family and friends. HE IS A PSEUDO SNOB. He treated his friends and people he knew JUST LIKE HE TREATED GAYLA. He was always opinionated and condescending, always judged people and always had negative things to say. His life now is typical of the dreams he always had. He was always obsessed with San Fransisco. He was obsessed with going out with a good looking, physically fit women. His wife is a mould. His children are moulds. They are all robots programmed by him. In fact his wife is just as bad as he is. She spends not time with her children. She is also obsessed with job and her appearance. In fact, Steven is living his dream. He always strived for acceptance, and for attention. All his achievements were not based on the fact that he wanted to learn and to be knowledgeable and educated....simply because he wanted to be as good as and better than everyone else....HE WANTED TO BE CONSIDERED UP THERE WITH THE ELITE. He crticises Gayla Long???? If only you knew what his best friend is like! I could tell you alot more but I daren't!
Reply to this
The problem with Fowler's wife is that she doesn't realize that she's just as much of a victim as Gayla Long was, and his children still are. I'm willing to bet a million dollars that if his wife says or does anything he doesn't approve of, she gets the same kind of abuse Gayla did.
Let's not forget that Renee Fowler also had weight issues, so every time Stephen insults a fat person, he insults her. Every time he insults an American, he insults her. Only instead of realizing it's abuse, she mistakes it for "encouragement" to be better than the average American. The brainwashed pushover probably thanks him for it.
Until Renee pulls her head out of her husband's arse and realizes that he abuses her, she's going to keep right on stroking his ego by being everything he holds in contempt, the lowly American and (former) fat woman that he can always feel superior to. Same thing with the kids. They'll never be good enough either, so he can always be superior.
I would make an appeal for her to make a change for the sake of her children, but didn't she say that spending more than an hour with them makes her grumpy? Obviously she cares more for herself than she does for them, so appealing on their behalf is futile.
Renee is a Life Coach? How can she help other people sort out their lives when she can't even make healthy decisions for her own life?
(Pseudo) Physician, heal thyself.
Reply to this
stephen fowler is a fearful, little jerk. His "world view" does not go past his pompous ass. People like him are too full of themselves to value anyone else, including his own wife & children. I hope seeing himself on wife swap helped him but I doubt it.
Reply to this
After seeing himself on wife swap he is probably patting himself even more. Several of his friends gave up on him many years ago... .he has not changed and never will. I feel sorry for those poor children.
Reply to this
This guy is probably the biggest failed troll ever. Karma's a bitch.
Reply to this
You are right. I knew him many years ago before he was married. He did not have an education until he met people far better than himself at which point he decided he wanted to be up there with the elite...so he educated himself...in a very ignorant fashion. His best friend, if you talk about social ranking, was far far inferior to the lady Gayla Long he criticises.
Reply to this
It looks like Fowler story has come to an end. It is sad though because I like to come here to read comments.
Don't worry Stephen! even the public seem to be quiet, but my eyes are still watching you every move.
Reply to this
I couldn't believe Stephen's bad behavior, I think he mistreats Renee and probably the kids and they are the ones I worry about the most. I have listened to some of Renee's weight loss videos, but after watching wife swap I can't bring myself to watch them again. I always hear Stephen's voice in my head. And how can I take anything she says seriously after seeing the mess her life is? She talks a lot about positive energy but yet she lives with the biggest negative ever - Her husband! I hope people will always remember him as an example of how money and education don't make a decent person.
Reply to this
Here's something I found last night -- the transcription of the most recent podcast by renee where she shares what she's learned -- I wasn't surprised by her skirting the specifics --
http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/216-inside-out-weight-loss/episodes/31420-special-audio
Reply to this
I struggled to listen through about a third of that before I had to turn it off. Her over-rehearsed, heavily edited monotone made me want to go out and visit bodily harm upon the nearest village just to get out the rage this woman inspires in me.
I'm seriously thinking about starting a blog called Renee Fowler sucks. We already know it about Stephen. That's not up for debate. It's a fact. But what about Renee? What about that smarmy enabling airhead who can't stand her oen children and can't form a complete intelligent, coherent thought without footnotes.
What about how much she sucks?
