Kidman, Urban and the collateral damage of divorce

When marriages fall apart, the ripples spread beyond the couple. Their network of common friends can either lend a hand or compound the pain.

- Laremy Lee

When news broke that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban had separated, the world reacted with a mix of shock and sympathy.

For many, celebrity romances gone awry feel like distant spectacles. Yet, their ripple effects are real and far-reaching, especially in a sometimes overlooked dimension: the communities around couples.

After 19 years of a shared life, Kidman and Urban will have to unravel the knot of more than their marriage.

They will also have to untangle the intertwined relationships in their social circles while dealing with the myriad ways in which friends and colleagues will process this loss. This happens in all fractured relationships, celebrity or otherwise.

FRIENDS IN NEED

When P walked away, I turned to the people around me for support.

I wanted to cut back on my workload in the office so I would have time to work on myself to save the marriage.

While I mentioned this to a female colleague, she told me: "Don't worry, it's very common. Anyway, at least you still have your job."

For context, it was the start of the Covid-19 period, when the dark clouds of economic uncertainty were looming overhead.

I understood she was trying to reassure me I was not alone and that along with financial stability, "work gives a person reason to live", as Singapore playwright Haresh Sharma wryly remarks in Off Centre.

But normalising divorce did not lessen the grief. The workplace itself had also been part of what wore me down, so the reminder was cold comfort at best.

Then there was a friend who said, when I confided in him over drinks: “Aiyah, you don’t need her lah. Plenty of fish in the sea!”

This was from a married man with a reputation for philandering, where his own unmet emotional needs had led him to seek intimacy outside of the home, time and again.