Here’s a sad tale of another woman having to learn the hard way that living together as husband and wife is not the same thing as being husband and wife.

Sharon Orman, the partner of “Sesame Street” actor Roscoe Orman for close to 40 years and the mother of his 4 children, is claiming that the actor left her destitute after all these years to marry another woman.

Roscoe played Gordon Robinson, one of the original residents of Sesame Street on the TV program of the same name. On the show Robinson was teacher who lived with his wife Sharon. The idyllic life of marital bliss that Robinson created on the show could have been a mirror or his life at home with his real life Sharon–the only problem was that Orman never actually married the woman whom he spent decades with in a real-life relationship.

Yes, you read that correctly. In 40 years and after 4 children Roscoe never actually bothered to marry Sharon Orman. Ms. Orman even legally changed her last name to Orman. According to her, she had no idea that the man whom she referred to as her “husband” had taken up with another woman until she found pictures of said woman on her ex’s telephone.

Eventually Roscoe left Sharon and legally married the woman whose pictures Sharon discovered–Kimberley LaMarque Orman.

Sharon and Roscoe Orman during happier times

Currently Sharon Orman says that she is sleeping on the couch of one of her children. Her ex has not only cut off contact with her, but she claims he doesn’t even make contact with his children anymore.

But Ms. Orman isn’t taking her treatment at the hands of Roscoe lying down. She filed a complaint against her ex in New Jersey Superior Court. She claims that because they were “living together as husband and wife for almost 40 years,” she is entitled to spousal support.

The court has yet to rule on Ms. Orman’s complaint, but it is unlikely that she will be receiving any financial support from her ex. New Jersey, the state the couple resided in for the entirety of their relationship, does not recognize common law marriage.

Common law marriage NJ is not permitted. The state of New Jersey does not allow for the creation of common law marriage as a relationship in which a couple lives together without participating in a formal/lawful ceremony. Unlike other states in the U.S.; however, New Jersey does not allow a couple to acquire marital rights by living together for a specified period of time. As such, a couple will not be required to pursuit a legal action to end such a bond if said relationship was created in New Jersey.

Although Common Law Marriage New Jersey is not practiced in the state, New Jersey does recognized as valid, common law marriages created outside of the state, if the legal requirements of those states are fulfilled.

Mr. Orman’s Wikipedia entry lists Kimberley LaMarque Orman as the only spouse the actor has ever had. And if Wikipedia doesn’t even recognize Sharon’s relationship with Roscoe as being ‘official’–Wikipedia, which allows anyone to makes edits and obviously has a much lower bar set to establish “truth” than any legal institution–I don’t see how the state of New Jersey will accept their relationship as having any legal bearing either.

Source:”EXCLUSIVE: ‘Sesame Street’ star Roscoe Orman leaves ex ‘destitute’“–New York Post
Image via the New York Post
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Jamila Akil is Senior Editor at Beyond Black and White. Follow her on Twitter @jamilaakil