Howard Stern Show Revisits 'Emotional Friend'

With Howard Stern on vacation this week the show is airing repeats including a retrospective on staff member Sal Governale's marriage problems.

A few years ago on the radio program it came out that the writer and his wife Christine were having issues.

This led Christine into a non-physical, but mentally intimate relationship with another man -- dubbed an "emotional friend" as he was discussed on the show.

The topic, while painful for Governale, has also been a source of humor as the Stern staff fantasy football league is named "The Emotional Friends."

Since the original saga aired Governale and his wife have been in counseling and appear to have fixed their marriage.

That actually makes listening to what happened even funnier because it removes the underlying sadness of a couple with multiple children perhaps breaking up.

It does not change the fact that a hypnotist convinced Governale that he was a pregnant turtle in a past life.

Any marriage that can survive that without sending the wife back to an emotional friend has to be doing pretty well.