<<What will Ike be without Mike?  Probably happy.

Here's a quote from a recent article about the break up of Gwenith (I truly spell her name wrong every single time. Too many consonants in a row. So get used to it and don’t bother correcting me) Paltrow and Chris Martin, “When you see the word divorce you think of something destructive or angry,” says Elliott {Family and marriage psychologist}. “‘Uncoupling’ is not as controversial.”

Oh we’ve all heard the brou ha ha (is that one word or three?) about Gwynniie and Chris Martin breaking up and instead of using the word divorce they chose the words, “conscious uncoupling.”  At first I thought to myself that sounds like marketing speak and I brushed it off as silly.

But then I thought about it further and decided I think it’s perfect.  

I believe that we have identified two ways to split up.  Divorce is one and Conscious Uncoupling (CU) is the other.  

Divorce is associated with failure, insecurity, abandonment, drama, hurt, aggression and paranoia.  

What is conscious uncoupling associated with?  Since I’ve never heard of it until they announced it – I’m going to put my own spin on what CU is associated with.  Deep sadness, futility, understanding, frustration, respect, caring and acceptance.  

My split with my ex was a conscious uncoupling for sure. There was little fanfare and drama.  There has always been mutual respect for each other as parents and as friends. It was sad - super, super sad.  It felt wearisome.  But we kept it at the grown up level and never put the kids through anything ridiculous and unnecessary.  We split almost everything 50/50 including our time with our children and then went about building our new lives.  

Was it perfect? Hardly.  But it was how we did it. 

I get lots of feedback from divorced people and they tell me that I’m wrong.  That it’s divorce and nothing but divorce. That their ex-husband is the WORST. Their ex-wife is crazy – and every single one of them says, “Like, diagnosed by a doctor crazy.” And for me to say that divorce doesn’t have to be this tragic, life-changing-for-the-worse lifetime dilemma is unrealistic and short-sighted.  

I agree that ex-husbands can be rotten. And I’m painfully aware of ex-wives being doctor-diagnosed crazy. But I think one thing overall:

1. You CAN make a conscious choice to not be extreme. You CAN consciously uncouple.

I have seen that unless it’s already an extreme situation – abuse, physical or mental, drug abuse, doctor-diagnosed crazy, neglect, money issues – then it doesn’t need to become one.  

Just like the apes, divorce CAN evolve, people. It already has changed from back when we were little and Dads got 3 seconds of time with their kids and Moms got everything else.  Why can’t it also evolve peacefully? Breaking up already hurts horribly. Why make it worse with extremes?  Why can’t we simply uncouple?

So cheers to Gwinnith and Chris for breaking up respectfully and peacefully.  I’m all for it.  If this becomes a trend I’m totally going to be the first who puts my “conscious uncoupling” date in my Facebook timeline.  

Wonder what that icon would look like?

Who is the butterfly?  The man or the woman?

They are too happy being dancy-type bald hippies.

TOO SAD.  Geez.  The rain adds a nice horribly depressing effect.

This is it.  

And finally - on a serious note - I actually do have this tattooed on my back. It's a Dal Segno. It is a musical notation that is not often used anymore.  But when it was, it was at the end of a measure and it meant, "Play once again, this time with feeling."  Get it?