14 DAY TRIAL // Country singer Jewel is ripping a page from Gwyneth Paltrow’s book on announcing divorce conscious uncoupling but, unlike her, she’s not coming across as “annoying.” On the contrary, in a gorgeously written blog post, Jewel explains her and Ty Murray’s reasons to start the “tender undoing of ourselves” (i.e. initiate divorce proceedings) and pleas for privacy at this time.
Because she’s using this fancy phrasing, comparisons between Jewel’s announcement and Gwyneth’s are already a dime a dozen online but, if you take the time to read the entire post (and you should, especially if you’re a fan or if you want to see a rare case of a celebrity handling such a painful life experience with the utmost grace), you’ll see that they’re completely meritless.
Jewel begins by saying that she always strived to live her life out of the limelight as much as possible, because being a tabloid fixture was never a goal for her. At the same time, she stayed true to her fans, with whom she shared everything she deemed worthy of sharing.
These said, the time has come for her and Ty to break the news that they have decided to separate, after 16 years together. The focus is on making this phase as painless as possible, both for their son and for themselves, out of respect for the time and the experiences they shared together.
“Ty and I have always tried to live the most authentic life possible, and we wanted our separation as husband and wife to be nothing less loving than the way we came together. For some time we have been engaged in a private and difficult, but thoughtful and tender undoing of ourselves. Allowing ourselves the time and space to redefine what we are to each other with love rather than malice,” the singer writes.
“We have been so aware that it is easiest to use the inertia of anger to leverage two souls apart who have been bound together by so much living. By a child. But we did not want anger to burn the ties that bound us. Instead we have chosen the much more difficult task of undoing ourselves stich by stich, and releasing each other with love so that we may take on our new form: dear friends and devoted co-parents of our beloved son Kase. We have no desire to damage ourselves and each other in the process,” she writes.
She explains that the reason they’re getting a divorce is growth, ironically the first thing that brought them together. They have arrived at a stage in their life where individual growth is stifled by the fact that they’re a couple, so the best solution is to set each other free.
This could be just polite talk for a series of things, but, given how beautiful and elegant the message is, speculating on these things would not feel right as of this moment.
Jewel also includes in her blog post a joint statement from herself and Ty, the kind that celebrities usually send to the media when they decide to break up. This too is exceptionally well written.
“Our dedication to our son is unwavering and we are both committed to being the best partners in raising our son. Due to the spirit in which we have gone about this separation, we trust we can remain dear friends who hold each other in high esteem, which is so important to us as parents- as we wish only what is best for our son,” the text reads.
The full message from the country singer is available at the link in the first paragraph.