(May 16, 2024 ● Oslin Pierrette)
Episode 1:
What’s happiness? Well, I’m content, I’m comfortable, there’s a stable security in my life, I have a true loyalty with my partner, and we’re also content with each other. And with that, I would think that’s happiness, you know. That’s the 10 year relationship between Johan and Marianne, they are content with their marriage, as they say.
Johan just likes that he can create this stable world for himself, especially when he thinks about outside of the bubble of his stability, he likes that he can disappear, and not think about the worldly troubles. He can detach from the reality of the world, and just appreciate his secure bubble, respects people with the ability to just laugh it off, as if everything is ok. Even though he doesn’t really believe in God, he appreciates a religious lifestyle and attending church that offers that sense of community. He likes the furniture and the way his house looks that provides that sense of comfortable security. He loves the illusions basically, he’s deeply attached to all these facades and ideas. Deep down he’s fragile, so he loves to make everything safe, creating this false sense of security, when he’s deeply insecure. And yeah, you live a nice looking wealthy lifestyle, but do you enjoy it, are you happy? Well I’m content, and have this stable success, shouldn’t that be enough to make one happy, a family, kids, and stable success? Does it feel like enough? Is that all life is to you, is there more? Who are you truly behind this mask of stable success? A man that looks self assured, that isn’t assured of anything? Like what’s the point of being content if it all feels empty. Why uphold and cling onto these facades of ideas. What about Marianne, she spews similar sentiments of contentment, but you see the doubts all over her face. Maybe she isn’t content with how things are. She definitely wants more. She has definitely settled for a life that just isn’t for her. To where she’s convincing herself and indoctrinating herself into this way of life, where she makes herself believe that contentment is happiness. Have all the things needed for a stable successful life with family, kids, and stable success. Even though it lacks passion, beautiful love, and romanticism. This marriage lacks the vibrant spark that deeply connects a couple, that makes them deeply want each other. She has been convincing herself to not want that to be a role within a partnership, not have romanticism as a need in the elements. But it obviously isn’t what she wants, her heart and soul is not present in this, she just reeks of resentments and wanting more, wanting different.
Kat and Peter are also a married couple and friends to Johan and Marianne. They on the other end do not mesh well together at all. They seem to simply hate each other, resent their marriage. They just need each other because they work well together in work, and Peter just can’t build a sexual attraction with someone else, so they just have been settling with the hell of a marriage they have with each other. But at least it’s honest, they truthfully don’t like each other, and it all spews out, the resentments, the detesting, the mean remarks, the truth. It’s better to honestly hate each other, then to fall in a facade of empty love. They might end up in the divorce they truthfully need, this partnership doesn’t need to continue much longer. But throughout the night they talked about how they respected and admired the love that Johan and Marianne exuded, they fell for their facade basically.
After they leave. You see Marianne gets to questioning, the validity of long term relationships, can two people love each other for life. Or instead of lifelong contracts, maybe there should be a renewal process every 5 years just to make sure. You see that she has been drifting off in focus on the marriage. Also she understands that the reason they have lasted so long is because they speak the same language, partners need to speak the same language. Also that whatever the circumstances, Johan and Marianne would be together. Johan thinks otherwise. He thinks it’s for the money and security, if he couldn’t provide that, that this wouldn’t be a lasting relationship. Maybe they don’t speak the same language as Marianne previously thought.
It all shows when a married couple has a pregnancy scare. She’s questioning bringing another baby into this family. She’s having doubts and considering abortion. And she just wants her husband’s input and support, as it’s such a drastic decision. And he seems too aloof, just too unconcerned, and trying to seem like he’s calm and level headed. He’s just agreeing with any decision she’s going with. I want to keep it…I guess it would be nice to have a kid. I want an abortion…I understand, that’s ok, don’t overthink it, you’ll be alright. He’s not really saying anything, just being spineless when I need my husband’s input. Don’t make me go through this alone. And she’s starting to see the baby isn’t the problem, he is. She doesn’t want to continue this facade, this illusion, where they’re so detached from reality, and don’t reflect on anything. He’s so deflective in any meaningful moments. He lacks the courage and backbone in serious moments. Not a true support system of a man she needs, an abyss of one. She goes through with the abortion, and it has visibly deeply affected her. She feared she would regret it, and she does at the moment. It brings her deep guilt and emotional pain. He just treats it as something you just do and move on, just get some rest to feel better is his prescription to a drastic decision in her life. He leaves her by herself to tend to what he sees as more important things, when she needs someone more than ever right now. This is not the man for anybody, this is a pathetic excuse of one. And she remains in her lonely agonizing guilt and sadness.
