Did you all hear that Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin are splitting up after more than ten years of marriage? How crude of me! Forgive me- they are not splitting up- they have made the decision to “consciously uncouple” and co-parent. The announcement was posted late Tuesday on Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop, and it has prompted lots of chatter. I don’t follow Goop but I came upon this news just surfing around online and my immediate reaction was: “Consciously uncouple- come on!” I don’t like to judge (okay, sometimes I do), and I don’t really want to beat up on anyone going through a difficult time, but to be honest, it sounds pretty ridiculous. When a couple decides to end a marriage they divorce- or is that too ordinary for them? As I always do, I made sure to read the comments on all the articles I read because they are usually way more interesting that the actual article, and the majority of them expressed what I was thinking too: “So pretentious!”
I suppose that divorcing is for ordinary people who name their kids Sarah and Michael; people that name their children Apple and Moses consciously uncouple. It’s unfortunate when a couple breaks up and heartbreaking for their children, but it does happen and calling it something else doesn’t change what it is. After the announcement by Paltrow and Martin, the post continued with two doctors- neither of them a psychologist or relationship expert, by the way- explaining the concept of conscious uncoupling. They theorize that as life spans have become longer, lifelong marriage may not be realistic anymore and that a successful marriage is one that is fulfilling to both partners as long as it lasts. Conscious uncoupling is supposed to be a blame-free, positive approach to splitting up. In it, the partners are meant to find “wholeness in separation.”
It must be hard to live in the spotlight. To have to make an official announcement of the break-up of your marriage can’t be easy and I’m sure the whole family will have a lot of learning and healing to do. They all definitely have my sympathies. But I think there would be a lot less snickering all around if they had just announced that they were getting divorced.
