Jennifer Aniston has learned about her needs better than before as she went through challenges in her life, and marriage is no longer on the list.
Finding love and a happy ending isn't the only goal that all women aspire to. Many of them want other things for themselves, like healthy friendships, adventure, and success like never before. It's not possible to have all of that but we can all aspire to some of it at least. After all, everyone has dreams they see for themselves. Some people just go after them with full gusto.
Jennifer Aniston is a lot of things, actress, producer, friend, daughter, but mostly she is just herself unabashedly. She is one of the most successful women in Hollywood and yet she remains single. Not that it worries her much since she's learned to accept that her happiness lies in different things.
"Why do we want a happy ending? How about just a happy existence? A happy process? We’re all in process constantly," Aniston told Elle. "What quantifies happiness in someone’s life isn’t the ideal that was created in the '50s. It’s not like you hear that narrative about any men."
The Friends star, who turned 51 on February 11, 2020, has lived a full life, been married and divorced twice, from Brad Pitt and Justin Theroux. But, she still takes her marriages as "successful".
"When [my marriages] came to an end, it was a choice that was made because we chose to be happy, and sometimes happiness didn’t exist within that arrangement anymore," Aniston explained to Elle. "Sure, there were bumps, and not every moment felt fantastic, obviously, but at the end of it, this is our one life and I would not stay in a situation out of fear. Fear of being alone. Fear of not being able to survive. To stay in a marriage based on fear feels like you’re doing your one life a disservice."
In February 2018, she announced her split from Theroux, who later said that it was "heartbreaking" but "gentle." There was no animosity that led to them going separate ways, in fact, he called it an amicable divorce, something one rarely gets to hear about separations. It is possible that the messiness of her first divorce left her wiser and more prepared about how to behave if it ever happened to her again.
"The good news is that was probably the most — I’m choosing my words really carefully — it was kind of the most gentle separation, in that there was no animosity,” he told New York Times. He continued, "Again, neither one of us is dead, neither one of us is looking to throw hatchets at each other. It’s more like, it’s amicable. It’s boring, but, you know, we respected each other enough that it was as painless as it could be."
He lamented that their "friendship" had to come to an end. "It was heartbreaking, only in the sense that the friendship would not be the same, as far as just the day-to-day," Theroux said. "But the friendship is shifting and changing, you know, so that part is something that we’re both very proud of."
The duo spent Thanksgiving together in 2019 and she had invited Pitt to her 50th birthday as well as to Christmas, which shows that she is someone who knows how to forgive and let go. However, she is simply not one to be fixated on finding the right partner to feel happy. After all, being single is better than being with the wrong person.
Instead, she focuses on her friendships, just like the show that skyrocketed her to popularity. "I love entertaining. I always have food. I think I probably got that from my mom, who always had her girlfriends over. I picked it up from my childhood—just always hearing girls in the house and learning how to make a good cheese board," she told Elle.
Being in her 50s, has not changed her, her famous holiday gatherings are proof of that. She is simply a great host, who likes to bring her friends together. Surprisingly, she is like the Monica of her life.
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/style/justin-theroux.html?
https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a25426565/jennifer-aniston/