Episode 2:
The Art of Sweeping Things Under the Rug is the perfect title of this episode. This episode was full of bringing up very important issues that are deeply & heavily weighing on them, then just saying never mind, making it seem like it’s all fine, sweeping it under the rug, and avoiding & switching subjects.
Marianne just so deeply wants to spend quality time with her husband, she is longing for this closeness, she wants a vacation, she wants affection, she seemingly wants this love. But he just keeps brushing her off, not valuing her feelings and wants. He’s not being attentive to her or even himself. He just doesn’t truly address anything. Everything important is swept under the rug.
It seems Johan has another interest though. A work wife you might call it. He’s definitely interested, because he shared his poetry with her, that’s basically opening your heart to someone in some cases. She deeply wounded him, because he gave her access to his deep realm of vulnerability, and when she wasn’t too fond of it, he was hurt. A man that is very reserved, and doesn’t come off as someone who would try at being a poet, it was odd to see this attempt at being an alive person in this world, instead of the lifeless and meaningless conventional stable secure safety he tries to create for himself most of the time. So his one attempt at being alive, and being sort of rejected, really hurt.
Marianne has a divorce meeting with one of her clients. And they talk about how they had a very nice, stable, comfortable life, with a good family and kids. Nothing lifestyle wise to complain about, everything was taken care of. But for those 20 years of marriage, she never had love, and you see the resentment of that. I didn’t have much attachment to my husband or kids, I was just living a life full of dissonance, fulfilling my duties as a housewife and that’s it. I never got to discover me, I never got to know love, and I long for that. I live a dull existence to where my perceptions and senses have gone dull. I’m in such a gray area, detached, fuzzy, full of a dissonance kind of world. And I just want the chance to live for me. My children are all grown up, my responsibilities are finished. Now let me discover love with the little time I have left. And you see Marianne sort of connect to it, but doesn’t want to admit it. She understands the lifestyle is good, but it lacks the deep beautiful love we humans all long for, the convenience isn’t worth it at all, to just forget about love when you’re living the luxury of convenience & comfort where everything is taken care of. Because even though you live a seemingly nice life, it can still amount to an empty nothingness that you absolutely resent, and this lady that wants out can attest to that. A testimony of vanity, convenience, comfortable living, can not bypass a life that lacks love, it’s all meaningless without it. Marianne seems deep down to want to continue the conversation, but she sweeps that under the rug, and doesn’t satisfy that itch she has. She doesn’t want to face and address a problem she feels she has as well.
She meets with her husband again, so excited for wanting to spend time with him. She has all these visions and ideas of places to go, she just deeply wants to spend time with her husband, and he destroys that excited fantasy she has with him on vacation. He just doesn’t validate her wants, doesn’t seem to value her longing for that. He also seems in a bad mood, as being the rejected poet that isn’t well received, still is hurt by that. He says he doesn’t want to be annoyed by traveling in all that heat. They just seem like two different people. You want what you want out of life, and you find people that will go along in the journey with you, or better, want similar visions as you. But when you speak two different languages, want different things, one goes for love & one goes for security and comfort. There’s just going to be clashes, where they unsatisfyingly compromise and one or both may dim their light to comfort the other. You can compromise on little tidbits or small decisions, but you shouldn’t compromise the foundation of who you are, that’s not the way to find beautiful love. Great chance you end up in a pool of resentments full of despair in those decisions.
You’re just starting to see that Johan and Marianne are two different people that don’t mesh well, but in a workable relationship. You can see Johan spew his views on women, kind of misogynistic, and not really valuing that they are their own human. And you can see that Marianne doesn’t really agree, but decides not to really confront it or make it a conversation. You also see them bring up sex complications they’ve been having, but they try to sweep it under the rug, because it’s very triggering, but Marianne is too affected by this one. They’re just two separate humans forced into one relationship and family. They don’t mesh well.
Episode 3:
Marianne is so excited to see her husband Johan come home. Even with their differences, she still seems so happy to see him. Until she notices something is off about his mood. He just says it. He is having an affair with a woman named Paula, he’s fallen in love with someone else. They have connected in multiple areas, especially the one that is vacant in Marianne & Johan’s life, sex.
