Reading Between The (Head)Lines

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Elin Nordegren (Aka the Ex Ms. Tiger Woods) Is the Real Homewrecker

Why did she buy the house in the first place?

You're recently divorced, you purchase a $12 million home, and now it's time to renovate to make it truly yours. Where to start? Here’s the house:

You'll agree, a real fixer-upper, right?

Elin Nordegren, the former Mrs. Tiger Woods, recently bought this beautiful, 17,000 sq. ft. sprawling mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. She must not have been totally happy with the place, however. I mean, let's be real. Who buys a home and finds it to be perfect? There are minor changes to be made — maybe knock out a room here to enlarge the kitchen? Perhaps replace that wall with a beautiful floor-to-ceiling window to bring in more natural light? Sounds good to me.

Nordegren, however, went a little bit beyond the paint job, changing out the faucets or replacing the carpets. She opted, instead to do this:

Yep, she bulldozed the whole darn house. Which I guess, begs the question, why did she buy it in the first place?

Remember the fateful night when Tiger crashed his SUV into a tree? Nordegren reportedly was trying to help free her husband by smashing a rear window repeatedly with a golf club. Sounds like history repeating itself, only on a grander scale. In all seriousness, Tiger claimed his wife always conducted herself to the highest of standards, but he was excruciatingly private, even naming his yacht "Privacy." Late night comedians had a field day with the golf club incident, and it makes you wonder if there was another side to that story.

She thought she had a loving, monogamous marriage, and she found out that wasn't exactly the case. Look at it from Elin's perspective: her husband was well-respected, famous, rich — heck, he was Tiger Woods! And she found out he was frequenting a hostess for sex. Then came waitresses, porn stars, prostitiutes and gold-diggers. Not one. Not two, but over a dozen, and he was telling them that he loved them. Every day the list of women grew longer, seen on the 24/7 news, in the tabloids and on the Internet. You want the definition of shame and humiliation? Yep, I'd say that was it.

Now it's payback time, and let me be clear: I'm not passing judgment, I'm just explaining the motive. Sure, we hear from People magazine that the house had termites, and USA Today reports that the building wasn't up to hurricane code. But, clearly she knew that before she bought it, so that means $12 million for a piece of land? Nope. This is a classic case of sticking it to the Tiger one more time (the first time was when she got the $100 million plus divorce settlement).

It's her time to make the news. And, whether she is doing this consciously or subconsciously, this is Elin's way of saying "look what I'm doing with your stinking money, buddy." She has $100 million to play with, and it's periodically going to be splashed on TV and the tabloids for Tiger to see and hear. If she wants to rub it in now and then, more power to her.

Find it hard to believe? Well, it's not just me. There are many critics and skeptics around that have a running skeptical commentary going on about what she does and whom she dates, (billionaire, Jamie Dingman).

We all know the saying, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." The mental image of Elin standing over him with a golf club, next to his SUV with the smashed window may be nothing compared to what Tiger may see in the days, weeks, months and years to come.

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Dale Archer, M.D., is a clinical psychiatrist and author of The New York Times bestseller, Better Than Normal: How What Makes You Different Can Make You Exceptional, which redefines what constitutes a mental illness.

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