Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, Suzy Weiss reacts to Meghan Markle’s “unhinged and unintentionally hilarious” Christmas special. And if you’ve ever worn slippers to the airport, Elliot Ackerman wants to have a word. But first: Has divorce stopped being a tragedy?
The right to end an unhappy marriage has always been associated with feminism and freedom. But until quite recently, it wasn’t a right you exercised lightly. Divorce was something serious and sad.
In the years since, something strange has happened. Though divorces have fallen, the culture has shifted to treat them as something worth celebrating. There’s been a glut of movies and shows and books about fortysomething women having delightful sexual awakenings after leaving disappointing husbands. Female celebrities are celebrated for getting divorced. Separation is now a triumphant path to self-actualization. It’s almost more taboo to say, “I was miserable in my marriage back then, but I stuck it out.”
But that’s exactly what Larissa Phillips is saying, today, in a beautiful personal essay. She looks back at the time she considered breaking up with her husband, then didn’t. “When I listen to people who stay married for decades, I hear the same thing over and over: ‘Back then, we didn’t know if we’d make it,’ ” she writes. No one ever said it was easy. No one says you have to stay. But for her, it was worth it.
The New York Times published a mega-viral piece this week about a woman who made the opposite decision to Larissa; it was titled, “The Case for Ending a Long, Mostly Good Marriage.” The writer, Cathi Hanauer, actually helped the husband she’s separated from found the paper’s Modern Love series, one of the many corners of the culture that’s helped shift our ideas about marriage.
This week, Kat Rosenfield had two drinks with Cathi in Grand Central Terminal, to ask her: What’s it like when the whole world sees the implosion of your relationship as a referendum on the institution of marriage? Of matrimony, Cathi had this to say: “It’s the worst possible way of doing things except for all the other ways that have been tried.”
Meghan Markle’s Christmas special has arrived on Netflix and it’s amazing, writes Suzy Weiss. The duchess of Montecito says things like, “A tradition has to have a beginning.” One of her holiday “hacks” is: Premake wax seals for your gifts, so you can just stick them straight on when you’re in the mood to wrap! This is the highest form of slop, and you won’t want to miss Suzy’s review of it. (Or her opinions on Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau’s double date with the Japanese first couple.)
A pajama protest has been taking place in America lately. After the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, told citizens not to wear slippers to the airport, people across the country traveled home from Thanksgiving looking like they were ready for bed. But in his latest column, Elliot Ackerman writes that “Duffy’s remarks generated a head nod and slow clap from me”—before sharing his marvelous guide to traveling like a gentleman.
The world is crazy, so we asked Abigail Shrier to write us an advice column. It’s called “Tough Love,” and it launched this week—with a question from Nellie Bowles, who wanted to know: How do you build a stable life in a world that feels like it’s falling apart? “Your letter, dear Nellie, made me think of sliding on ice in a darkening landscape,” replied Abigail. Read the full essay, which commenters described as “the best advice I have ever read” and “a tonic for my anxiety.” And look out for Tough Love in The Weekend Press each week!
How should you spend your weekend? We asked Sascha Seinfeld for her best picks…
🎵Listen . . . Submarine by the Marías. This album sounds like if a scalp massager was music! It was my most-played album this year, and I’m sure it’ll stay that way well into 2026. Floaty, melancholic, soothing—it makes me feel like I’m lying at the bottom of a pool looking up at the surface, each track another bubble rising. I went to their concert this fall, and when “No One Noticed” played—their ironically titled breakout song—I heard a couple behind me openly weeping. The band—nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys this year—will be a household name soon.
📺 Watch . . . If you’re in the mood for something smooth-brained, try I Love LA, Rachel Sennott’s new HBO show about a group of girlfriends trying to make it on the West Coast. It’s endearing, playful, and superficial, and occasionally it’s unclear whether it’s self-parody or just an excuse for a bunch of actor friends to hang out on camera.
🍳 Eat . . . If you don’t feel like cooking—as is my constant state—microwave a Nishiki Premium Grade Steamed White Rice package. Then add nori seasoning, rice vinegar, and yuzu-flavored Japanese barbecue sauce. If you want it to qualify as a meal—and not just something to keep you alive—turn it into a salmon bowl with chopped scallions. Make sure to rake the salmon like it’s an avocado and stir it in with the rice so it becomes a glorious mush.
Last but not least, the magnificently unusual architect Frank Gehry died this week. He made beautifully weird buildings, like this one:
That’s all, folks! Tell us what you think about this edition of The Weekend Press—or just tell us what you’re cooking; we’re at Weekend@TheFP.com.
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Dissent. Gehry's buildings are not beautifully weird; they're just weird and pretty much unusable as actual workplaces.
"Though divorces have fallen, the culture has shifted to treat them as something worth celebrating."
From cradle through college these many long years, mediocrity and even failure are celebrated ("Good job!"); so is it any wonder that divorces, too, merit participation prizes?
As I said elsewhere today, I feel I must be inhabiting another planet. I just don't get a lot of this stuff.
But then, yesterday at the Morgan, to see the Renoir show, I noticed for the first time a large, framed Land Acknowledgement off the main hall. Oh, come on. I had thought that the Morgan could resist that tripe. And then, strolling up Fifth to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, I smelled that awful perfuming of the outdoor air I had read about. Foul! Made my eyes water! Are they crazy?
And never mind the hordes of Africans selling shoddy knockoffs off dirty blankets flung onto the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue.
I guess the planet I live on is the Past. It was nice while it lasted.
(The Christmas tree is magnificent, set against a dismal sky, and the trumpet-wielding angels along the plaza are the same as they've been all my life. That's something anyway.)