Celebrity divorces: they’re seldom pleasant. As we’ve seen, there’s name-calling, slander, lawsuits, and fighting over custody. (Actually, that does sound a lot like most non-celebrity divorces as well: just without coverage in the Enquirer.) When we see a couple that we think are going to make it–becoming our generation’s Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward–we latch our hopes and dreams onto them.
For some of us, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe were gonna be our Joanne and Paul–they would make it because they were both beautiful and seemed to have a really healthy marriage. But reality has shown us, time and again, although we don’t seem to learn the lesson, that no outside observer can know how successful a relationship is. Now that Reese and Ryan’s divorce is final, but they’ve both been taking the high road in terms of discussing their personal lives; they talk about the pain of such an important relationship ending, but nothing more.