Lori McCommas' Photo -- Terrence Howard's Estranged Wife -- and the Picture of a Tumultuous Marriage as the Actor Says No Sex Till He Remarries

Everybody wants to know more about Lori McCommas, the estranged wife of Terrence Howard. That's because Terrence Howard has been in the news a lot lately, and photos of his wife, Lori McCommas - from whom Terrence is now separated - are hard to come by.

But people want to know much more about the woman who snagged the beautiful, intriguing actor behind these piercing hazel-green eyes. According to Howard's IMDB bio, Lori McCommas was married to him from 1989 until 2003, when they were divorced.

Lori McCommas and Terrence Howard - parents of three children -- then remarried in February 2005, but are currently separated.

Who is the mysterious Lori McCommas and what does Terrence Howard say about her race?

You can't find much about how Lori McCommas and Terrence Howard met -- other than a snippet that says as a college student, Howard got a White girl pregnant.

"Because of my upbringing, I married her 'cause that's what you do," he said in the April 2007 of Essence. "And if it had been a Black woman, I would've married her."

You will find much emphasis around the net on Lori McCommas' race as a "white Jewish woman," which is what most folks want to know upon seeing photos of the couple's pretty, multi-racial children.

About the interracial issue, Terrence Howard defends the fact that he has tried to date black women.

"I tried to talk to Halle for a bit. Didn't call me back," Terrence confessed. "Tried to talk to Gabrielle Union. Didn't call me back, either."

Finally, Terrence surmised the reason for the criticism against his relationship choices: "I've heard it said that I only date White women. The only woman I really love is my wife, and she happens to be White. Who gives a damn? A lot of Black women get upset. You know, the fact is, we are human beings."

Terrence Howard -- who reportedly lives in a house that was part of the Underground Railroad in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, a small town outside of Philadelphia -- made no secret of the fact that he wanted Lori McCommas back badly after they split.

"You always miss the first one," Terrence told Tyra Banks when he appeared on her talk show in March 2007, recounting how he bought a house a mere two blocks away from Lori after their divorce.

So impassioned was Howard in wooing his wife back, he said his actions forced McCommas to get a restraining order against her ex-husband, who kept "coming and cutting the grass, taking trash out, answering her phone...going nuts."

He told People magazine that he was still trying to get his wife back until "she puts the last nail in that coffin," and even while being set up on a date with Naomi Campbell in February 2007, Terrence Howard was still hoping Lori McCommas would take him back.

"[Lori McCommas] filed for divorce, but I'm still trying to campaign," Terrence told People about his wife. "My three kids are campaigning for me, too. They'll make sure that anybody who comes sniffing around gets a bloody nose."

Why did Terrence's marriage to Lori McCommas fail?

Alas, all the campaigning in the world didn't reunite the couple, and now Terrence Howard seems to have been doing more soul-searching into his own psyche as to why his wife left.

Having recently traveled to the wedding of Tony Parker and Eva Longoria, Terrence Howard reminisced about how a man truly shows his love to his wife.

"Tony is a great guy, a real romantic," Terrence recently told Parade magazine. "He's so in love with Eva. Did you know he once took her up into a tree house for a whole afternoon? That's why my marriage failed: I didn't do the romantic things."

After reportedly enduring years of her husband's infidelity, drinking and carousing, Lori McCommas "reached out to a man from her past" -- a high school sweetheart that she loved long ago -- after she and Terrence remarried, the actor said.

Howard admitted he snooped thru Lori's cell phone, called up the guy and told him to make Lori happy.

"The hardest thing to do is to let go of somebody you really care about, to give them their freedom," Terrence told the black women's magazine.

No more sex for Terrence Howard till marriage!

Perhaps the most eye-opening statement that Terrence has made since his break up from Lori McCommas is that he will remain celibate until he remarries, saying that premarital sex can cloud the mind or color the relationship in a way that abstinence doesn't.

"Now I'm completely chaste through a relationship unless I get married," Howard told US. "I don't believe in premarital sex."

As for me, the woman who fell in love with the Renaissance man's intelligence and intensity ever since he slung that guitar over his shoulder and continued to play it in his searing portrayal of Quentin in "The Best Man," I'm glad that Terrence Howard is eschewing the self-titled "pimp" mentality he grew up around to remain unhinged from illicit sex. (If only he'd give up his Jehovah's Witness aspirations and confess Christ as King...)

So, Howard allegedly has a girlfriend now...and yet another part of me is sad that Lori McCommas and Terrence Howard couldn't make it together as husband and wife. Maybe that union was never meant to be permanent.

But here's hoping the two still make it as loving and caring parents...