The Unwedding
Peter and I shared a long moment of silence. He took a deep breath and asked, “Is there a different day available?”
We were standing at the counter in the industrially beige lobby at the local courthouse, having just turned in our paperwork and check to file for divorce. I wrote the check and Peter sent me a Venmo for half the amount, the annotation for the transaction reading, “ByeeeeeeeeE.” We both laughed when the notification appeared on my phone screen.
The clerk, a young Black woman who managed a blend of warmth, official distance, and caution that seemed appropriate for the circumstances, had informed us that our divorce court date, where our marriage would be legally dissolved, would be held on Wednesday, February 14.
As she told us that, no, there wasn’t a different date we could have, I thought about the irony of getting divorced on Valentine’s Day, and shrugged—inwardly and outwardly. “Okay. It’ll be fine,” I said. Peter stared at me, blinked, and agreed.
A week or two later, I was sharing this news with some dear friends. Nearly everyone I had told—family, friends, a few colleagues—responded the same way: “Why on earth would they make you get divorced on Valentine’s Day? That should not be an option!” And yet. Bureaucracy seems not to care about a little salt in the wound.
The two friends in this particular conversation reacted along these lines, and then Lexi said, “You should have an unwedding.”
I had no interest in a divorce party, or any gathering at all, where the intention might be to slight my soon-to-be-ex husband in any way. Peter was, and is, a generous, loyal, loving soul. This made the end of our relationship difficult to explain to people who were looking for a villain. There wasn’t one; there were simply two people who, after nine years of commitment, needed different things from each other.
Over the next few days, I thought about an unwedding. What would that look like? What would we do? Would people come? It was Valentine’s Day, after all, and many of my friends are happily partnered.
I thought about what it would feel like to not make plans. To sit in my home office, newly painted and repurposed from its previous incarnation as Peter’s bedroom, and close the Zoom call. To watch a judge and an aide, through a computer screen, officially revert me to my “single and unmarried status” (this is the official phrasing), and then to shut the laptop in a quiet, empty house. To know that later that evening, people would be celebrating their relationships and their love for one another, and I could be making dinner for one, maybe after a walk around the neighborhood at dusk. Maybe I’d read for a while, or watch a movie.
I texted Lexi. “I’m all in. Let’s have an unwedding.” I made an invite list, and an invitation. We decided to make old school paper Valentines for people as party favors. I went to the craft store and came home with bags full of discounted Valentines-themed art supplies (Michael’s had moved on to Easter already).
Some of our handiwork. Most were blank inside so my guests could customize them for their loved ones.
As we cut out pink hearts and formed them into cards, Lexi and I talked about what it meant to be in a relationship, what it meant to end one. I might have referenced a recent Radiolab episode about Zoozve, a “temporary quasi-moon” of Venus, which had inspired some ramblings about the orbits we people take through each other’s lives.
I talked about how we mark nearly every occasion in life—births, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, marriages, retirements, deaths—except divorces. Apparently divorce is something still to be ashamed of, to be completed on one’s own and only rarely publicly acknowledged. Neither Peter nor I have posted about our divorce on social media, despite the hundreds of photos we (okay, I) posted when we got engaged, then married. The absurdity of this difference still strikes me; the excessive pomp we create for weddings, and the utter lack of public social support we offer during a divorce.
As the day got closer, I had a few people ask what the heck I was doing, inviting people to a party on Valentine’s Day (which also happened to be a Wednesday). I tried to explain, but there was and is so little context for what we were planning, it was hard. People seemed to assume that either I’d be drinking tequila shots and burning Peter in effigy, or that this was going to be the saddest fucking party they’d ever come to. Those seemed to be the only options: the bitter, drunken divorcee or the despondent sad sack. I rejected both of these archetypes, told people we were making up a new ritual, and they should trust me and come. Many of them, thankfully, did.
The day of the divorce and unwedding, I worked in the morning and went home just after lunchtime. Our divorce window was between 1:30-3:30pm. I joined the Zoom call and after a few minutes in the waiting room, entered the meeting. There were close to 30 people in the zoom room, and the clerk instructed us to make sure the person we were trying to divorce was also on the call. She unmuted everyone and swore us all in en masse. Then, back to the waiting room.
Peter and I texted about the cattle-call nature of the experience and hoping we wouldn’t be the very last couple. When it was our turn, it took three minutes. The judge asked us a few questions (Had we agreed on how to divide our assets? We had. Did we have any children? We did not. Was I currently pregnant? Nope.), and that was that. We were officially reverted to our single status. Peter texted that he had sounded the kudu shofar, something he liked to do for important moments. I walked away from the computer and lay down on the floor of my living room, practicing prone yoga for a few minutes and reflecting on the surrealness of zoom divorce proceedings.
Then I got up and started getting ready to have a bunch of people over.
We ate snacks, made cocktails and mocktails, hugged. My friend Lisa had asked people to contribute to a playlist called Laurel’s New Chapter, full of songs I loved and that, as my invitation read, “celebrated love in all its forms.”
We had set up two activities for my guests: one spot to customize the Valentines that we had made. The other was a little spot with pens and paper where I asked everyone to write some intentions related to love. The suggestion was to write at least one thing they wanted to release, and one intention they wanted to cultivate.
When it was time for the unwedding ceremony, Lexi corralled everyone onto my back patio, where we were gathered around a fire. I asked my people to take the paper on which they’d written something to release and drop them in the fire. I gathered their intentions in a Wexford crystal dish (that Peter had picked up at an estate sale) and put them on my altar.
Lexi said beautiful things about holding each other, the importance of ritual, how brave she thought I was. She asked my friends to make a circle around me and they took vows. My family was next. I made eye contact with every single person, turning slowly around and looking at all these people who loved me, promising to be there for me, to love and support me. My friend Ali and my sister Liz offered toasts that made me cry, knowing I am deeply seen and loved by them both.
Liz read a poem by Brianna Wiest, which reads in part: “The healing is not the destruction. It is not the day you know it is finally time to uproot your life. . . . The healing is how you gradually allow your soul to drip into your days again. It is how you show up more fully now.”
When I think of my friends and family taking this ridiculous, beautiful leap with me, to create a powerful, transformative ritual where none existed, it brings me to tears. We gathered together and marked the end of something, and the beginning of something new. And we ate cake.
My very talented niece made this. It was beautiful and delicious.
Love includes endings.
Every relationship we ever have will one day end. This truth shouldn’t stop us from loving. If anything, the endings are precious, sparkling opportunities. They invite us to pause, reflect, evaluate, be grateful, and draw on community. And, sometimes, they invite us to create the ritual we need.
