Let me tell the skeleton of a similar story about a good friend of mine. He's a bright guy, pharmacist by trade, musically inclined. Got hooked up with a real psycho. Not "omg my ex is craaaazy", real-deal double digit involuntary commitments, full bore diagnosed and sentenced bipolar. She's cute but not that cute, a solid 6 or 7 on a good day, kinda mousy. The kind of girl who ruins every event she attends by having a very public meltdown, taking bizarre offense to everyone and everything, and clinging to my buddy like he's the only white man and they're on safari.
Nobody liked this bitch, not his friends, not his family, not one single person in his life, and we told him. Luckily he dumped her after a couple months. We threw him a party on the theme of "ding dong, the witch is dead". We got him set up with new dates. They were back together in a month. They would break up and get back together a dozen or so times over the next five years. They had a kid, a lawsuit over custody and child support. Then they got back together, had another kid, got married. Then they separated, got back together, lasted a few more years before getting divorced and what does my genius friend do?
Knocks her up one more time after the divorce was filed.
Now he has to pay her mortgage and see this woman twice a week for the next twelve years, eighteen from when they split.
You can try to suss some deep social thing from this, but my guy had options. He had warnings, blatant and flashing. He was sane and smart enough to understand, he wasn't tricked or coerced. He had other women interested. Some part of her crazy just matched up right with his crazy and he couldn't stop going back to her. He had to be getting something out of it, I figure.
People are bad at relationships, and a lot of us are lying to ourselves about what we actually want and are actually willing to tolerate. I don't think that's an indictment of any higher organization than the people inside the relationship. That said, I think our social models of lifelong partnerships are pretty stunted in popular culture.
p
Let me tell the skeleton of a similar story about a good friend of mine. He's a bright guy, pharmacist by trade, musically inclined. Got hooked up with a real psycho. Not "omg my ex is craaaazy", real-deal double digit involuntary commitments, full bore diagnosed and sentenced bipolar. She's cute but not that cute, a solid 6 or 7 on a good day, kinda mousy. The kind of girl who ruins every event she attends by having a very public meltdown, taking bizarre offense to everyone and everything, and clinging to my buddy like he's the only white man and they're on safari.
Nobody liked this bitch, not his friends, not his family, not one single person in his life, and we told him. Luckily he dumped her after a couple months. We threw him a party on the theme of "ding dong, the witch is dead". We got him set up with new dates. They were back together in a month. They would break up and get back together a dozen or so times over the next five years. They had a kid, a lawsuit over custody and child support. Then they got back together, had another kid, got married. Then they separated, got back together, lasted a few more years before getting divorced and what does my genius friend do?
Knocks her up one more time after the divorce was filed.
Now he has to pay her mortgage and see this woman twice a week for the next twelve years, eighteen from when they split.
You can try to suss some deep social thing from this, but my guy had options. He had warnings, blatant and flashing. He was sane and smart enough to understand, he wasn't tricked or coerced. He had other women interested. Some part of her crazy just matched up right with his crazy and he couldn't stop going back to her. He had to be getting something out of it, I figure.
People are bad at relationships, and a lot of us are lying to ourselves about what we actually want and are actually willing to tolerate. I don't think that's an indictment of any higher organization than the people inside the relationship. That said, I think our social models of lifelong partnerships are pretty stunted in popular culture.
More options
Context Copy link