The friendly way to divorce
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, it’s Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. This is lesson number 449. JR is the producer and he has uploaded the full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/449.
Coming up on today’s lesson: Divorce is hard, but it doesn’t have to be nasty. That’s what a new generation of separating couples thinks, and they’re helped along by new laws that allow couples to separate without assigning blame. And a lot of new services are helping couples untie the knot amicably, also. In the second half of the lesson, I’ll show you how to use the phrasal verb “work through” and JR has a song of the week. Let’s get started.
Untying the knot amicably
A divorce is hard on everyone—obviously on the separating couple, but also on their friends and family. Traditionally, a divorcing couple had to go to court and one party had to prove that the other was at fault. This led to bitter fights, accusations, and high legal bills.
Often, the legal bills were so high that the couple had to sell their primary home and use the proceeds to pay their respective lawyers. This was the definition of a lose-lose situation: both halves of the couple wound up poorer, and their kids, friends, and family were often caught in the middle of an unnecessary fight.
In the rich world, however, divorce is gradually becoming less contentious. The legal process differs across countries; even within some countries, like the U.S., different states have different laws. But many jurisdictions are easing the burden on the separating couple. A recent study found that 30 out of 38 countries in the OECD have made divorce easier since 1990. Even in Catholic Mexico, for example, a couple in the capital can divorce without any lawyers, without paying any fees, and the process can be done in only three weeks.
Helped by these less restrictive laws, a newer generation of divorcing couples is doing things differently. Many divorces today are handled outside of court. Instead of hiring lawyers, the separating couple can choose mediation, where a professional mediator can help sort out the post-marital affairs.
In mediation, both parties agree to sit down with a neutral referee—the mediator—who can help settle disagreements and divide assets in an evenhanded way. This is common in Norway, England, the Netherlands, and other counties. Mediators tend to soften the arguments and propose win-win solutions, where possible. Both parties don’t get all that they want with mediation, but they usually still get a better deal than if they both hired lawyers and fought it out in court. Mediation only costs a few hundred dollars in total, and in many countries charities or governments offer it for even less.
High-profile couples are also influencing how people separate. The term “conscious uncoupling” refers to a thoughtful and peaceful way of separating from a partner without the fighting, blame, and acrimony of a traditional divorce. Gwyneth Paltrow made the term “conscious uncoupling” popular when she used it to describe her separation in 2014. A book by the same name later became a number-one bestseller. Reality star Kim Kardashian and Kanye West also divorced without the tabloid drama that had once been common in celebrity separations.
Two of the business world’s most powerful couples also got divorced amicably in recent years. Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos released a joint statement announcing “a development in our lives.” They would be divorcing after 25 years, but that they would “continue our shared lives as friends.” And in 2021, Bill and Melinda French Gates divorced; they agreed to jointly run their charitable foundation for a few years.
A cottage industry of companies has sprung up to help divorcing couples untie the knot amicably, and to keep the peace after the separation. In the U.K., an online service called “Amicable” helps divorcing couples negotiate the process. Amicable offers online coaches to help couples split financial assets and, if necessary, how to co-parent. Online questionnaires, timelines, resources, and podcasts help educate the divorcing couple about the best way to do it; after all , most people don’t get divorced very often. Amicable also helps the couples file legal paperwork.
In the U.S., a similar service called “It’s Over Easy” uses an online questionnaire to help fill in the required state-specific paperwork. The company also helps with sending official notices and filing the paperwork in court. The founder, a divorce attorney herself, said she wanted to create a way for couples to divorce without getting “emotionally and financially destroyed in the process.”
DivorceHotel International is a Dutch company with locations in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and its home base in the Netherlands. The company offers divorcing couples a weekend getaway, where the details of a divorce can be finalized in a neutral setting. Couples stay (in separate rooms!) for two nights at a special hotel. During the days, they sit down with mediators to work through the details of their divorce. The hotel has accountants and real estate brokers available to help with more specialized questions, too.
The advantage to this approach is that most of the hard work is done in one weekend, when there are no other distractions like shopping, kids’ activities, and household chores. Spa treatments, bike paths, and nice meals can take the edge off the process.
The DivorceHotel and the online services like “It’s Over Easy” and “Amicable” require that the couple separate, well, amicably. These express, lower-cost options don’t work when there are serious disagreements that can’t be settled in a friendly manner. So for some couples, the traditional process of using lawyers to fight in court is the only option.
For couples that are separating amicably, however, there is often a transition period with kids. And a new trend is taking hold to help ease the burden on kids in a divorce, and that is called “birdnesting.” That will be the topic of Monday’s lesson.
A better option than lawyers
When I was reading about this, I thought the Divorce Hotel was just completely frivolous. But then I saw some interviews with clients and with people who had used similar services, whether it was the Divorce Hotel or the more affordable mediation options. And some of them even said they talked to lawyers, and the lawyers were only focused on grabbing as much money and benefit as possible for one side, like it’s a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos . And not everyone wants to separate that way. So maybe you don’t need a luxury hotel, but the new mediation options, I think, are definitely a positive thing.
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