Renee talks about the beauty of the day, the beauty of a flower, but not once does she mention the beauty a mother usually sees in the faces of her children.
Renee says: "I have the gift of deeper compassion for others of all different types especially, those with values that are different than my own."
My ass. She's got the compassion of a canned ham. The more this wretch speaks, the less I like her.
I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike anybody as much as I dislike Stephen Fowler. But I do. Renee Fowler ranks right up there with her husband and I hope that when he leaves this fair land, she's on the boat next to him.
Reply to this
I agree with you 100 percent. Never a truer word spoken. They are moulding these poor children into what they want them to be. They did not have children because they love children....they are building robots as a product of their perfection.
Reply to this
She needs to find a way to dump him quietly - maybe on a trip (to England) - and then revoke his visa.
Reply to this
I agree with you Biding - I think it's just a bid to get her clients back. All she said really was just a bunch of nothing
Reply to this
Thank you for posting that podcast link. It was interesting to listen to. I had mixed opinions on it. Renee comes across as disingenuous at times - especially the non-laugh laugh on the point about having a "sense of humor" in life, and about acceptance and humility when she refers to "always wantd to be a barista at Starbucks". Perhaps the latter statement was expected to be received with a sense of humor.
I stopped by here because I noticed that she had posted on her blog ( http://renee.personallifemedia.com/ )after a long break. In it, she welcomes herself back, refers to the audio blog above, and at the end has this to say about the break and the whole Wife-Swap incident/episode:
"PS If you are wondering why I am somewhat obscure in referring to what caused me to take this break, its because I signed a contract that prevents me from making any public comments."
On her previous entry, she deleted one of my responses about Stephen Fowler and Wife Swap, but left a follow-up post I made on there, which also is somewhat critical of her and her husband.
I'm reluctant to vilify her to the extent Biding does. I don't disagree that she probably shares a lot of the opinions that Stephen Fowler expressed openly. I'm not sure if she is equally contemptuous of people who are over-weight, and look to her for motivation for weight loss, considering that she had also apparently gone through that experience. Maybe she despises those people like Stephen does, because it reminds her of her own miserable times dealing with obesity. Maybe she just jokes about it - many professionals joke about their patients in the circle of family and friends. If Stephen joked about one of her clients, and she either let it go or added fuel to the fire, there is a difference between professional and personal life. We all have our error zones, and it's really quite possible that she accepts his "bizarre sense of humor" (ie. caustic superiority) as an extended version of many of her beliefs on Mid-westerners and others who she considers as inferior to themselves and their peers among the "Noe Valley crowd".
I believe that everyone deserves a chance at redemption, and hopefully, we'll hear more - and mostly good things - about how Renee's and her family's life and lifestyle changes as a result of this "hard" lesson that could have been learned in an easier way from the Longs.
Dumping Stephen Fowler may not be the best option, considering that she has to raise the children, and whether he is a good or bad influence, it's really a personal choice for her to make.
It's not that I like or liked her. The smirk she gave when stating that they had made no changes and learned nothing from the Longs revealed some of her true nature that masquerades under the attempted civil and personable nature that lets her try to be a role model for people with weight problems. But even faked, if clients got what they wanted, that counts. It's not illegal to be aholes. All of us have weaknesses
Reply to this
I vilify Renee Fowler because she has proven herself to be completely disingenuous, totally vaccuous, and she enables her husband to neglect and emotionally abuse her children.
If you look back through the posts on this blog, I was among the first to pity Renee as a victim of Stephen's emotional abuse, and I was a champion of her escaping from his arrogant, overbearing abuse. I hoped left and right that she would see him for what he is and save herself, taking her children with her. As long as she was quiet, it was easy to sypmathize with her and hope for the best for her.
However..
The more she opens her mouth (or puts fingers to keys), the more I dislike her. Her sole concern is trying to say the right things to win her clients back. That's it. She doesn't have a genuine bone in her body, and I don't buy a word she said in her podcast.. the few I can make out, anyway. If she's going to be giving speeches, she needs to hire a writer. She obviously can't find a coherent sentence with both hands and a flashlight.
