Conscious Uncoupling
The human capacity to love is the most prevalent trait to be consistently seen throughout time since the creation of life itself. The concept of love in all forms is the creative basis that has stimulated art, literature, and music; many of the aspects that make up culture. The definition is fluid: the rational view it as a chemical reaction, the more spiritual see it as a magical gift, while many accept it as simply a way of developing an intense interpersonal connection with someone else to distract from the mundanity of everyday life. Love is a beautiful concept, however for many in today’s world it does not imply the same longevity that it once did. Envision finding another person who you deeply connect with, and fulfills your definition of love so wholly that you both enter into a marriage. The years go by, and this person becomes your other half, your support system, and your partner in taking life head on. You grow together, possibly have children together, and rely on one another for support and care in times of trouble. While the notion of lifelong marriages is a romantic ideal that has been upheld for centuries, according to the American Psychological Association, around 40–50% of marriages in America end in divorce, therefore roughly half of the aforementioned merging of lives are abruptly brought to an end. You are left in a completely new situation without partnership, and with a dependency on another individual that you must learn to overcome in order to stabilize your emotions. This circumstance is one that the majority now find themselves in due to the shift in the recent past regarding the transience of any commitments; from marriages to switching jobs. In the case of divorce, extreme repair is necessary because you have grown emotionally dependent on another person, and as a result your lives are intertwined in a manner that cannot be easily severed without a certain Tabula Rasa to connect who you were before and who you have become.
The movie Eat Pray Love is an example of the steps of repair needed to be taken after breaking apart from a union and being forced to become an individual again. A woman named Liz Gilbert divorces her husband, and jumps immediately into a new relationship with an actor named David Piccolo. She is unable to form an attachment to him, and she comes to the realization that it is because she is going about her life as though she is Stephen’s wife, or half of a whole, due to their years of growing together. She knows that the only way she will be able to be emotionally whole enough to recognize her true wants and desires in a new partner after growing codependent is to conduct a physical and spiritual journey based on introspection to find out who she has become. According to Mental Health of America, one of the most important parts of emotional repair post divorce is to reconnect with things you previously enjoyed, and develop interests apart from the ones you had with your spouse. She feels that her love of food has grown lackluster, and she first goes to Italy to reclaim her youthful enjoyment of flavor, and to pursue her passion of learning Italian. From Italy, she goes to India to find internal peace, and allow herself to heal her ties to her ex-husband and be at peace with her newfound freedom. This step is perhaps the most important one of the three she takes, because it is the time when one ponders past decisions and the outcome of each of them in order to ascertain the choices they would now make.
The foray into self reflection allows any unresolved emotions or thoughts to be dealt with in order to reach a state of renewal that allows you to be capable of potential emotional vulnerability with a new partner. Her final step is going to Indonesia, where she meets a man named Felipe who is vastly different than her ex-husband, and falls in love. Her ability to form a new emotional connection with the same depth as her marriage occurred because she was able to regain the self worth of her youth while accepting that who she was intrinsically had changed from before her previous marriage.
Pertaining to the case of Liz, her divorce would not have been accepted in an earlier generation because conceding to the whims of the heart is a modern American ideology. According to a Ted Talk with Astro and Danielle Teller,
“We promise at the altar to love one another until death do us part. We do not pause long enough to ask ourselves what that promise signifies, because we do not want to know the answer. Can anyone commit to feel an emotion in perpetuity? No, of course not. We can force ourselves to be loyal and self-sacrificing, but we cannot force ourselves to love. We humans have little control over our hearts” (Teller, 1).
They discuss the emerging mindset of marrying for true love, and not to devote one’s time and energy on something that they feel does not require repair. Marriage as a job, something to maintain and work at, has become an outdated idea, which reflects our current society. Divorce has become a representation of progressive thinking, and an acceptance of the temporary state of life that demands experiencing what you feel you need to. Our modern world has come to see it as a natural progression in the stimulation of creative thought and growth as a person. They discuss Gwyneth Paltrow’s reference to her divorce as “conscious uncoupling”, and the positive connotation that comes along with the statement itself. By fostering an optimistic view on severing a bond like marriage, you are encouraging the process of rebirth, and accepting the journey to repair in front of you.
Upon researching this topic further, I thought to ask my mother (Betsi Mufson, MSW) what her opinion on the concept of repair post-divorce was, because she deals with clients daily that she must counsel in the grieving and healing process. She stated,
“Heartbreak is highly beneficial in stimulating growth in a person, because moving on from a relationship forces one to look within themselves and face what their accumulation of life experience up to that point has changed them into. Facing change translates to accepting that you process and think differently, which is an innate human fear.”
In my interview with her, she reiterated many of the points made in Eat Pray Love, such as discovering interests outside of the ones you found with your spouse. She said in regards to her own divorce,
“Looking back, I’m not the same person I was [while in the relationship], because the part of me that allowed me to become attracted to him changed, and I had to figure out what my current prerequisite qualities in a man were at this stage in my life after everything I had been through. The only steps I could take from that point forward, and the ones I advise my clients to take, were to make close friends who were undergoing the same process who could act as emotional support, and to try new things to help pinpoint what I enjoyed doing alone.”
Above is an article written by her concerning reconnecting with one’s “authentic self”. Her overall opinion on post-divorce repair was that a positive mindset in regarding an “uncoupling” as an opportunity for growth was crucial in the steps taken towards unification with a new person.
