Actually I had only 30 seconds, so I didn't really get all that in, but you get the general idea. There's something brutal at the very heart of the divorce process that Phil and Barbara, whom I liked very much and wish all the best, were trying very hard to deny with their prettied-up ritual. A divorce is when one person, in this case, by the sounds of it, Phil, says to the woman he's promised to cleave to for the rest of his life that he's tired of the deal. Divorce says, "I'm not going to take care of you, I won't be responsible for you, you aren't part of my family, I'm free to find someone better to love." Pardon me, Phil and Barbara, but I just don't believe there is any very nice way to say that.
"What's the name of your book?" Barbara asked me, off camera. "'The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better-Off Financially,'" I replied. "I certainly agree with that," she said, it seemed to me a tad wistfully. She wanted me to know she wasn't there to promote divorce, only to try to help divorcing people make the best of it. I believed her. "You have enormous generosity," I told her. Her whole face lighted up.
I may be a marriage romantic, but I'm a divorce cynic. The realities behind this particular divorce ceremony seem to me to be something like this: After some difficult and unsatisfying years, a husband called it quits. Then he turned to his bride of 25 years ago and said, "Make me feel better about this." So she did.
Go ahead and have a divorce ceremony if you think it will make you feel better. Phil and Barbara's made me want to cry.