It is now perfectly obvious why Renee is with Stephen Fowler. She is his willing enabler, and she's just as bad as he is. He probably got hold of her when her self esteem was still low (and for her to put up with his abuse, it still is.. but that's a discussion she should be having with her shrink). He molded her into his willing accomplice, a lowly American, intellectual inferior and (former) fat chick who will never be as good as he is, a whipping block that will forever enable him into feeling superior. And he did the job well, because she not only supports his arrogant, sociopathic views, but she shares them. She's actually gullible enough to believe that he holds her in any positive esteem. Even when he's ragging on her for putting on those two extra pounds over the holidays, calling her fat and demanding that she take it back off, she tells herself that he's right and she's better for believing him.
Yes, I dislike Renee intensely. Why? Because of a little boy and a little girl who have no choices. They're abused on a daily basis, and they can't even count on mommy to make it stop. She's too busy stroking daddy's ego and trying to make a living off of helping strangers more than she bothers to help her own children.
Reply to this
I just left a really, really long comment on Renee's blog. I wonder how long it'll stay there...?
Reply to this
Woops. That didn't even last a day.
I posted another one, but that will probably be removed, too. Guess she can't handle the truth. Anyway, here's what it says:
Hey guys.
I have to say this. When Renee’s husband insults overweight American women, he insults her, and he directly insults you guys who post on this blog. When Renee sits silent beside him and doesn’t defend you guys, she insult you, too. Clients look to her for help and inspiration, not to mention paying for her services. You guys deserve more respect than that. If not from him, you at least deserve respect from Renee.
If She’s happy in relationship with a man that holds her and everything about her in contempt, that’s up to her. If you guys are willing to keep paying her, knowing that her husband cracks insults about you and she don’t even deem you worthy enough to defend, that’s up to you guys.
What she can’t do is ignore it and expect it to go away. That kitty cat is out of the bag, and she has Stephen to thank for it. She can get irritated at people who keep trying to point out how unhealthy her relationship is, but she’d be much better off is she listened to people who are trying to help her.
I fully appreciate that she wants her life to get back to normal, but what she has to realize is that her life isn’t normal. And not in the “We’re better than everybody else” sort of way Stephen seems to think it is. It’s extremely unhealthy. Any therapist will help her realize that, if she works up the courage to visit one.
If it were only Renee involved, I wouldn’t care less. She’s grown and can make her own decisions. But it breaks my heart to see her children socially stunted so relentlessly. I fear for their future. Renee might not care enough about her clients to defend you guys, but I hope she cares enough about the kids to stand up and defend them.
Reply to this
While I'm in favor of an RIP for this incident, I think the posting on Renee's blog is good in the long run. I think it's a good idea to be persistent with it, and possibly provide a link to a video of the locker room segment on Wife Swap where he calls Gayla "overweight" among other things.
Reply to this
Just FYI, this is the course Fowler taught at University of SF Business School:
http://www.beyondgreypinstripes.org/search/search_course_results.cfm?cids=498%am987�pt=Corporate Responsibility/Business Ethics
Best to let them know he's not a desirable candidate for a position there.
Reply to this
Lets get an update on the happy couple...I am still trying to figure out why they would, with their blissful snobby life, have the need to do the show. Anyone who has watched the show once realize the couples are pitted to provoke the worst character defects in all of them. They also must be require to sign a vast number of releases. So what is up now?
Rossie
Reply to this
I have no idea what sh*thead's up to, but Renee is carrying on with her vapid little weight loss podcasts like nothing ever happened.
If you really want an interesting update, check back in with those kids in ten years and see how f*cked up they turned out because nobody cared enough to save them from their sociopathic parents.
Reply to this
I knew Steven Fowler. His is doing it for the fame, the attention and for the media. Perhaps this is their warped way of promoting Renee's business. Looks to me like it backfired on them in a way they did not expect.
Reply to this
i dont no what to say about this man.... he is so rude and mean to that kind lady ........onistly no comment ... how is his wife living with him ? respect is very important to me..
Reply to this
I just saw that episode on Wife swap and I feel so sorry for the children. Especially since their father has been on the news and everything for being so awful on the show. I kind of do think that this has gone a bit too far though. Yes, that guy was pretty stupid but sometimes we all are and now just because of his one stupid act which happened to be on television, everyone thinks he's so awful and now people think his wife is awful as well.