He just spills out this pent up frustration and anger with Marianne, he’s been wanting this for a long time. He’s just tired of this orderly conventional relationship, that looks textbook good, but is so lifeless. It’s not that Paula is the right one for him, but this affair, disaster, and chaos might be a step in the right direction, even though it unfortunately came about this way. I agree with that sentiment, I can’t say if Paula is the answer, but separation may be a part of the path they both need for themselves. When your life is conventionally all right, from a visual perspective, you have security, stability, a good job, a good wife and nice family. You have a textbook life that is also comfortable, what more can you ask for really. I can ask for things to make sense, if I’m doing everything right, especially how they said, why does it all feel so wrong, so despairing, so dark & gray, full of dissonance & confusion, so empty. That would be a very existentially paralyzing & scary place to be in. It’s not like I have anything to blame this on, like I haven’t made it in my career yet, or whatever, because I have a good career and financial standing. I did everything right, so I’m just so deeply confused and lost by all this. He just doesn’t know himself at all, he doesn’t understand what life is, he’s just here living, and maybe he just wants a chance at life, to find some sort of meaning. So when he felt something true, which he felt in Paula, he fell for the temptation, or true feelings maybe. It felt like a step in the right direction for him, and away from this confusion of his life with Marianne. Even with his deep guilt, and maybe lingering love for Marianne, he still has to leave. He needs to make sense of life, and like any other human, he wants to feel something, something real.
It’s just so heavy for Marianne to take in. It’s all so much to swallow and accept all at once. You’ve been having an affair, you fell in love with someone else, and now you’re leaving tomorrow to Paris with her, oh my goodness. You’re not even allowing her time and grace to process. You’re just selfishly throwing all this on her, and forcing her to deal with it. It’s such an unfortunate and many times messed up thing, when someone allows themselves time to detach from someone emotionally, then when they are in a good place, they tell their partner now, just dumping that unfair reality on them. That’s such a selfish cowardly way out. It’s not like Marianne is entitled to you for life, but she deserves the grace of you pulling away, and letting her know, instead of the predicament she’s in now. Maybe he only told her because he had to, not because he felt it was time. You can’t just desert your family for months without them noticing, so he had to tell Marianne now. She’s just so hurt. An affair typically leaves the other partner feeling so undesirable, diminishing their self esteem. Marianne wants to know why, and who she is. It hurts to build the picture of the mistress, so she begs Johan to tell her, so she doesn’t mentally spiral, she needs some sort of solace to make sense of this chaos that was placed on her lap. Even in that, she is really sort of submissive to it all. A cheated on married woman should maybe be breaking plates, destroying the house, and violently reacting. But she’s still in this submissive shell. Before his travels in the morning, she still invites him to bed like they were a normal couple. She just wants so badly to mend the situation. Maybe they can work on their marriage. At least give her the grace and opportunity to do so. How unfairly awful of a feeling is that. The first time you tell me there’s an issue, is when you’re about to go to Paris with your mistress in a few hours. You couldn’t have spoken up at any time, any point? This is all too frustrating. You cowered away, lacked the courage of dealing with your issues, and now you’re just abandoning all the problems, leaving me to deal with the reality within our community. While you try to live out this fantasy in Paris. Like you have no wife, no children, no responsibility, just a fantasy that you want to play out. Understandably, Johan felt like he had no one to express with. He just didn’t know how. Expressing your feelings, putting all your truth on the table to decipher and go through, that’s something that has to be developed, that many humans don’t.
That’s a lot of the issues, these two just don’t have all the development to be in a healthy flowing & prosperous relationship. You need the ability to be intimate and vulnerable, be able to share yourselves, and how you truly feel, no matter how triggering it is. You’ll get comfortable with it, once you build that muscle up. When couples and other types of relationships don’t have the element of intimacy & vulnerability, you are incapable of the ability to address issues no matter how big or small. You just sweep them under the rug. One problem isn’t a big deal, but over time those issues build up more and more. It starts severing those connective tissues of your relationship, creating more and more distance & separation. Where one day, you just see how distant you are, it’s so weird. Married couples have become distant strangers that loathe the sight of each other. What happened? And there is no singular event of explanation. It’s just a distant & separation from a lack of intimacy. When we have issues that push and divide us apart, we don’t own the tools and mechanisms to bring us closer. So with every issue comes more distance. And it gets more difficult the further we separate. Where many get to a point of no return. There’s too much of a mess to clean up to face it. That seems like the point they’re at. Instead of coming to terms with this distance and issue, Johan is leaving for Paris with his mistress. And Marianne in her heartbroken submissive shell of herself, still prepares breakfast as she painfully watches and somewhat claws at him leaving.
