For someone who has coached thousands of people through their separations, been through a divorce herself and written a book on how to have a better breakup, Katherine Woodward Thomas still likes the idea of a lifelong union. But, she says, it is unrealistic. “We have to remember that ‘happily ever after’ was a myth created about 400 years ago, when lifespan was less than 40 and people were not mobile and had very few choices in life,” she says. “I do think that people are ready for new alternatives. I love the idea that when we partner we have the intention of doing it for the long haul, however ‘conscious uncoupling’ is an alternative should it be clear that you will be breaking up.”
Woodward Thomas’s term shot to fame in 2014 when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin used it in a blogpost on Paltrow’s Goop website to describe how they were handling their separation. Woodward Thomas had already had some success with a previous book about how to find a relationship, but the dissolution of the Paltrow-Martin marriage brought her to a wider audience. Her book Conscious Uncoupling: The Five Steps to Living Happily Even After was published in 2015, based on the breakup work she had been doing since 2009. Woodward Thomas, who lives in Los Angeles – on a separate floor in the same building as her ex-husband – has just flown into London for a series of talks. A psychotherapist who has spent nearly 25 years as a relationship coach, she is softly spoken but with a direct gaze, given to using words such as “alignment” and “intentions”.
Her phrase was ridiculed at the time for being new agey and seeming to typify self-help language (not to mention appearing on Paltrow’s oft-derided site). Did that bother her? “Well, you know, it was what it was. I understood it. But ‘conscious uncoupling’ was in the dictionary within 24 hours of her popping it into the lexicon as redefining divorce in the 21st century. With everything, there’s a positive side.” There are several misconceptions about it, she says – that it is only for the elite, or that it’s Hollywood nonsense, or that you have to have your former spouse on board to work through it.
Breakups, she says, are “one of the biggest traumas we will ever go through” and her process could be done by anyone, including someone still not over a heartbreak from long ago. “It is particularly for anyone having a hard time and in danger of moving into a negative cycle that can end up hurting them in the long run.”
The process comprises five steps, and the first three include harnessing negative emotions (identifying, naming and coming to accept them) and taking responsibility for your part in the separation.
“I like to say that even if it was 97% the other person’s fault, we have to look at our 3%, because in that 3% is our ability to trust ourselves moving forward,” says Woodward Thomas. The third step involves identifying and breaking patterns, “Seeing your underlying beliefs that are getting validated in the breakup – ‘See, I’m alone again’ or ‘I wasn’t good enough’ – and graduating from those so you can really create a [new] relationship in a healthier way.
“Only step four and five are dealing with the other person and that’s all about how to forgive each other, how to get clear about the old agreements the relationship was formed on and align on new agreements, helping your community understand the new form the relationship is taking.”
Woodward Thomas came up with the process during her own divorce. Her previous book, Calling in the One, was inspired by meeting her husband, Mark Austin Thomas, a broadcaster. “When I was 41, I thought I probably had missed my opportunity to get married and have a family,” she says. But she decided that wouldn’t happen. She told a friend she intended to be engaged by the time she turned 42. “From that moment, rather than running out to look for love, I went within to look for all the invisible barriers that I had built against it.”
These included identifying and letting go of old resentments, and even seemingly silly things such as an “agreement” with a high school boyfriend that they would get back together in their 60s. Woodward Thomas was indeed engaged by the time she was 42, and their daughter was born the year after they married. So when her marriage broke down, it was a shock, not just personally, but also professionally. “I thought it could be the end of my career. But I didn’t want to stay married if it wasn’t the right thing because I was afraid I might lose my career.” And the “beautiful way” they managed to handle the separation and divorce made her think: “I could use that as the example.”
Both Woodward Thomas and her husband had experienced their parents’ traumatic divorces, and neither wanted that for their daughter, who was 11 at the time (she is now 17). “We aligned on an intention together to make sure our daughter could still have a happy childhood,” says Woodward Thomas. “That intention kept calling us to rise to be the bigger person, to take the high road at every turn. He started a culture between us of generosity and cooperation. When we’re married, we understand the need to put money in the emotional bank account by being nice to each other, doing thoughtful things for each other, not badmouthing each other, but I think when we divorce we forget that if we have children, we’re still going to be a family. You have to build your new [post-divorce] family.”
But they were lucky – although extremely painful, there had been no infidelity, no major betrayals, and Woodward Thomas says her ex-husband “is a very generous person”. Would it work for someone whose spouse has been conducting an affair for several years, or has frittered away all the family savings, for instance? “We were more fortunate than that,” she acknowledges. “But most of the people I work with are dealing with deep betrayal, horrific losses and damage that feels like they’re in danger of dimming down for the rest of their lives because of how shattering the pain is. The goal is to learn from the experience and to go on and have healthier and happier relationships.
“All breakups are a crossroads and many people will dim down their lives after a bad experience – I’ve met people 20 or 30 years later who never opened their hearts again. We say time heals all wounds, but it doesn’t, we really need to get in there and shepherd this.”
It isn’t about becoming friends with your former partner if you don’t want to be, she says. “If you have been badly treated you might want to never have anything to do with that person again, but you don’t want to internalise your hatred of them.” She isn’t “best friends” with her former husband, although they live in the same apartment building and are equal parents. She describes him as more like family.
“Conscious uncoupling is a thing we aspire to. I haven’t met one person who has done it perfectly, myself included. It’s a roadmap and gives you the tools to navigate your way there.”