Reply to this
Time to go see Mr. Fowler!! I'm sure they have calmed down enough for a rational interview.
Reply to this
They're under contract not to talk about the show. I don't know if they'd be willing to talk about anything else. I doubt it, unless it's Renee trying to scare up some more customers for her husband to insult while she takes their money.
Reply to this
You can still submit reviews of Renee's business on Google. She had all of the previous ones removed. I suggest if you choose to do so, sticking to the facts.
Reply to this
Am I the only one still lurking here looking to see if either of the Fowlers may have learned a little something?
Reply to this
You are not the only one. I still come here to read the comments too.
Reply to this
Yes you are.
Reply to this
No, you're not. I tried looking for video of the show but couldn't find it anywhere online. I guess after the attention died down, the Fowlers requested that ABC demand that all video be removed online. I hope someone continues to post the show online so that more people can learn a lesson not to treat people different from you like dirt.
I'd also like to know how the Fowlers' lives have changed and if things have gotten back to normal or if they are still suffering the consequences. I doubt the family will ever give an interview unless they are paid a ton of money and the story isn't that important for PEOPLE or another magazine to offer them enough money. I think all they want is for the story to die down and put all of this behind them. They know they were in the wrong and should just keep their mouths shut.
Reply to this
The Fowlers will never learn anything...at least Stephen will not. He has been like that for a long, long time. In fact, many of us (old friends of his)disowned him for all these reasons..........he has become 100 TIMES WORSE than he was twenty years ago. Renee is just as bad as he is....they are both only interested in themselves and the children will be the fruits of their supposed excellence.Once an ass, always an ass.
Reply to this
Douchebag Fowler's blog is back up and running! Can't we deport his skanky butt back to whatever rock he crawled out from under in the UK? I bet they wouldn't want him back either. I hope he has to take his blog down again. What a jerk!
Reply to this
@classic:
Nope, you're not the only one.
I only look around every week or two, though....
Reply to this
You're not the only one lurking around. I'm not lurking to see if they've learned anything, though, because I know they haven't. I'm lurking around to see if there's still anybody out there who still dislikes these people as much as I do. People got all outraged about them for awhile, then moved on to something else. So now the Fowlers can get right back to business as usual because nobody cares any more.
I still care, and I still hope that these horrible people face the music for all the hurt they've caused, and for the abusive way they raise their children.
If nothing else, I'd like to send their kids a copy of that show when they're a little older so they can see how their father lies to them, and so they can see their mother saying that being around them irritates her. I hope those kids see what kind of people their parents really are so they have the chance not to turn out like them.
Reply to this
Hello, Classic! Per your comment from early May 2009, I am trolling around the Web looking for the same answer: what has been the outcome of this unfortunate debacle?
This story deserves to live on in the ether of the Internet. It is crystal clear that the only reason this small-minded little man got on this ridiculous show to begin with was as a way to increase visibility/revenue potential of the service offerings of his "certifiable" -- oops -- I mean certified life coach wife.
But heck, I have an "advanced degree" so of course I would figure that out (even though I live in the Midwest and can stand to lose 40 pounds...)
Ironically, I discovered Renee Stephens' PodCasts about a year ago as a way to help me stay motivated about weight loss. Heck, I even bought one of her guided imagery things but found it impractical to apply. I can't listen to any of the drivel anymore, because all I can see in my "mind's eye" is her complicity agreeing with her small-minded (did I say that already? How about "mean-spirited"...) husband at the end of the show when he so cruelly verbally attacked the Midwestern couple for their weight issues. She sat there and didn’t say a word.
I heard a saying once: Difficult times simply reveal what's taken root in our heart.
It is obvious what has taken root in the hearts of Steven Fowler and Renee Stephens. They see themselves apart, better than others, as superior, and sit in judgment of their fellow human traveler. I wouldn't want to trust a "life coach" who brings such prejudice and intolerance.
Reply to this
No, no you're not....
Reply to this
I dated this idiot for many years. Thank goodness I did not marry him!
Reply to this