What’s worse, she was last to know. How foolish that will make someone look.
But in my view, I feel it’s the best thing to happen to Marianne. She is given the heavy duty of facing the reality that Johan left her with in a cowardly fashion. She doesn’t have the luxury of convenience anymore. She has to deal with life and the truth. She has the great beautiful opportunity of that, even though it looks daunting, it’s truly a blessing, that maybe she’ll appreciate down the line. Also she’s getting forced out of a marriage devoid of love and not serving her. She has the opportunity for so much more.
Episode 4:
Marianne and Johan see each other again after many months of separation, where Johan has been living his life in Paris with Paula. You see this attraction between the two that has grown from the absence and distance, absence makes the heart grow fonder they say.
Johan has been talking about his time with Paula, and he just seems so childish in it all, nothing really learned. He doesn’t seem like a considerate human. He talks about the issues and fights that go on with him and Paula, but in a laughing matter that’s childish. Then he talks so excitedly about a new opportunity at Cleveland University. Where he talks about leaving Paula, but she doesn’t know yet. How inconsiderate is that. This is just you as a person, maneuvering so cowardly, to protect you from facing any real issues & confrontation, and leaving an immediate mess to the person you leave them with. Wouldn’t outright call him a narcissist, but some of the traits are there. He says himself, he doesn’t care where he lives, it’s all temporary. This is an escape artist, not someone you would want to put your love and trust in. Yeah in the moment he can deeply want you, that’s very pleasurable for him, but he’s not going to have the discipline to stay, he’s going to get tired, and want to leave, and he’s showing now that he will desert you at any moment that suits him with no consideration of the partner.
You see him go deeper into his self reflections, or more his views of what life is. And simply, he’s explaining it’s all an empty meaningless abyss. That’s what he feels it is, the darkness, the loneliness, those are absolutes, that’s what he seemingly feels is the foundation. Doesn’t mean you resign from life, you do your best to fill it up with the illusions. The art, the love, the relationships, those are the illusions that make life better. But the loneliness is absolute. This man is projecting what his views of life are, and it’s just so telling. He is an empty being maneuvering within life.
Even though he still is going back to Paula, he’s still trying to be intimate with Marianne. This man is moved now only by his pleasures and impulses, a child. But Marianne has to stop him. She can’t handle it. She still deeply loves and thinks about him. So she can’t fall for the temptation that would fully ignite the longing for him again, when she just knows he’s going to end up leaving. But you can see Johan still isn’t considerate of the reality his partners must face in his absence, he doesn’t seem to value that other people have their own life and reality to live, just cares to pleasure his own. There’s some shame, but there’s also a lot of shamelessness and lack of guilt. Those narcissist traits are becoming to seem a lot more evident. But good for Marianne, she showed great restraint. She speaks on how she likes the distance, and loves the moments that Johan doesn’t cross her mind.
Marianne goes on to talk about her life. She self reflects on her childhood, and she places the puzzles to give great reason as to why she is the way she is now. She is such a people pleaser to a great fault, and she is so submissive to so much. She is a shell of herself. And you see as a child, she didn’t have the freedom to cultivate an inner human, a personality, she doesn’t know who she is. She was strictly groomed from young to basically service others. In her moments of assertive autonomy, she was punished and corrected. In her moments of being serving to others, pleasing them, being predictable & very agreeable, she was rewarded. Also being constantly reaffirmed of how ugly & awkward she was. This speaks to her low self esteem. Those sentiments of her feeling ugly, were constantly ingrained in her, permanently affecting how she views herself. So that really shaped her psyche. She was doing what she felt she was supposed to do, ignoring everything she wanted. That really diminished her overtime. It’s a dark existence when you ignore your own voice, it’s meaningless in most situations. This leaves anyone in confusion, and in those paralyzing states, you just don’t know what to do. That would and does leave many in a very vulnerable state to be manipulated, and highly susceptible to follow orders to your authoritative figure. Maybe this developed a passion, spirit, soul, personality atrophy. She has lost that natural joy of life maybe, but hopefully it’s just laying dormant for when she takes the path of valor and courage to seek who she truly is. But she goes on to say her whole life has just been an empty act. She wanted to be an actress or in theater, but being laughed off by her parents, she just obediently followed after her father as a lawyer.
