“It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate. … We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and coparent, we will be able to continue in the same manner. Love, Gwyneth & Chris,” is how actress-turned-lifestyle-guru Gwyneth Paltrow announced the ending of her 10-year marriage on her Goop.com site last week in a post called “Conscious Uncoupling.”
And we will, of course, respect the wishes of Paltrow and soon-to-be-ex-husband Chris Martin, frontman of alt-rock band Coldplay, as they and children, 9-year-old daughter Apple and 7-year-old son Moses, deal with this difficult time.
After we discuss one teeny matter with a tremendous title.
Conscious uncoupling?
This is what we’re calling divorce now? Is the paper’s Arkansas section going to need to amend its Daily Record list to reflect “conscious uncouplings” filed/granted? Is Divorce Court going to get a less sleazy syndicated sister spin-off show Conscious Uncoupling Court? And is Facebook going to add relationship statuses: “Consciously coupled” and “Consciously uncoupled”?
(And what of the less-aware counterparts “semi-consciously coupled/uncoupled” and “unconsciously coupled/uncoupled”? Maybe that’s what happens when booze is involved? And Paltrow would never drink too much, as she once said in an interview: “I really don’t like drunk women; I think it is such a bad look. I think it’s very inappropriate and I don’t like it.” This from a woman photographed drinking Guinness when she was pregnant.)
Isn’t Paltrow, star of Country Strong, a sort-of country singer sometimes? Is this going to end up inspiring a modern revisiting of Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”to be called “C-O-N-S-C-I-O-U-S U-N-C-O-U-P-L-I-N-G”?
We look to some of the rest of Paltrow and Martin’s post for some insight on “conscious uncoupling.”
“We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much, we will remain separate. We are, however, and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been. We are parents first and foremost, to two incredibly wonderful children, and we ask for their and our space and privacy to be respected at this difficult time.”
Yep, sounds like just a regular ol’ divorce to us. A regular ol’ sugar-coated (uh uh - no sugar! That is not allowed on Goop’s 21-day Elimination Diet!), well, stevia-coated Hollywood divorce.
So we turn to the Internet.
Apparently “conscious uncoupling” is not just another sanctimonious original Paltrowism, unlike other pearls she has cast in interviews over the years (“I’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin,” and “I would rather die than let my kid eat Cup-a-Soup” and “I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year”).
It is someone else’s sanctimonious concept. Los Angeles psychotherapist Katherine Woodward Thomas is the creator of the $297 “Conscious Uncoupling: A 5-Week Program to Release the Trauma of a Breakup, Reclaim Your Power & Reinvent Your Life.” In an Associated Press interview, Woodward Thomas says she doesn’t know Paltrow. It’s unclear whether the celebrity couple were referring to this program specifically or merely assigned New Agey, sanitized terminology to the oldest, messiest concept - the breakup.
Suffice it to say Paltrow and Martin appear to be putting forth a united-while-separating front, addressing their family’s well-being in the most loving, blameless, mature - and superior - way.
Of course, if they are that united, loving, blameless and mature, why are they divorcing, er, consciously uncoupling, in the first place?
I can’t seem to consciously couple the logic there.
Send a couple email to: [email protected] What’s in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman ’hood.
Style, Pages 29 on 04/01/2014