What if a part of you WANTS a “broken and dysfunctional” relationship?
I somehow found myself the other night watching bits and pieces of HBO’s show “Scenes from a Marriage”. Although not my cup of tea at all (give me season 1 of True Detective any night), it managed to keep me engaged long enough to start thinking about the motivations of the man and woman who are at the center of the story.
At one point (SPOILER ALERT!), seemingly dissatisfied with her new life and her new boyfriend, Mira decides to approach her (almost) ex-husband Jonathan once again, and tries to get him to engage with her again sexually and emotionally. As expected, things get messy and take multiple bad turns in the span of one evening, leading to a moment of clarity where both sides silently sign their divorce papers and take their separate paths.
I felt that the show was trying to say something here. Many if not most of us have found ourselves at one point or another in a messy relationship that was obviously going nowhere. But what if… what if that was exactly the point? What if THAT was exactly the purpose of that entire relationship, that it should assist in us continuing business as usual?
In the show’s idealized example, ambitious and attractive Mira separates from her husband and pursues a life that she perceived would be more interesting and fulfilling, yet the moment she arrives at her desired destination, she realizes that something is off. Something is painfully, desperately wrong. She is torn. Is this what she wanted? Is this what she was told she wanted? Is this what she was SUPPOSED to want, according to what everyone and everything around her was saying?
She followed all the directions, ticked all the boxes, and even found a man who was genuinely interested in her and her future, and yet she did not end up feeling any happier or fulfilled by the end of it. And what does she do? She goes back to what she knows.
My take is that she ditched her new boyfriend, who was the “right kind of guy”, not because she had any problems with him, but because she had problems with herself and within herself that her new life was not able to hide any more.
So in order to hide away from the truth about herself and her real opinion of herself, she goes back to her safe space: her already toxic marriage that is falling apart.
Lo and behold, their marriage continues, under other, darker yet in some ways more truthful terms, even after their divorce. The show is after all called “Scenes from a Marriage”, not “Scenes from a Divorce or Separation”. The relationship essentially never ended, it just changed shape so that things can continue the same way they always did, while making space for some new demands and concerns on each other’s sides, regardless of what the consequences may be for everyone around them.
So you are probably wondering why on earth I am talking about this.
I am painting this view of what played out in the show, simply because it needs to be highlighted and underlined:
If we find ourselves in the middle of a toxic relationship, it is important to take a moment to step back and ask very honestly “What am I getting out of this?”.
But do not trick yourself into talking exclusively about the positives and that all you could possibly hope for is that the negative parts of the relationship will change into something better.
This is simply not true.
Let’s admit it: you stayed in that relationship even after seeing 532 red flags because of both the good parts AND the bad parts.
Let me say that again. The BAD aspects were also part of why you stayed, perhaps because they gave you permission to play a certain role, such as the saviour or the struggling tragic martyr, that you are clearly a good person because THEY are the bad person, or whatever it is that the story may be. Thus, the outcome is that nothing ever really changes, which is perhaps the true and desired goal motivating all that painful effort.
And THAT is the real problem. That deep down, we all want to feel safe and in control, because we are all scared, we are all unsure of ourselves and the future, and we all deep down feel so so lonely, small, and helpless. So sometimes it seems as if “better the devil you know” is a perfectly valid policy, and perhaps it is, until it isn’t (that moment probably passed a long time ago).
But no relationship, new career, new hobby or meditation practice can heal the parts of us that hurt. The only thing that can patch that up (partially, maybe) is taking a good hard look at ourselves and being honest about it, no matter what we find.
Because everything else that we do is on a certain level just a deliberate distraction from seeing who and what we really are: just another human being trying to make the best out of a difficult situation.
And when we do that, maybe, just maybe, we will be able to start to be kinder to ourselves.
