The Bezos divorce.

When you married in 1993 and have four children, and both of you are worth more than $150 billion combined, going your separate ways is going to be heartbreaking.

So, how did Jeff Bezos (55) and Mackenzie Bezos (48) take it? How did they take the divorce in a marriage of 25 years?

Regardless of who was at fault, this is what Mackenzie said in her parting shot: -

“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness.”

“Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of Amazon shares plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”

“Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.”

And here’s what Jeff said: -

“She is resourceful and brilliant and loving, and as our future unroll, I know, I’ll always be learning from her.”

“I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”

Well, if not for the divorce, those two seem like they are actually in love for the second time round. Those parting words could very well be love letters written to each other to reaffirm their passion and commitment. 

And the billionaire couple has turned marital bind into friendship ties, with their commitment to parenthood remaining just as robust as before. 

Honestly, I don’t think money plays such a large part (in the largely conciliative divorce) since I have read about ultra rich couples divorcing with much fanfare and acrimony, especially when the other has been unfaithful. 

I know money can placate souls, even splitting ones, but most times, money is the source of aggravation too. 

So, maybe there are three kinds of divorces to watch out for in this modern world. 

The first kind is one that cannot let go of the past. The betrayal consumes the betrayed party. He or she will always be the victim and that defines their whole identity, even their future recovery. 

The author, Esther Perel (“The State of Affairs”), calls this first group the Sufferers. 

She wrote: “Couples like these live in a permanent state of contraction. To the unfaithful, the betrayed spouse becomes the sum total of her vengeful fury. To the betrayed spouse, the unfaithful becomes the sum total of his transgressions, with few redeeming qualities.”

“Marriage like these may survive, but the protagonists are emotionally dead. In any case, when past infidelity becomes the hallmark of a couple’s life, whatever was broken can’t be pieced back together. The relationship wears a permanent cast.”

Then comes the second kind. The couples in this group are moving out of the past but are caught in the present. They want to rebuild their life separate from the divorce but somehow, they encounter some resistance. The pain still lingers. The disappointment takes hold. The regrets swell. 

Perel calls this group the Builders. 

She wrote: “These couples can move past the infidelity, but they don’t necessarily transcend it. Their marriages revert to a more or less peaceful version of the status quo antebellum - the way things were, without their relationship undergoing any significant change.”

She added: “An affair is revealed in a relationship, and an affair reveals a lot about a relationship. It sheds a stark light on its constructs - the cracks, the imbalances, the dry rot, the subsidence, but also the strong foundations, the solid walls, and the cozy corners. 

The builders focus on these structural strengths. They are not looking for massive renovations; they simply want to come back to the home they know and the pillow they can rest on...Ultimately, lying and deceiving are more agonising than thrilling, and the end of the affair is simply a relief. When they look back, the whole episode is an anomaly best forgotten.”

Lastly, the third kind. 

They are the wayfarers, planetarians, plotting their own future, mapping their own stars. They look forward to a future not so much by leaving a broken marriage behind, but transforming it into a friendship of immeasurable worth. They do not just live in a stasis-like present, struggling to forget the past, they instead live for the future, striving to make a better one. 

Perel calls this group the Explorers. 

She wrote: “The affair becomes a catalyst for transformation...In contrast with the sufferers, who conceive of their ordeal as moral absolutes, the viewpoint of the explorers is more fluid. They more readily distinguish wrong from hurtful, paving a smoother road for clemency.”

I guess the Bezos fall snugly into this group. That is why she can say, ““Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.” And he can say, “... am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”

Lesson? Treasure. That’s the lesson from this breakup. Treasure. 

Whether we admit or not, the statistics don’t lie. Divorces are real. 

In 2014, out of 28k marriages, about 7k ended in divorce. Divorce was highest in marriages between 5 and 10 years, about 26%. 

People break up for many reasons, not all of them are bad reasons. Many stay together too, but not all of them are for good reasons. 

And I’ll leave you to sort out why some couples of twenty to thirty years stuck together for reasons that have nothing to do with the first vow they took at the altar, when the passion was the highest, and the dreams were the loftiest. 

This quote by Irish-philosopher John O’ Donohue should wake us up on the lurking reality of a straying heart. 

“It is always astonishing how love can strike. No context is love-proof, no convention of commitment impervious. Even a lifestyle which is perfectly insulated, where the personality is controlled, all days ordered and all actions in sequence, can to its own dismay find that an unexpected spark has landed; it begins to smolder until it is finally unquenchable. The force of Eros always brings disturbance; in the concealed terrain of the human heart Eros remains a light sleeper.” 

Mm...while Ero is a light sleeper, treasuring your marriage means that the Ero in the dark chambers of our hearts always finds itself on the same marital bed when it is aroused and awake. 

We do that by keeping that first altar promise close to our heart, by nurturing the relationship instead of seeing it as an obligation to the kids, by focusing on the little things and not trying to overcompensate with the big ones, by guarding our desires with renewing passion, and by stripping novelty of its lure because what is new is not always what is lasting, or better.

And treasure works the other way too when a marriage breaks up. That is the reality many cannot avoid. It happens and happens when Eros has the better of us. 

We fall, we stumble, that’s a fact. We stagnate or we move forward, that’s also a fact. 

Treasure here means to find a safe space with close, compassionate friends to get back on our feet again. 

Treasure also means letting the hurts in the past go so that we may heal eventually. 

Our soul however broken has to move on and we have to treasure the process, invest it in with rustic determination, that is, to treasure the present recovery and treasure the future possibility of growth and discovery. 

We owe it to ourselves to find restoration, peace of heart, forgiveness, and love again. 

So, whether we are married or go our separate ways, we treasure what we have, where we have it, and what we can do about it. 

Nothing is a dead end unless we make it so. Nothing has to fall into pieces if we are prepared to piece them back together again. And nothing is without a future unless we condemn it to live in the past forever. 

All this applies to marriage too, lest one thinks that planning a memorable, expensive wedding dinner in a big splash of passion is where one’s effort to love ends and autopilot takes over. Cheerz.