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Mercury is in retrograde, if I can believe an unsolicited email trying to sell me psychic services. Maybe that’s why, according to a Dutch gossip account, the Manchester United centre-back Matthijs de Ligt and his wife, the model AnneKee Molenaar, could be splitting up only a year after they got married. I’m being facetious: I don’t believe the position of a distant ball of iron and silicate in relation to other balls of stuff (yes, that’s the scientific term) is influencing anyone’s relationship, or anything else.
Neither, apparently, does De Ligt. According to this rumour, he doesn’t share Molenaar’s interest in all things woo-woo – or “spiriwiri” as they call it in Dutch. There are signs that Molenaar is woo-curious on her Instagram account, which features crystals and a book on tarot; it also suggests she is starting a new-agey-sounding business called “Annie’s Alchemia”, though there is little more than a trademark registration to show for it publicly.
Obviously, this story could be absolute nonsense. But is being a bit “alternative” – getting into energy healing, aura reading or consulting clairvoyants – grounds for divorce? I, and probably you, have friends with unconventional beliefs (I often have to arrange my features into bland neutrality on matters of celestial alignment; they do the same when I claim the hens I keep are “intelligent”) and I’m fine with it.
Surely you should be just as, if not more, accepting with your partner? Getting slightly spiriwiri seems pretty harmless, plus Molenaar’s trademark filing covers everything from cookware to tealights, so maybe she is planning a woo-flavoured but hard-nosed commercial lifestyle brand à la Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop? That could just be common sense: footballing and modelling careers are short and it is wise to consider the future. In the meantime, though, if you are a strict rationalist, it might be annoying to come home having conceded a crucial equaliser to be told your root chakra is probably blocked and you should put black obsidian in your kit bag and burn palo santo sticks over your boots.
Things do change in relationships, and not just one partner having a spiritual awakening or the other developing an intolerance to woo. How you manage this fascinates me, because at my time of life, it happens a lot. Midlifers who have long run on predictable rails suddenly veer off course; it starts to feel as if time is running out and we react by making dramatic changes. People explore their sexuality; they get into ultramarathons, environmental activism or, yes, crystals; they stop drinking, start microdosing or jack in accountancy to train as reiki healers. You think you know your beloved intimately, definitively, then one day they tell you they want an open relationship, believe in fairies, or, far more challenging, they have decided to take up golf. I’ve done it myself: I went vegan four years ago, a tough sell for my spouse, who hails from a place where dairy is a religion.
How do you navigate that? Therapists would say cultivate compassion; stay open; be curious. I’ve seen, and admired, people doing that around me. But some change is impossible to be cool about: if your partner becomes a “red-pilled” manosphere content consumer, anti-vaxxer or conspiracy theorist, most of us would struggle. Even when it is not ideologically beyond the pale, change can be treacherous to navigate. Fear is baked in to our reactions. Will they still love us? Can we still love them? It’s happening with weight-loss drugs: it’s fascinating – chilling – reading how one partner taking them can throw a grenade into a couple’s relationship, feeding insecurities and eroding shared pleasures. I’m grateful that my husband gracefully accepted my tofu-bothering, even though it means we rarely eat the same meal.
Your partner changing (and if you are lucky enough to grow older with a person you love, it will happen) tests your generosity, tolerance and communication skills and challenges your sense of self. Even if you are pretty solid on all counts, you might still run up against something you really can’t get past and end up uncoupling. Isn’t that terrifying when you think about it? It’s enough to make anyone turn to crystals.