Also in her moments and relationships with men, it was all an act. Make sure she’s playing the role that ensures that they’re pleased, never really thinking about what she wants. She just lacked the courage to aspire for anything for herself, her inner voice was just so quiet, so scared, she’s just learning how to voice herself now. Also wonders what her life would be like if she had the ability to live as she pleased and experimented as she wanted, a life free from that parental and societal trap, what she could have become, and is that reality one with or without Johan. In those moments of reading her heart away from her own diary, beautifully opening up to Johan, she finds that he is asleep. How considerate.
She gets a call from her new person she’s seeing. And he’s worried if she’s doing anything with her soon to be ex-husband. And it wasn’t much, but she still tells him no, also that Johan is leaving soon, and that she can meet with her new interest tomorrow. While Johan is about to leave, he rushes back passionately. Marianne accepts his advances this time, but not sex, just for cuddles and closeness, to stay over the night. Her new interests calls back multiple times, and in an annoyed mood she just blatantly reveals to him all his suspicions, they’re in bed together. Also for him to never call her back. She laughs off back to Johan after she hangs up. Another innocent victim that has gotten wrapped up in Johan and Marianne’s love quarrel. Marianne gets upset after Johan asks if she loves him though. But she goes on to talk about how she doesn’t stop thinking about Johan. She doesn’t think he can cope without her, but maybe she’s just projecting herself. She doesn’t know an independent existence, she was groomed to be hyper dependent on others, doesn’t have the ability to really be alone to her own thoughts and life. Also like she said earlier before, she just feels there is no other man, they all bore her, Johan is the only one she thinks she can be with. It’s understandable. After 10 years, there’s just so much connective tissue that’s been deeply lodged and ingrained seemingly in your foundation, you just can’t sever these ties all of a sudden. They need to be rectified and tended to, and that can take a long time to deal with. So I can understand relapsing back to someone who doesn’t serve you. But this is her dilemma.
Marianna goes on to plead to Johan, she has given in, she wants him back, maybe they can work on their marriage. But later on, he just can’t and feels the urge to go back to Paula. Leaving Marianne in this mess again. Hopefully this is the clear sign that Marianne needs to focus on herself, and seek to spark her own inner light. Doesn’t seem like Johan is heading there though. His pleasures and impulses seem to be his only calling now.
Episode 5:
This episode should’ve been called the rollercoaster. It was just emotionally all over the place. It’s definitely been a lot of time past since the last episode. Marianne comes in with such a happy & perky mood, she just seems naturally excited about life. She’s also looking forward to this trip, and she finally wants to get over this divorce and sign the papers. Which leads to her spontaneously having sex with him. They were having a nice reconnection.
Johan goes back and forth to wanting to read the divorce papers or just signing them and moving on. Marianne gets frustrated all of a sudden. Which randomly leads to a discussion about the kids. And simply, he doesn’t want to pay for his spoiled kids trip. He also says he just doesn’t really have the money for it. Then speaks to this growing indifference he has with his children. If they are allowed to not like me, I’m allowed the same. Families grow up, and sometimes grow a part, he’s basically saying that’s life. Such a bleak outlook on your own kids, so heavily detached. You just left one day, and never really cared for how they landed in life. Just abandoned your responsibilities as a father. He goes on to speak about how he’s basically tired of life. He’s had it with Paula, reached his limit with her. She’s probably cheating, but he doesn’t even care. It would be better to suffer in isolated loneliness, then to deal with the agonizing loneliness he feels with Paula.
His life is just going downhill. He was taught the mechanics of mathematics, anatomy, but wasn’t taught how to operate the soul, or much else about it. He admits to being emotionally illiterate, just absolutely confused by life. He then goes into a spiel about his career going to trash. He’s becoming obsolete in this world. They gave him the runaround with the Cleveland University position, and he didn’t get it basically. He’s ran into that same predicament with other positions as well. He’s just completely going downhill in all facets. He’s facing the reality of this callous world, it’s chewing him up, and spitting him out on the curb. He feels he has become inconvenient to life, an unproductive unit that ought to be eliminated. He seems to have resigned from life, there’s not much to live for or explore. He’s an empty rotting nothingness and dealing with the hardships of life. You can’t avoid your past, your mess, your issues, it all catches up to you.
