“Conscious Uncoupling” is the most recent "flavor of the month” to be launched into the popular terminology and fashion in divorce, following on the heels of “Integrative divorce”, “collaborative divorce”, and the division of “mediation” among “transformative”, “evaluative”, “facilitative”, and “adjudicative” mediation.
Leaving aside for a moment some of the more eccentric and New-Age-y thoughts* of the authors from whom Ms. Paltrow drew the phrase, the term suggests, as the other bookend, “conscious coupling”. That is a concept which I have been advocating and will advocate as long as I continue to have folks willing to listen to, or read, my thoughts on the subject. **
Those who’ve read this blog know that I believe and advocate that the closest someone about to marry can get to a policy of “marriage insurance” is making sure that both spouses-to-be have the same understanding and expectations of “the Deal”, the contract they sign on for when they say “I do”. Competent financial planners, when interviewing married potential clients, routinely ask both spouses to separately answer questions about financial philosophy, risk aversion, etc., and this occasionally uncovers widely divergent views, often to their clients’ dismay. Likewise, clergy whom I respect, regardless of denomination, often will want, before performing a wedding for their congregants, to have a serious pastoral discussion with them about their mutual understanding of their “covenant” (which is just an old word for a contract.)
If there’s more “Conscious Coupling”, there’ll probably be less “uncoupling”, conscious or otherwise.
* “The creation of insects was a failed attempt by nature to evolve a higher form of consciousness”, “Anthroposophic Medicine” and my favorite, “The misunderstandings involved in divorce also have much to do with the lack of intercourse between our own internal masculine and feminine energies. Choosing to hide within an endoskeleton and remain in attack mode requires a great imbalance of masculine energy. ” This latter is obviously intended to assist those who have considered developing an exoskeleton to hide in when they get divorced; Paging Gregor Samsa....
**Just passed my 25th anniversary, so I claim some personal, as well as professional expertise.
1 comment:
Meg Barnhouse once delivered a talk which suggested that each of us grow up with a Family Treaty - how we treat and talk about and make decisions about money, love, anger, sex and the future. And when we have a relationship with another they have their treaty they gre up with. So a relationship is really a cross cultural event which requires that you create a new treaty so that all these assumptions about "the way we do it" become explicit. Not a bad idea!! But sometimes a concept that is lost in the "blindness" of love!
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