I felt sad to hear about the impending divorce of Chris
Martin (of the group Cold Play) and Gwyneth Paltrow of Hollywood fame. This is a typical reaction for me when I hear of celebrity couples splitting up,
especially if I have found anything I personally like about them in their
history. There seem to be so few high profile, media-star couples who go the
distance. When such a couple who has made it 10 years decides to end their marriage,
it is news. It is, of course, also news when a celebrity couple divorces after
a few months but those divorces seem like something different—reflecting relationships that were not well founded in the first place. But I do root for the
long-time marriages of celebrity couples.
Why would I
care? Part of it is that I have some empathy for the fact that there is a real
couple involved in something very public who is going through some immense
pain. But I also care because a very public divorce must reinforce the overall
image that many people have of marriages being unstable. People are already
quite skittish about marriage as an institution even though when people make good choices for
mates and strong commitments in marriage, there are vast benefits in life for
both the adults and their children.
As I heard
the news this week about Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, I was reminded of a
study I had wanted to write about last year. To my point just above, there is
some evidence that divorce is contagious. Researchers (headed up by Rose
McDermott of Brown University) recently analyzed the social networks of
participants in the long-term, near legend, Framingham Heart Study. As
summarized in a really clear write-up by Rich Morin of the Pew Research Center,
“Overall, they found that the divorce of a friend or close relative
significantly increased the probability of divorce.”
Thus, the famous
Framingham Study sheds light on problems of the heart in more than the originally
intended manner. Divorce is catching and, while Paltrow and Martin are not
likely in the social networks of most people, people will be affected because they are so well known. They
do not ask for this to be so, especially when they are going through their own
private and public pain, but there simply must be some ripple effect when
celebrity couples divorce. Well known married couples must necessarily have well
known divorces—and this likely has effects similar to what Rose McDermott and
colleagues found in their study.
There is
one other thing that caught my attention about all this is the terminology used
to announce the divorce. Gwyneth Paltrow wrote of the divorce on her website by
using a phrase that has gotten considerable media attention this week: “Conscious
Uncoupling.” I believe this refers to a specific program for helping divorcing
couples. I know nothing of this particular phrase or the program that may be
associated with it, and I certainly have no opinion of the associated services.
However, the phrase reminded me of a growing movement around the U.S. wherein people
of various backgrounds (liberal and conservative) are working to help couples
with children, cohabiting or married, who are splitting up to end their romantic
relationships in ways that cause the least amount of negative consequences for
their children. In fact, the various efforts go beyond this simple goal to
parenting after break-up.
The term I
hear frequently by those working in this area is co-parenting: they are
emphasizing ongoing, effective “co-parenting” among partners who have broken
apart. So, I took some added notice that
Gwyneth Paltrow emphasized the phrase “uncouple and coparent” in her message on
her website. She is showing her awareness of exactly this transition and the importance
to their children.
Whatever
this growing effort around the U.S. becomes, there is an emphasis on helping
couples who are no longer going to be romantically joined together to work on
the fact that they will be joined as parents indefinitely. It seems to me that
these efforts are not so much embracing divorce as they are accepting the
reality that children need their parents to work together as co-parents,
whether or not they remain together as partners. Such efforts may grow to
importance well beyond the obvious need for married couples who are divorcing. There
is an increasing number of couples with children who will break up absent of having
developed any prior, strong commitment to raise a child together. Many of these
couples are going to need help co-parenting together, and that work will be
hard for a lot of them. I think this is why I hear and see so much evidence of
a growing movement. There is a lot of work to be done. Conscious or not, we’ve
got a lot of uncoupling to cope with as a society.
[For those more interested, Daily Beast has an article where they try to get into a little more where the term conscious uncoupling comes from.]
[For those more interested, Daily Beast has an article where they try to get into a little more where the term conscious uncoupling comes from.]