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"  I ENVY, THEREFORE I AM. We are all guilty of wanting what others have\u2014nicer homes, better-behaved children. But lately a new breed of jealousy has come to town. Let&amp;#039;s call it divorce envy: the uncomfortable feeling that someone else&amp;#039;s marriage is ending in a more graceful way than your own. In an era when child centrality reigns supreme and many Gen X\u2013ers bear scars from their own parents&amp;#039; hostile uncouplings, the goal for a growing number of separating parties is no longer merely to &amp;quot;get through&amp;quot; a divorce but to emerge from it triumphantly at peace, having handled the dissolution of their marriage calmly, reasonably, and even lovingly. Laura Wasser, a Los Angeles divorce lawyer whose clients have included Angelina Jolie, Heidi Klum, and Kim Kardashian, says she has seen an uptick in requests for low-conflict settlements. &amp;quot;A huge part of it has to do with the communication skills of our generation,&amp;quot; Wasser says of her fellow fortysomethings. &amp;quot;We grew up with therapy and divorce, and we have better tools to communicate as a result.&amp;quot; The new poster girl for the &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; divorce is, of course, Gwyneth Paltrow, whose &amp;quot;conscious uncoupling&amp;quot; from Coldplay frontman Chris Martin in March, announced during a family vacation in the Bahamas, seemed almost preternaturally serene. They were hardly the first, however: In 2011, model Karen Elson and musician Jack White attempted to handle their split so cordially that they threw a &amp;quot;divorce party&amp;quot; to celebrate it\u2014together. But while the couplings and uncouplings of the rich and famous might seem shinier than our own, divorce envy isn&amp;#039;t necessarily an extension of celebrity worship. A separating mom may become jealous of a co-worker whose mediation is going smoothly or of a friend who&amp;#039;s getting the postmarital support she asked for. And even though the appeal of a &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; divorce is at least partly financial\u2014&amp;quot;Most people who come to me would rather buy a pair of Louboutins than pay me for another hour,&amp;quot; says Wasser\u2014it&amp;#039;s also about maintaining stability for one&amp;#039;s children, not to mention one&amp;#039;s social standing. (A drama-free split doesn&amp;#039;t force friends to choose sides.) Lisa Brateman, a psychotherapist and relationship specialist in New York, says that the phenomenon perpetuates itself. &amp;quot;Clients who see other couples go through seemingly amicable divorces may realize there are better ways to go about it than vengeance and retaliation,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t have to be like The War of the Roses.&amp;quot; Except for when it does. The problem with believing that divorce is something you can be &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; at is that messy breakups become even more taboo. Take my friend Greta*, 46, who has been estranged from her husband for several years. She wants a divorce, but they have three children and she&amp;#039;s worried that he may seek $75,000 a year in spousal support, as she is the primary breadwinner. He can&amp;#039;t afford to move out, so he&amp;#039;s still sleeping on their couch. Meanwhile, she knows a couple who bought a brownstone together after beginning to end their marriage. The wife lives on one floor, her soon-to-be ex-husband on another, the kids in between. &amp;quot;I would love to have the resources to do that, but I don&amp;#039;t,&amp;quot; Greta says. Lately, she adds, her goal has been &amp;quot;unconscious uncoupling. That&amp;#039;s when you drink a lot of wine and pretend none of it is happening.&amp;quot; Madeline*, another mother in her 40s, was so reluctant to reveal her difficult separation that she kept it secret from all but her closest friends. &amp;quot;Among my peers, it seemed like people only divorced because they fell out of love or grew apart, not because the husband turned out to be a bipolar alcoholic,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t want to be an outcast.&amp;quot; The shame of going through a not-so-good divorce when others seem to be handling theirs with a kind of cool, friendly efficiency may make some women feel isolated. Some professionals, though, see it as an incentive for couples to lay down their weapons. &amp;quot;If divorce envy leads to more people doing mediation, it could be a wonderful opportunity,&amp;quot; says Joy Rosenthal, founder of Rosenthal Law &amp;amp;amp; Mediation and president of the Family &amp;amp;amp; Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York. In fact, she recently got two new clients thanks to a woman whose divorce she mediated last fall. &amp;quot;They came to me and said, &amp;#039;We want to do our divorce like she did.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; As for those who believe that their marital troubles are, well, too troublesome for the high road, they can take solace in one inevitable truth: Divorce is hard. No matter how swift and calm the settlement may be, staying on good terms after a painful split with someone you&amp;#039;ve fallen in and out of love with\u2014or with whom you&amp;#039;ve, at the very least, shared children or property\u2014requires another form of commitment. The work doesn&amp;#039;t end once the papers are signed. &amp;quot;Divorce is inherently unholistic,&amp;quot; says Madeline. &amp;quot;And if you think it&amp;#039;s holistic, you&amp;#039;re probably very early on in the process.&amp;quot; *Names have been changed "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a2863/divorce-envy-0814/>