I cannot help but draw a parallel to the aforementioned theory of new repairing old to a functioning state and Elizabeth Spelman’s speculations on emotional repair in relationships. She states, “So then like cars, human beings suffer wear and tear, like cars; humans need not just maintenance but repair if they are to keep on functioning…” (Spelman, 35).This shows that humans need regeneration and growth in order to function in an emotional relationship, and in order to stimulate positive change, one cannot simply mend a fracture in a partnership beyond repair. To substantiate her earlier statement Spelman writes,
“The analogy between the repair of a car and the repair of a person suggests that there is a kind of repair of humans that restores them to a state of basic functioning, of being able to use their energies and skills as they see fit” (Spelman, 36).
In this assertion, she corroborates the concept of restoration via rebirth in order to allow someone to be emotionally capable of entering into a partnership with someone new and maintaining a healthy life with them.
The last aspect of post-divorce repair that has not been discussed is the misconception that there are differences in the way men and women repair themselves based on gender stereotypes. In Repair, Elizabeth Spelman discusses a hypothetical scenario in which a young girl, Jackie, becomes pregnant and faces the choice of abortion. She speculates that the father’s choice would be governed by society’s rules and principles and the narrow minded stereotype that men are less emotional and do not think of the bigger picture regarding sentiment than women. On the other hand, she states that the mother would be more concerned with the emotional damage to her daughter, and to her relationships with those around her. In reality, the way that men and women approach emotional situations such as an unwanted pregnancy or divorce is very similar, and separated only by societal constructs placed on the both. Dr. Robin Goldstein, a specialist on divorce, corroborates this by saying, “While the culture is changing, it is still less acceptable for men to admit to feelings of fear, helplessness, sadness, grief and anxiety” (Goldstein, 1). She supports the idea that men experience the same feelings and emotions that women do, and employ the same healing process, however they are hindered in their repair because in the past and somewhat currently, men are stereotyped as only possessing masculinity if they are not innately capable of the same raw emotion as women. In Repair, Elizabeth Spelman states,
“If central to domestic masculinity is the repair of material objects and the passing down of lessons about such repair, central to domestic femininity is the repair of persons and relationships” (Spelman, 41).
The stance she approaches is one that was supported in the past when men were expected to be stoic pillars functioning simply to provide for the household. However, in today’s day and age men’s emotional capacity is slowly becoming widely accepted due to the now popular concept of gender fluidity.
In fact, Dr. Goldstein says,
“The man who has lost his partner will have to push himself to try new things and meet new people; to discover what will make his life happy and hopeful going forward” (Goldstein, 1).
The methods of emotional repair she discusses are all aforementioned in regards to women post-divorce, which proves that men are capable of the same depth of sentiment as women, and require the same extent of restoration to individuality.
Post-divorce repair is a journey to rebirth that requires a positive outlook. In modern society, more specifically American culture, we have grown to accept divorce, and the process of emotional repair that accompanies it in order to function in a new partnership. The quest for progression has become the defining characteristic of our nation’s millenials, and transience in relationships has become an expectation.While men and women are stereotypically drastically different in methods of emotional repair; below the surface of societal clichés, the process is very similar because an uncoupling after growing as a unit is a deeply harrowing experience. The only way to move forward is to ascertain who you have become while cultivating a life concurrent to another human being, and connect it to who you were before the relationship in order to function independently and discover what you now seek in a partner.
Acknowledgements
I would like to begin by thanking my mother, Betsi Mufson, MSW, for all her help regarding my essay. She works closely with my chosen topic, and my piece would have not been complete without her quotes to substantiate my thoughts. I would also like to thank Kate, my suitemate and classmate in English 110. She managed to stay up with me for a total of over fifteen hours cumulatively throughout the writing process, and provided Ben and Jerry’s for us to cry into. I would also like to thank my close friend, Emily Olrik, for checking my essay for any errors and helping to hone my thoughts into something worth turning in. Thanks must also be given to Susan from UD Counseling Services, who calmed me in my anxiety breakdowns about how exorbitantly time consuming college assignments are, and helped me to return to a mindset capable of producing work. I also would like to thank espresso for providing me with the energy necessary to complete the piece of writing. I truly would not have been able to produce any semblance of inspiration without the caffeine to stimulate my creative process. In addition, a big thanks to my classmate Starr for her aid in formatting. I would not have known how utilize or download Microsoft Word without her technological expertise. A thanks must go out to Professor Harris as well, because as challenging as this assignment was, it eased me into the academic rigors and expansion of thought that will be awaiting me in future college courses. Most importantly, I would like to thank my grandfather, a twice over divorcee, for providing me with a college fund so I was able to undergo this academic challenge and expand my knowledge base.
References:
“Coping With Separation And Divorce.” Mental Health America. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
Dr. Robin Goldstein. “DIVORCE RECOVERY : Stages of Divorce Recovery for Men Article Series.” Dr. Robin Goldstein — Boca Raton Psychologist, Depression Counselor, Licensed Therapist for Individuals and Couples. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat Pray Love. Penguin Books, 2006. Print.
MSW, Betsi Mufson. “Post-Divorce Repair.” Telephone interview. 14 Nov. 2016.
Pardon Our Interruption. American Psychological Association, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
Spelman, Elizabeth V. Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World. Boston: Beacon, 2002. Print.
TED Talks. “The Inconvenient Truth about Love — and Divorce.” Ideas.ted.com. Ted.com, 2016. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.