FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Why Chris Martin and Gwenyth Paltrow’s “Conscious Uncoupling” Makes Me Realize Divorce Is Underrated

Sure, maybe ten years ago they were happy trying to guess each other's middle names, but people change.

Recently, Coldplay's Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow decided to get divorced. But they didn’t call it that, they introduced a new term, a term untarnished by the scorn and judgment of ordinary people. They didn’t get divorced like the middle class would, they got “consciously uncoupled.” “Divorce” means fights in the kitchen and barbed comments over plastic glasses full of 2% milk; “conscious uncoupling’”simply means two yoga mats for each child and Google hangouts in the back of a tour bus showing whichever parent isn’t present the three-pack of lambs wool scarves you bought.

Advertisement

Just kidding, blonde rich people are people too! Everyone was so upset about this development, probably because they’ve been together for a long time and everyone thinks divorces are sad. Some divorces are definitely sad. But sometimes people just move on with their lives. In that way, divorces can be great!

But when you are a pair of blonde rich people, everyone has to have an opinion on you. Everyone had an opinion when they named their daughter Apple, and they have an opinion now when they referred to their divorce as something out of a train’s engine manual.

Why?? Your lives don’t intersect. They are still going to exfoliate their pores in Africa (or whatever they do) without you! You’re never going to have to have a conversation with little Apple about life’s lessons and struggle to keep from smiling as you look into her big blue eyes and continuously call her the name of a fruit. Get over it!

Now everyone’s saying they might be getting back together. (A conscious recoupling?) I think everyone’s focusing on the wrong things—are they or aren’t they getting back together, is Chris Martin with somebody else, were they getting enough oral sex (an actual article), when it’s so very clear that Gwyneth Paltrow is insane.

You heard me. She’s crazy. Bananas (b-a-n-a-n-a-s). Why would you try to understand/predict the mental processes of someone who named their lifestyle brand “GOOP?” Gwyneth Paltrow is a woman so universally worshipped that she had a market to make a LIFESTYLE brand, which is basically when people don’t even care what they’re looking at so long as it has to do with you (Sandals? Hamburger buns? Onyx necklaces? It’s all here!) and as a name for this incredible endeavor she chose a word so unimportant and disgusting it’s only used to describe mass that can’t even take a specific form (think about it, it’s just congealed motor oil, hair gel, and whatever gelatinous fluid oozes out of Gwenyeth Paltrow’s ears whenever she thinks too hard).

Advertisement

Now that people aren’t dying at 40 and the internet exists, divorce just seems to be a thing that happens. Like I said, sometimes it’s horrific and scarring, but as explained in the essay she posted on GOOP (see, now I sound crazy but it’s not me it’s her):“Social research suggests that because we’re living so long, most people will have two or three significant long-term relationships in their lifetime.”

Did you expect her to brush her wigs and not eat food with the same person forever? Let her live a little! Let her stretch her nimble horse legs and find true love with someone else if Chris isn’t working out. He seems like a downer anyway, like the type of person who would be sad eating cereal. I don’t know what his days consist of, probably rehearsing music and trying on hats. Gwyneth is so clearly beyond that now! Sure maybe ten years ago they were happy trying on hats, guessing each other’s middle names, buying Oreos just to throw them away—but people change. And we as a society need to let them change. And if they want to change back together/recouple, that’s fine too!

Julie Mitchell knows that lights will truly guide you home, or whatever other bullshit that Coldplay lyric is. She's on Twitter - @juliepoptart

--

Want more? Here's the story of that one time we documented the entire Coldplay lyrics hunt for funsies, and also an interview with Coolio.