The series have perhaps failed us, for decades, when it comes to showing toxic relationships where women are the only ones to pay the price. Now one of Netflix’s newest releases, Sex/Life, tells the life of a mother and stay-at-home mom, Billie, who develops an obsession with her ex-boyfriend, Brad.
As the show shows the duality between his current life in the suburbs and his past full of excesses in Manhattan, we can quickly realize that Brad was an abuser and he was also incredibly toxic.
When Billie looks back at this relationship, she does so through a pink filter, removing Brad’s cruelty from her mind, and disguising him with a romantic point of view where everything is justified in the relationship, thanks to the explosive chemistry they both have in bed.
I am no stranger to this feeling. I have a personal story full of romance in a relationship that was simply toxic. I met Henry during my freshman year of college and we dated casually for two years. We were never “officers”, but the love I felt for him consumed me, and for a long time I thought that he “was the one”.
Henry was handsome, focused on his career, good in bed and everything she wanted in a man. But he didn’t want a formal relationship and he used me, knowing that my love would never be reciprocal. One night he did not come home. Then I found out that he had reunited with his ex and that he had paid for a hotel room to be together.
In the summer of 2019, we stopped talking. But as our time slipped away in the rearview mirror, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And I didn’t remember the pain it had caused me. Instead, I always found myself reminding myself of the good times: when we happened to meet at some festival and he would hold my hand as we walked through the crowd. Or when he would grab me and kiss me before I left his apartment in the morning. Also when she let me wear her sweater on the way home.
Conveniently, forgot the negative aspects of the relationship and I focused on a romanticized version of what we live.
But why do we tend to romanticize toxic relationships?
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Was it really the ending that Carrie deserved?
Dr. Sarah Davies, psychologist and therapist, also author of the book Never Again – Moving On from Narcissistic Abuse and Other Toxic Relationships, explains that toxic relationships begin with a period of great romance, gifts and beautiful words, as well as gestures full of love.
That feeling is very exciting and intoxicating. This “love bomb” leaves the person who receives it with a dangerous – and false – sense of power, as well as the belief that they can change an abusive, unfaithful and unavailable partner, into the perfect man.
“So time begins to pass and you realize that the only changes in your partner are for the worse,” says Davies. But this fantasy thought makes you focus on what your partner can become or how they can change; instead of making you see the harsh reality. ” When traveling to the past (to the “love bomb”) or to the future (to what could potentially happen), the fact of fantasizing about a different situation does not make you see the present, and this is why you justify their abusive behavior. “
The most turbulent romances we see in plays or television series they have a lot of this. Many of us grew up romanticizing toxic relationships on TV. Let’s think of Blair’s Chuck in Gossip Girl, with its ups and downs. Domestic bliss, it seems, is not related to gripping drama, but the stormy nature of the great pop culture love stories of our time may encourage us to ignore red flags that we really shouldn’t ignore.
Relationship and dating expert Sarah Louise Ryan explains this issue in depth. “These shows not only normalize abuse, they also make toxic relationships look very glamorous. This can lead to negative impressions, both in vulnerable viewers who go through toxic relationships; as well as younger people, who may be left with this impression of what it means to go out as a couple in an already complicated dating context today”. We’ve gotten used to seeing so many unhealthy relationships on screen that we may see them as normal, even aspirational.
And no on-screen dating relationship exemplifies this better than Carrie Bradshaw y Mr. Big en Sex and The City. Carrie is an independent and sexually free woman, but when Big enters the formula she becomes a cliché, seeking approval from a man who seems unemotional and who sees her as disposable.
He is always in the driver’s seat, telling Carrie what to do when they spend time together. She is often difficult to locate and does not always treat her with the respect she deserves. Despite this, many fans of the series see and dream of having a Mr. Big in their lives, I include myself in that.
It is shameful to admit the great role that SATC it played in our lives and in how I even filtered the way I see my relationships. No matter what happened, he always remained optimistic, even when after he, after two years, told me that he did not want to be in a formal relationship; to end up doing it, but with someone else. And it is that as Mr. Big did with Natasha in the second season, I thought that surely this boy would reconsider and return with me.
© Jason Howard/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Throughout all the seasons, Carrie was always in balance until Mr. Big did his thing.
Specialist therapist Sally Baker told me why. Those romantic stories, no matter how toxic, usually have a happy ending. Both Carrie and Blair managed to marry their men.
“They send this message to people that no matter what you’ve had to live through, and no matter how many times they let you down or have your heart broken, if you can always keep the goal clear (of marrying him) somehow way you will reach your happy ending ”.
But the therapist is clear that it is necessary to think about what will happen after your “happy ending.” “You fought and fought for someone, so when you finally won them… what kind of award do they really represent to you?”
© Courtesy HBO Max
Cynthia Nixon (Miranda Hobbes), Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie Bradshaw), y Kristin Davis (Charlotte York Goldenblatt) en el primer episodio de ‘And Just Like That…’ de HBO Max.
‘And Just Like That’ (almost) brings together our favorite New Yorkers
Chapter one of ‘And Just Like That’ has arrived and seeing Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbes and Charlotte York together, once again, couldn’t be more exciting.
The reboot de Sex and The City, And Just Like That, you may have the answer to this question. According to one of the series scripts, which apparently leaked, the series planned to put Carrie and Mr. Big in the middle of a terrible divorce.
Looking back at my relationship with Henry, I always knew deep down that it was not a healthy relationship. But he always romanticized her, no matter what happened, because pop culture gave me hope that this behavior was something I had to overcome, to be able -one day- to have my dream happy ending, just as Carrie got it.
Now I know that unbridled passion is worth nothing if the rest of the relationship is unsatisfactory, and we must move away from the fantasy of love that we see on screen, that which consumes everything, in favor of one a little more realistic and healthy.
Article originally published in Vogue UK, vogue.co.uk.