Miley Cyrus and the millennial marriage myth - Washington Examiner

Eight months after getting married, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth are through.

Quick celebrity divorces are sadly common, as are stylish explanations for splitting up. Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin didn’t divorce; they had a “conscious uncoupling.”

It’s particularly unsurprising that Cyrus and Hemsworth are splitting up now, though, since Cyrus seemed eager to distance herself from her marriage in a recent interview with Elle.

“I think it’s very confusing to people that I’m married. But my relationship is unique,” she said. “And I don’t know that I would ever publicly allow people in there because it’s so complex, and modern, and new that I don’t think we’re in a place where people would get it.”

In the interview just last month, Cyrus was quick to criticize the stereotype of the wife in the kitchen. “I mean, do people really think that I’m at home in a f---ing apron cooking dinner?” she asked. “I definitely don’t fit into a stereotypical wife role. I don’t even like that word.”

As if her disdain for cooking wasn’t enough proof that she’s still young and free, she also explained, “I’m in a hetero relationship, but I still am very sexually attracted to women.” She apparently meant it: Before the divorce was announced, the paparazzi found Cyrus kissing another woman in Italy.

It’s sad, but not surprising, to see the couple end their marriage after only eight months because Cyrus appears never to have been committed to the idea of marriage in the first place. The statement about her divorce, released by one of her representatives to People, makes the generic irreconcilable differences claim, while throwing in a distinctly millennial caveat.

“Liam and Miley have agreed to separate at this time,” it read. “Ever-evolving, changing as partners and individuals, they have decided this is what’s best while they both focus on themselves and careers. They still remain dedicated parents to all of their animals they share while lovingly taking this time apart. Please respect their process and privacy.”

This sounds like a case of conscious uncoupling. The couple has grown apart and they have chosen to focus on their careers. They will presumably be getting joint custody of their children, who happen to be cats and dogs.

Cyrus noted on her Instagram that “change is inevitable.” But change, while inevitable, certainly has no inevitable results. “I was taught to respect the planet and its process and I am committed to doing the same with my own,” she wrote. Unlike the planet, however, she can choose how this process looks.

Cyrus and Hemsworth’s split reveals an oddly fatalist mentality for a "follow your heart" generation: It just didn’t work out. It wasn’t meant to be. By prioritizing their personal evolution and change over their relationship, the couple reveals that they never knew what marriage was about at all.

Growing together, rather than apart, is one of the great challenges of relational commitment, though it chafes against some of our American individualist sensibilities. The idea of partnership can seem limiting, or not "modern," to some.

As Cyrus told Elle, “‘Husband and wife’ sounds like a cigarette commercial from the ’50s to me.” That's one way of putting it.

Another is this: A relationship can’t work without the commitment and that appears to be something that Cyrus, who always thought herself too cool for marriage, never wanted.

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