“Conscious uncoupling,” as Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin did last week, is like divorce, but for people who think they’re above such silly conventions.
It suggests the fault for this split lies neither with Paltrow nor Martin, but with larger forces outside their control. Paltrow cites her gurus Dr. Habib Sadeghi and his dentist wife, Dr. Sherry Sami, on the subject of Conscious Uncoupling.
“For the vast majority of history, humans lived relatively short lives — and accordingly, they weren’t in relationships with the same person for 25 to 50 years,” they write. “Modern society adheres to the concept that marriage should be lifelong; but when we’re living three lifetimes compared to early humans, perhaps we need to redefine the construct.”
Our high levels of divorce, they explain, are because “our biology and psychology aren’t set up to be with one person for four, five, or six decades.”
This idea that we have unrealistic expectations for how long a marriage should last is an oft-repeated trope. After actress Emma Thompson made similar remarks last year, a Daily Telegraph columnist asked, “Is monogamy past its sell-by date?”
As Megan Laslocky, author of “Love Gone Wrong,” explains: “Because fidelity is considered the barometer of a successful marriage, this means that a person is theoretically expected to have one sexual partner for about 50 years. This seems like a lot to expect of any human being — even the most honorable, ethical and moral.”
So a long and faithful marriage is pretty much out of reach. I guess Gwyneth and Chris and the rest of us are off the hook?
The problem with the modern understanding of marriage is not that we expect it to last too long. It’s that we have come to expect our partners to fulfill every void in our lives.
Husbands and wives increasingly depend on each other for everything. Best friend, sexual partner, therapist, sous chef, travel companion, business associate, co-parent, intellectual companion, etc.
Wedding vows make the point explicit these days. Forget “in sickness and in health.” Now we have, “You are my soul, you are my life, you are my everything.” When did our weddings start to make us sound like crazy stalkers?
Our culture promotes this idea of spouses as “soul mates,” to make our husbands and wives into our closest — and sometimes only — confidants.
It was not always thus. Diaries from the 19th century show we used to refer to a kind of passionate love we had for cousins, friends and neighbors. We used to take relatives with us on honeymoons.
In recent decades, the elevation of marriage has continued apace as our other commitments have diminished in importance. Certainly, religious community, neighborhood and civic life tend to inspire less loyalty than they did a few generations ago.
About a third of Americans under age 30 claim no religious affiliation at all. A recent study commissioned by State Farm says only 25 percent of us even know our neighbors’ names. And rates of civic participation have been falling for some time now.
Professing loyalty to traditional communities — faith, extended family, ethnic group and even country — is not always seen as a positive in modern America. But there is no such thing as too much attachment to a spouse.
It may be time to expect a little less from our marriages. If we expect them to be perfect, to require no effort, we’re bound to be disappointed. Even if our husbands and wives are rock stars and leading ladies, they can’t be our everythings.
If we celebrate the good, work through the bad, and find support elsewhere, we may only need one mate per lifetime.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is the author of “’Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America.”