Divorce rituals and celebrations that support healthy marriage dissolution

We all know that establishing a marriage is easier than disassembling one. A ritual or other ceremonial conclusion can support dissolving marriages and help them achieve a healthier conclusion.

Weddings come with substantial community participation and celebration why not Divorces as well? Dissolving a business requires great care; shouldn’t dissolving a family require even more forethought and preparation?

Establishing a marriage is comparatively straightforward: hold a wedding ritual with a bride and groom officiated by a community spokesperson, incorporate a number of public witnesses to affirm the marriage ceremony; throw in gifts, blessings and well-wishes. In the blink of an eye a marriage has come into being where none existed before. The bride and groom make their transition from two separate individuals to a family union. Together now, they have a clean slate and a shared sense of optimism for the future.

Divorces are much more complicated; they come with complex emotional, material, and personal baggage that needs to be distinguished, acknowledged, and sorted through within the process of marriage dissolution. Lawyers and trained mediators can help us handle family assets and legalities, but how do we as a community support the emotional and social well-being of a dissolving family partnership? As a community how can we support their and our transition and create new social bonds? A couple apart, can we help them achieve clean slates with each other and a shared sense of optimism for the future?

Admittedly, this is a pretty big undertaking for any single individual or community to accomplish – but the size of the undertaking does not absolve us from rising to the challenge. As a community we owe it to them and to ourselves. Part of our task will be to design and install new family and community practices intended to support marriage dissolution and empower all participants.

If we desire to speed the healing of the wounds formed in marriage dissolution; if we wish to set ourselves and our children up for future joy, this can and must be our priority.

In the next part I will propose a simple process model for Healing Divorce ceremonies.

Offers, Paul from Relationshipliteracy.com