Bay Area Divorce Lawyer Blog
Gwyneth Paltrow’s announcement on her website Goop last year that she and husband Chris Martin were divorcing presented the views of Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami, apparently experts on what it means to divorce. Sadeghi and Sami use evolutionary biology and the structure of the human skeleton (“Life is a spiritual exercise in evolving from an exoskeleton for support and survival to an endoskeleton”) in order to explain why a divorce might happen. Good grief. One might think that a simple press release announcing the divorce would suffice, but apparently the star feels the need to use her divorce as an occasion to enlighten us all. Regardless, the impetus and intent behind so called “conscious uncoupling” is a good one.
It is about putting the children first by minimizing conflict and supporting the child’s relationship with the other parent. A thoughtful process can help couples from regressing into immature and harmful behavior. They can be helped to understand why they chose to end the marriage and how the process can be managed without unnecessary harm to any children and without catastrophic financial consequences. Disputes about custody, visitation, and spousal support can be addressed with much less anger if the couple elects to approach the end of their marriage “consciously,” instead of trying to hurt the other person.
The term conscious uncoupling derives from psychologist Katherine Thomas Woodward and the goal is to to negotiate the end of a romantic relationship with goodwill and respect; in a way that enriches rather than wrecks lives. Katherine is a romantic and a realist; a fan of marriage and love who endeavors to explore the possibility that couples seeking her guidance in ending their relationship might actually stay together. But also, she argues that the ideal of lifelong monogamy is antiquated: researching the ‘happy-ever-after myth’, she discovered that it emerged 400 years ago and ‘had a lot to do with the life conditions of the time – many people died before the age of 40’. The Goop article also references the academic journal Evolutionary Anthropology, stating that we are living too long for marriage to one person to be a sensible choice. We are out of evolutionary synch, and shouldn’t feel wretched that we want out, it’s normal.
A long and happy marriage is a truly beautiful thing. But most of us are unable to achieve it and need processes to end a relationship with our personal and economic dignity intact.
Helping couples divorce without destroying their families is what my firm does – and why it is gratifying to see high-profile couple showing others how to find creative, forward-thinking solutions and eliminating the risk of having a judge make decisions for their family. If you would like to discuss creative resolutions that work for your family, contact Lorna Jaynes, to get started!