In that depressing spiel Johan was giving, it seems that she really doesn’t feel that sorry for him. When she had sex with him, it was lukewarm affection, and not that soul tying interaction. She feels she’s finally breaking free of him. She has the ability to finally cleanly break this off and go on to live her life. Which is a very hard feat when you’ve been married for 10 years.
But this leads to another argument somehow. Very heated, and she’s getting out this yelling anger she’s always wanted to, that was probably bottled up. They’re just releasing all the hatred they held for each other, spiteful & resentful anger & hate.
Where Marianne says she differs in her downfalls in life, is that she lives to get back up. She loves facing her issues, she doesn’t cower away, and runs from all her issues like Johan. Like I said before, it’s a blessing that Marianne was left with the mess to clean up, forced to face reality, deal with truth. That’s the blessing of receiving the opportunity and path to better. She has the ability to build herself and move on.
But now we see Johan still can’t move on, he can’t sign it. He is still too attached. He’s still an immature child. He wants his convenience of not having to deal with his issues. He hasn’t put the effort in to want and value Marianne, but just pleads for it after many years, because now she chose the decision to leave. But he assures her this time it’s going to be different, he’s gonna be a better man. That’s Narcissism 101, they all say that, put on a great front, and devolve back into all the problematic issues again soon after. Marianne understands this as well. Luckily all she feels for him is just pity, that’s it. Which is great, because there are many situations where feeling guilty or too sorry for the person, might convince you to get back with them. But she just remembers all the pain she felt when she was the one begging for him back, and he left in the most inconsiderate and callous manner. She has done too much healing and developing to devolve back into that. She’s grown immune to his advances. Getting into more how much she hates him.
When two people come together, they have a spiritual life form they created together. They both have a responsibility to nurture it, both are needed to. But when one is telling you they are leaving, you have to figure out how to tend to this ecosystem, and properly heal and detach from it. But that ‘s only if they give you the grace of telling you. In Marianne’s case, she was left so abruptly to where she couldn’t even process, and Johan has toyed with that process for his own pleasure, and left again. You just don’t know what to do with this life force that’s not getting properly nurtured. After a while of longing for him to come back so they can nurture this ecosystem. There’s just so much mess on it, and that longing has led to you not addressing that he’s gone, has turned what was this beautiful life form into this rotten carcass that lives inside you, a rotten bitterness, a growing anger. So when you get the ability to discard of this carcass, you are left with a nasty taste in your mouth of the traumatic memory of them. She’s ready to go, ready for divorce, ready for her own life.
Johan on the other hand doesn’t want to start all over. He’s in this state of misery and depression, so I don’t think he’s in the space to comprehend that there is more to life. He’s already deep within the sorrows and drowning of his resignation from life. Marianne tells him they can lead better lives without the masks, and Johan believes he’s too far gone and deluded into the indoctrination of the mask, that’s all he knows. The process of masking happened to Johan too young to develop a genuine personality of his own now, he doesn’t believe he will find the profound. Doesn’t believe people can find themselves, but that’s his own deep depression speaking.
There was a moment where Marianne second guessed, and expresses there’s a small part of her that wants to try again, but she just deeply understands that’s just not the way. In her moments of trying to leave, Johan gets physical, and physical again, brutalizing her. He just can’t let her go. And doesn’t know how to process rejection, he is an immature child. But in the visions of his aftermath, I think it’s safe to say he sees who he is. He signed the papers, and let Marianne go. Now he is left to his own mess to deal with, and Marianne can finally move on.
Episode 6:
Lot of time has passed again. Marianne’s father has died. And she’s just speaking to her mother about how they were like. And the mother said what was basically the theme for most of the relationships in this show were like. They live a good life, full of security and comfort, safety, nothing to complain about, they never really complained. But in the end, Marianne’s parents just didn’t experience love. It sounded like a dutiful life, fulfilling responsibilities as a parent. But never got to discover self, love, and all the beauty that life has to offer. Led a very lonesome despairing life, devoid of so many feelings. They were married more because of obligations, and not really chosen love.
