My Dearest Darlings, Madonna and Guy Ritchie have confirmed that they will divorce; the news finally made the headlines last week after months of rumour. And so the endless unsubstantiated speculation begins, gossip columnists and showbiz commentators dash in to the nearest television station to offer their ‘expert’ opinion to you, the viewing public.
For months like vultures circling their prey the pundits have been eyeing from above the marriages apparent decline. As the couple collectively fall to their feet and crash on to the barren desert of their emotional despair the cackling raptors swoop in. At last the mighty partnership has fallen and they are ready to pick over the carcass, every last morsel is rapidly dragged back, to be dissected and analysed by you the baying pack. You cry for answers: What went wrong? Why has it failed? Who is at fault? Why do I care?
I your gorgeous, glorious servant am not surprised by your desperation for answers. Your societal structure esteems marriage, Right wing politicians adore claiming that it is the social glue that holds your world together. They suggest that without the social framework of marriage your culture would crumble into a dystopian hell. Left wing politicians are less prescriptive and are more likely to celebrate all partnerships. Recently
As a result of this governmental and cultural promotion, marital success is one of the most important gauges of your social standing. If alone you exist in Singledom, you inhabit the domain of the touchingly tragic loser in love that has somehow been unable to keep the mate you have temporarily lured into your boudoirs. Lone ladies or solitary gentlemen you all pathetically wander the desolate landscape of your romantic lives pleading to the skies for a significant other. Even the most glamorous and astonishing who have failed to find a lasting mate somehow evoke a groan of sympathy from a society that values marriage so highly.
The perpetually unmarried Kylie Minogue
The married amongst you are content in the knowledge that you have found your soul-mate and are smugly satisfied with a society that approves of you. You live in a world of double dinner dates and romantic holidays. Publicly you’re a partnership, a team, a double act. Privately you desperately clamour for the nebulous condition known as marital bliss. Some of you may achieve this mythical state of tender voiced compliments and perpetual love-making, you are amongst the blessed. The majority of you attempt to maintain a marriage with a combination of communication and compromise with determination and commitment you will succeed in creating a long and happy life together.
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes
Those of you unable to sustain lasting matrimonial contentment will reluctantly choose to end your partnership. Your faith in each other and the institution of marriage will be shattered, your belief in love truly tested. It is then that you face returning to the dreaded world of TV dinners and holiday surcharges. The disintegration of this most private of partnerships will be made all the more painful due to the endless speculation of your family, friends, and neighbours. Your hitched chums will speak in hushed tones, your married colleagues will look on sympathetically, husbands and wives will lament the diminishment of the institution they hold so dear.
Your single friends will speed to your side, comforting you, whilst chastising your ex, blaming marriage for its ineptitudes and celebrating the solo hedonistic lifestyle they are so bored of. Their eternal misery made more bearable with another single citizen to strengthen the never ending quest to find their other half.
To whatever camp you belong you hope to glean some insight into the failings of others, so you can avoid similar pitfalls. This is the reason for your malicious Madonna vs. Guy curiosity, the tabloids and magazines will claim they have uncovered the truth though they will not; it will be chit chat and hearsay “sources close to the couple” will have no more idea about the reasoning for the divorce than you or I. The only sure way to understand is to speak to the couple themselves, though it is improbable that the Ritchies will pop round and explain the breakdown of their marriage to the likes of you.
Consequently you will never understand the reasons for the successes or failures of this particular marriage or for that matter any other as these matrimonial unions are a closed book to anyone other than those concerned. Madonna may rant, and Guy may rage, though they are merely expressing the remorse of losing their trusted ally. You’re not going to learn a thing by living vicariously through others conjugal calamities the only true route to understanding your own union is to listen and learn from your own faults and misdemeanors. With luck you will avoid destroying your present or future marriage by paying heed to your self, not by imbibing the poisonous gossip of others.
Batchelor, spouse or spinster I wish you well.
With love the Amazing Ms Coco LaVerne x