Given what money-spinners weddings can be, I guess it’s not surprising that divorce is now big business too. I didn’t see divorce gift registries coming, but I can see how they make sense.
Leslie Jamison wrote in the New York Times about how she didn’t need a gift registry when she married: combining two households necessitated getting rid of stuff, not acquiring it. But people still gave gifts, and she still treasured them.
Five years later, standing in a bare apartment after the relationship ended, she thought: “I wouldn’t mind a registry now.” Again, friends gave her presents, again, they had symbolic weight. They made her feel less like she was building her new life alone.
Columnist Kathryn Jezer-Morton explained about how divorce can make inanimate objects like the sheets a couple shared, “conspire against someone who is trying to start life over” by reminding them of the past. She interviews two sisters, one whose marriage ended, the other who ended her engagement. Inspired by their belief that “stuff” has “the power to help us or hold us back” they started a divorce gift registry.
The Fresh Starts Registry offers a practical service to help people meet material needs; but it doesn’t stop there: “A Fresh Start begins with brave decisions, bold moves, and brand new linens,” the website declares. It offers “curated and researched product bundles… so you can feel confident, proud, and ready to begin again.”
The “coastal chic bundle” includes a “faux artificial coral statue,” the “minimal” bundle includes a tissue box cover and wooden spoon rest. The website is a “one-stop-shop for everything you need to begin again” — and everything you don’t: “One way many women are reclaiming their independence and celebrating their resilience post-divorce is by treating themselves to a symbol of empowerment: the divorce ring,” says an article in the “resources” section.
The ring “signifies a commitment to prioritizing one’s own well-being and happiness above all else.” It’s “an act of self-love and self-care” to “invest” in one.
If God is dead, a materialistic narrative that puts my needs center stage is a sure contender. But the way Jezer-Morton ends her article suggests she’s sympathetic to gift registries not because “stuff” has true “power,” or because consumerism is the way, the truth, the light — but for want of a better option: “Loneliness persists, and cheap stuff proliferates. We work with what we have.”
I’m a big believer in friendship, not such a big believer in materialism (more a sucker for it). I love the notion of friends and family providing support to loved ones through thick and thin. In the case of divorce, their love and care, their practical support, might meet a desperate need.
I don’t doubt the sisters who started the Fresh Starts Registry did so with a genuine desire to help others whose lives took an unexpected turn. But there’s a big difference between needing new (or second-hand) furniture because you and/or your kids are sleeping on the floor, and wanting a “faux artificial coral statue” because “you are worthy of a Fresh Start.”
New linens, new jewelry, new décor, new stuff. It might represent a new beginning, but it’s not a prerequisite for one. And while a gift registry might help a person meet practical needs, it could easily turn support that might have been offered far more freely, and provided far more comfort, into a transaction. It could easily make a person feel even more lonely.
Whatever our marital status, changing the way we think about possessions (resisting the new when the old will do) and the way we think about ourselves (our self-worth should not depend on what we do or do not, can or cannot, own) will benefit our budgets, our environment, and our mental health. If we’re going to get serious about changing the way we live in service of the climate, we’re going to have to change what we value, and why; to ditch some habits and mentalities; to acquire others.
We all know — but still forget — that what we need most, whether single, whether partnered, whether married or divorced, is not new stuff. And given how many people, post-divorce, can’t afford or won’t be gifted a material “fresh start,” I’m glad. Love, acceptance, hope — can’t be bought. But can be freely given. And gratefully received.
Wilkins is a journalist and freelance writer with a particular interest in relationships, ethics, culture and belief.
