On Tuesday evening, Gwyneth Paltrow announced her separation from Coldplay
frontman, Chris Martin, on her lifestyle website, GOOP. And while the
separation may come as a shock to many, how Paltrow chose to frame the
dismantling of her marriage is consistent with her new age philosophy.
Those who regularly read GOOP are aware of Paltrow’s New Age outlook
on life, health, food, and relationships. The idea of “conscious
uncoupling” is actually a concept conceived by Paltrow’s lifestyle
guru, Dr. Habib Sadeghi and his wife, Dr. Sherry Sami.
And before you knock its new-agey-ness, we think Dr. Habib has some interesting
things to say:
Many people are concerned about the divorce rate and see it as an important
problem that needs to be fixed. But what if divorce itself isn’t the
problem? What if it’s just a symptom of something deeper that needs
our attention? The high divorce rate might actually be a calling to learn
a new way of being in relationships…
To change the concept of divorce, we need to release the belief structures
we have around marriage that create rigidity in our thought process. The
belief structure is the all-or-nothing idea that when we marry, it’s
for life. The truth is, the only thing any of us have is today. Beyond
that, there are no guarantees. The idea of being married to one person
for life is too much pressure for anyone. In fact, it would be interesting
to see how much easier couples might commit to each other by thinking
of their relationship in terms of daily renewal instead of a lifetime
investment. This is probably the reason why so many people say their long-term
relationships changed overnight, once they got married. The people didn’t
change, but the expectation did…
When we understand that both are actually partners in each other’s
spiritual progress, animosity dissolves much quicker and a new paradigm
for conscious uncoupling emerges, replacing the traditional, contentious
divorce. It’s only under these circumstances that loving co-parenting
can happen. It’s conscious uncoupling that prevents families from
being broken by divorce and creates expanded families that continue to
function in a healthy way outside of traditional marriage.
In her blog posting, Paltrow wrote that the parties have been working hard
for over a year, both together and separate, to see if continuing the
marriage was possible, ultimately reaching the decision to remain separate.
The couple also asked that the media respect their privacy, writing that
“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.”
It will be interesting to see how the former couple’s relationship
evolves over the next months and years, and whether they are able to maintain
their current outlook and plan. Right now, Paltrow and Martin seem to
be prioritizing their children; it will be interesting to see whether
anything changes once the parties begin negotiating property matters,
as both were very successful both prior to their marriage and throughout.