An Independent Divorce Celebrant in Whitby and District

“Love Changes (Everything)”

I have often heard people tell me, as they recount the journey of their lives with each other, that over the years their love has grown and changed. Occasionally people tell me that they are still ‘in love’ with their partner, and occasionally they will say that their ‘other half’ (a telling phrase, that) has become their best friend, their soul-mate. Some couples have worked hard at their relationship, often under very arduous circumstances, and through that they have learned that love isn’t always pink and fluffy – sometimes it can hurt deeply, and can involve deep sacrifice and pain – but ‘it’s been worth it’. “I don’t know why she’s still with me!’ said one man to me – “I don’t know, either!’ said his wife – and they winked at each other. They had been married over sixty years. They knew, well enough. The first flush of youthful love had given way to something deep and lasting and strong – strong enough to withstand the changes that life inevitably brings. Shared achievements, shared sorrows and bereavements – all these can help to make the foundations of love between two people strong beyond all understanding.

But they can also have the opposite effect. It is part and parcel of our everyday lives now that couples do split up. And there will be a thousand different reasons, and variations of those too. In the not-so-distant past, rushed marriages to bring ‘decency’ to an unexpected pregnancy; a misunderstanding or even mis-representation of love, a re-bound from a failed relationship; or even family expectation - whatever the reason, the looming spectre of divorce can in itself cause so much pain and anguish and sorrow, often uncovering the wounds of the past as well as the failure of the present.

It need not always be the case.



Of course, there are instances, probably sadly the majority, where a split is acrimonious and the parting of the ways leave great gaping wounds. But I wonder if it needs always to be so.

A while ago, I was asked to provide a ceremony to mark the reality that two people, who have journeyed together for many years – over thirty, in their case – have realised that for them Love had changed. There had been no falling out in this case, no deceit or lies or intent to hurt – just a gradual realisation that that which once they had – true and deep at the time – has become something different. Their love for each other had become a friendship, a mutual concern, and a shared interest in what they have created together – not least in their children. But time had moved on – and they needed to give each other perhaps one of the greatest gifts of Love – freedom. No longer ‘in love’, changed by experience and time, and now stifled by a relationship in which neither was able any more to grow, they wanted to allow each other the possibility of a new life. They had changed, too – matured as adults, found new dreams and pathways to follow – and both had found (in this case) new people to share the rest of the journey. With deep affection, they wanted to mark all that they had had and created together, to acknowledge the depth of a changed love between them, and before family and friends, give each the freedom to move on. And to love again.

Together we created a ceremony that, I hope, reflected these things and gave their legal divorce a more positive feel and a more creative meaning than it might otherwise have done. Like any Rite of Passage, it acknowledged the past with all its mistakes and regrets – and there were many of those – we are only human, after all. But it also emphasised its power and strength and legacy. It used symbols to emphasise that things had changed – for example, the return of rings, and the exchange of new gifts to remind them of a love that was still there but in a new guise and expression. And it welcomed the presence of new love in both their lives, acknowledging new partners and their families. And it invited God’s blessing for those for whom that was important. Forgiveness – for ourselves, for others - often is a way to allow Love to do its best work.



Out of the melting pot of the past, which could have been recalled as a failure, as something negative, something new, hopeful and positive was forged. And it seemed right. By the end of the ceremony, something that might otherwise have been left emotionally and spiritually unresolved, untidy even, had changed. There was a sense of (dread word!) closure, but also a sense of renewal, re-birth, new beginnings – and that, throughout it all, Love had emerged – changed, of course, but still Love – and that in a world where, in matters around Divorce, Love often struggles to be heard, let alone felt.

It’s not appropriate for everyone, of course – these were uncommon circumstances – and sometimes it’s not a divorce, but simply the need to acknowledge a changed relationship. A changed Love.


Shakespeare wrote that ‘Love is not Love’ which alters when it alteration ‘finds’. His ‘ever-fixed mark’, which in its own essence never changes, is expressed differently for everyone, though – and it is that expression, and the understanding of what that means for us, which changes because of time, experience, even maturity. For my friends, Love had changed but not deserted them – it just needed a new expression in order to continue to reflect something good.

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