Whenever divorce comes up in conversation, everybody seems to raise their eyebrows. People want to know what happened, who did what, and whose fault it was. We treat a marriage ending like a mystery to solve. Interestingly enough, this does not happen just for celebrities; ordinary people get the side-eye, too.
On Sunday, actor Amanda Seyfried shared something that I wrote last year on her Instagram Stories. I was thrilled she shared my work, of course. But it was the words she chose to share that caught people’s attention, and one word in particular: boring.
I’d written those words while reflecting on my own divorce and my family’s history. My parents are divorced. Both sets of my grandparents were divorced. I grew up in a family where divorce was absolutely normal, yet society still treated it like a scandal or a failure. I think it’s high time we reframe divorce as just another life transition.
As I wrote in the post she shared, “The most radical thing we can do is make divorce boring. Make it normal. Make it accessible.”
Seyfried then shared a photograph of herself embracing Thomas Sadoski, the father of her children, from whom she announced her separation in September. She tagged him, too.
By Monday morning, my words were appearing across celebrity news outlets. Seyfried was making headlines for normalizing divorce, something I’ve championed for five years through Fresh Starts Registry, which I co-founded with my sister.
Yet amid the excitement, I kept thinking about the two people I most want to understand why this matters: my sons.
Divorce allowed a different kind of childhood
When my divorce was finalized in 2020, my boys were 4 and 7. I worried that the end of my marriage would become the defining tragedy of their childhood. Despite growing up around divorce, I’d still absorbed the cultural message that a family became “broken” when a marriage ended.
My sons are now 10 and 13. We live upstairs in my childhood home, with my mother and stepfather downstairs. Their days are filled with homework, snacks, school pickups, activities, and endless negotiations about whose turn it is to watch a movie with Mom. Their grandparents are part of that rhythm. Their lives are steady and complete.
I want my sons to recognize this as a whole family, not as a consolation prize for the one we supposedly lost.
I tried to send a realistic message about divorce
That doesn’t mean pretending divorce was easy. Children can miss things, wish things were different, or have complicated feelings about the decisions adults make. My boys don’t have to celebrate my divorce to love their family exactly as it is.
I want them to understand that adults can change their minds and their lives. Sometimes putting yourself first is a radical decision. They know me as their mother, but also as someone who writes, runs a business, and makes art at night while they hang out nearby. Marriage isn’t the only measure of a successful adulthood, and staying married certainly isn’t the only way to be a good parent.
Energy changes form, and so does life
The question I hear most often from parents in my divorce work is whether ending a marriage means harming their children or blowing up their family. I completely understand that fear. A family changing shape can be scary, even when the change is necessary.
I explain it to my boys using a scientific principle: energy doesn’t disappear, it changes form. I think of divorce like an atom splitting. The structure changes, sometimes dramatically, but the people in that family don’t vanish. The love and support my children receive haven’t disappeared since our household changed.
Two people can live under different roofs and still be a family. Two people can share a roof and still live in an emotionally unhealthy home. Children need care and stability through difficult transitions. But why declare a family damaged based on marital status, or how many roofs it lives under?
Making divorce boring doesn’t erase its pain. It means the end of a marriage doesn’t have to become a scandal, a moral verdict, or a burden our children carry for life.
People grow and change throughout their lives. Sometimes we grow together, and sometimes we grow in different directions. I want my sons to understand that choosing a different future doesn’t mean the past was a mistake, and that changing a relationship doesn’t have to mean erasing everything that came before it.
Most of all, I want them to grow up knowing that their family isn’t defined by whether their parents are married or live under the same roof. It’s defined by the people who love them, care for them, and continue to show up for them.
My marriage may have ended, but the family we created didn’t disappear. It evolved, and I hope my children grow up knowing that they’re allowed to evolve, too.
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