The awkward graduation distance between Jessica Alba and Cash Warren isn’t what you think

Jessica Alba and Cash Warren showed up for their daughter Honor. They did not appear next to each other.

Paparazzi shots of graduation are everywhere now. Jessica is on one side. Cash on the other hand. There is a polite and painful chasm between them. Captions do the usual thing. bitter. Frosty. embarrassed. The implication is that two adults who confirmed their split in January 2025 should be able to pose for a co-parenting photo for Hallmark by June.

I look at those pictures and see something completely different. I see two nervous systems trying to survive in a day when biology was not built for survival. And if you’ve ever had to be in the same room with someone who used to be your person, you already know exactly what I’m talking about.

The body remembers what the calendar forgot

Humans are wired as an interdependent species. From cradle to grave, your nervous system scans the room, asking two quiet questions. Are you there for me? Am I enough for you?

When a marriage ends, these questions are not removed. The bond is broken, but the biological memory of the bond remains completely intact. I was divorced on paper. Your body didn’t get the memo.

Graduation forces you to return to closeness to the person who served as your safe base. Same gym. Child’s breath. The same shared history sits on the folding chair between you. But the safety is gone. So your nervous system reads the situation as an existential threat. You suddenly become unprotected in the presence of one person who knows exactly where you are soft.

This is where the shame flows. My favorite definition of shame is the simplest one I know. Shame is the feeling of being disconnected from belonging. It’s the sudden cessation of any good feeling, replaced by a hot, angry certainty that you don’t fit anywhere in this room.

To survive this, we turn to what is called the compass of shame. We attack others. We attack ourselves. We deny. Or we withdraw. When you see two exes standing twenty feet apart, refusing to make eye contact, you are witnessing withdrawal at its finest. This is not malice. This is the protective part that steps in to protect the wound that is still bleeding.

Bags across the street

I see this every Tuesday in my office in San Francisco. The founders, CEOs, and creatives are all sitting on opposite ends of my couch like two strangers waiting for the bus with their bags across the street from each other.

Doesn’t look broken. It looks rigid. They are great at what I call mango description. They gave me a tidy, logical analysis of how unreasonable it was for their ex to be at the school event. Where they stood. who spoke to him. How cold their body language was. They can describe the color and texture of that mango for an entire hour. But describing a mango is a very different thing from the weak act of tasting it.

What I actually see in these high achievers is someone hiding in the emotional basement. They spent the entire graduation suffocating in private anxiety, quietly convinced that they were failures as a parent, as a partner, as a person. They put on a brave face. They take pictures. They stand twenty feet away. The thermal energy required to perform this indifference is astonishing.

If any of this happens close to home, you can figure out your attachment dynamics in about three minutes. It’s the same map I use with clients on day one.

The pattern I see in my office is like an echo chamber. A partner sends a barrage of logistical texts about the timeline for efficiency performance. The other responds with one thumbs up emoji for staying guarded. The harder one gets to a place, the deeper the other hides. They don’t fight anymore. They throw invisible gestures of judgment and defense, keeping a safe distance, both trapped in separate bubbles of suffering, both convinced that the other is the bad guy.

Distance is evidence of bond

The culture wants Jessica and Cash to consciously disengage. Sit next to each other. He smiles. Pretend that history isn’t sitting on their chests.

I see it the opposite. The awkward distance is not proof that they hate each other. It’s proof that they cared so much that the loss is biologically unbearable right now. If they didn’t care, their nervous systems wouldn’t require such a wide defensive perimeter. You can sit comfortably next to a stranger because he means nothing to you. You cannot sit comfortably next to the person who broke your heart because your body remembers the depth of the bond.

There are always two sides to a love wound. Fear of not being enough. Fear of it being too much. When a marriage ends, it confirms whatever your deepest fears were. Every glance across the gym multiplies the present pain by two hundred units of the past pain. It’s a crushing weight to carry around in dress shoes while pretending to enjoy a slideshow.

This is also why much of what seems like cold behavior after divorce is closer to relationship trauma than indifference. The body does exactly what the body does when it is hurt by someone it trusts.

There are no bad guys in the picture. Two frightened people in adult bodies using the only tools they have.

What I will actually tell them

If Jessica and Cash were sitting on my couch exhausted from choreographing graduation day, the first thing I would do is stop the show. You cannot find a cognitive solution to a limbic problem. You can’t rationalize being comfortable with your ex.

I will ask each of them to take the lamp of awareness, turn it away from the other person’s behavior, and point it inward. The harsh shift is from the story of the other to the experience of the self. What’s happening in my chest right now? Where do I hold my breath? What is the oldest version of this feeling.

This step is more useful than a hundred logistical texts. It’s also harder than it sounds, which is why I draw on the science behind unrequited love and longing when I explain why co-parenting after divorce can be so painful, even when the love itself changes shape.

The work is not to fake proximity. The work is to stop weaponizing distance against yourself. To stand twenty feet away and let it be. To say internally, this is hard because it’s important, not because I’m broken.

The real story is in that picture

Jessica appeared. Cash appeared. Honor walked across the stage with her parents in the room. This is not a failed marriage on display. This means that two people are choosing their child at the expense of their own comfort, in adult bodies, with delicate nervous systems that they are still learning to carry.

Heartbreak doesn’t have to be attractive to be honorable.

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Figs O’Sullivan and his wife, Till, are couples therapists in San Francisco, relationship experts at Stars and Silicon Valley, and the founders of Empathi, and built Figlet, an AI-powered relationship coach trained in their clinical work.