Reese Witherspoon “humiliated” by her divorce

In the April issue of Elle, Reese Witherspoon opens up about her experience in divorcing actor Ryan Phillipe.  Her words: her divorce is “humiliating and isolating.”  We understand how divorce is experienced as isolating.  Most people think divorce is contagious, and married couples avoid divorced people just in case the malady will infect them.  But humiliating?  Why?

Because most of us going through divorce feel like we are a failure.  The most important relationship in our adult lives, the relationship upon which we have staked our lives, ended.  We did not make it to the twilight walk on the beach with our wrinkled, arthritic hands intertwined like teenagers.  If we divorce, we fail.  Isn’t that why she is humiliated?  An actress who has scaled the Everest of show business – winning every major award, including the Academy Award – should be able to manage her personal life.

Do you think divorce is a failure?  Do you think divorce is selfish and narcissistic?  Should Witherspoon be humiliated because her marriage ended?

I would love to hear your opinion.

Divorce is never easy

Ever since the majority of states converted to no-fault divorce there has been the widespread opinion that more people get divorced today because “divorce is easy.” This idea can only be imagined by someone who has never gotten divorced. The decision to divorce is one of the most difficult decisions we make in a lifetime. It is the decision to trade one type of pain for another. But it is a decision that is made between two adults who know better than anyone else what is in their hearts and souls. To hear someone berate and demean and judge them because they are not willing to work things out, or to “stay for the sake of the children,” only adds more guilt and shame to an already crippling load of shame. People getting divorced need our compassion, not our judgment.