You’re just starting to see, maybe a large amount of people have this form of marriage and relationships. Just empty commitments, where so many are leading a meaningless life, dying full of dissonance and confusion. Why do humans cling to these non-serving ideals so much, everyone loses. No one wins, when life is meaningless, even if you built this life of comfort. She asks if Marianne is going to be at one of the ceremonies. Marianne says she can’t, she has to be in court. Which was odd, can’t you just reschedule?
But now you see, Marianne and Johan come together once again, it seems like it was their best chance to do so, due to timing. They are both in their separate marriages, but they still have that deep connection that keeps bringing them together. This time they seem different, their energy is more abundant, especially for Johan, he seems more at ease, less tense. Their chemistry is better than ever. They both want this, want to be here in this moment together, enjoying each other’s company. You just see their companionship is really great. They talk about their lives. They have been doing so much better with their internal selves. They are discovering more, and understanding more. It’s not like they have it all together, but it’s a better place than before, which was needed. They probably still struggle with internal things, like Johan doesn’t have that much direction, doesn’t know how to want and long for things, he seems low on understanding passion. But there’s this acceptance that he has with it, more of humility than the bitterness he carried before. He dropped the life expectations that were thrown on him, that he clung onto. Life just seems much more breathable for him.
Marianne doesn’t struggle with those issues, she longs for herself, she has found a communication with her inner self, that brings her this beautiful solace and comfort. She isn’t struggling with loneliness, someones there, and it’s her. It’s a beautiful thing she has and expresses.
They both seem to have issues in the marriage department still. It’s just not going the greatest, but they just seem at ease with what they have. Even if it’s filled with abuse and infidelity. Which is odd because you thought they just came to better understandings before, about not accepting this type of mess. But it’s understandable, to still have those self esteem issues of knowing what to accept. But in this moment they have together, they just seem so at ease with having each other’s companionship that they deeply appreciate. It would’ve marked their 20 years of marriage, so they’re sharing their special occasion, and reflecting on life together, all that time and events they’ve experienced, it’s probably so surreal. Marianne questions though, do we as humans have everything confused. “I’m talking about fear, uncertainty and ignorance. Do you think that secretly we’re afraid we’re slipping downhill”, and Johan simply answers, yes, and we’re past it being too late. Even though that’s a bleak outcome, it was such a beautiful acceptance to it.
Marianne also questions if she’s ever experienced true love, received it as well. It’s such a dark outlook when you’re in your later years, and you just question if love is real, uncertain about it. Yeah they maybe didn’t reach the most beautiful levels of love. But in their weird imperfect way, they have this beautiful companionship where they can’t escape each other. They keep finding themselves in each other’s arms. This is their imperfect love, at least they can have something as beautiful as that in their lifetime.
They should just honestly realize what they have, and just come together, appreciate themselves as best they can, in their new reformed state. Maybe it won’t last long, and maybe that’s their fear, but it’s good to try at things in life.
This was a beautiful depiction of a complex and complicated relationship, that might be more common than not. Maybe struggling with despairing marriages that have lost their spark, or never had them are more common than beautiful marriages, which is probably the reality of the world. So many humans live in these deep confused states of despair, where they lead these lives full of dissonance and uncertain emptiness. It’s a bleak reality, but a common one maybe. So many like Marianne’s parents carry on, and try to quiet the insanity instead of addressing it. You just don’t know how to approach confusion. Most people aren’t brought up with the tools of understanding the beautiful foundation of life. Just indoctrinated in a world of masked confusions, playing the role of the masks you were given even if it doesn’t fit you in the slightest. Many people don’t know how to interact and act off their intuition that would scream otherwise, or maybe it’s just not a loud enough voice or signal for them. Many experience a passion or spirit atrophy probably. Where their chance of the beautiful profound and awe that we all kind of expect from life, those chances dwindle. Many never get to those climaxes and peaks. Many get to the other side of the road in the short time left in life and age, where it feels like that’s it, that’s what life is all about, this nothingness, this was deeply & sadly underwhelming. I thought there was going to be a lot more, more beauty, more sparks, more meanings & understanding, but this is it. That’s the bleak complex reality of so many. At least for Marianne & Johan, they can be in each other’s arms, In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House Somewhere in the World, providing each other this close warmth.
Scenes From A Marriage Review