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Nursed Love

Watched The Phantom Thread recently. The characters may not be average but the complications of the relationships are such that the average person can relate. In a healthy relationship there is smooth and easy back and forth transition of power. One person does not hold it the entire time but they get their fair and equitable turn. Things turn unhealthy when the transitions are no longer painless and without struggle - when power grows in one person at the cost of their partner whose only role in the relationship is to cede it. The greater the skew and unfairness the higher the level of toxicity in the relationship.

This story is about all that and yet how equilibrium is forced in the situation is rather unique. It reminded me of my cousin R who is only a few years older than me and had been bedridden for years - a tragedy the family wants to look away from because no one has a solution for what ails her. The husband oscillates between caregiving and ignoring her. We have to wonder if it is compassion fatigue or if he just an unkind person who has been exposed in his true colors given the conditions.

This has been the pattern they have established for over a decade now - sometimes the doting partner concerned about everything and then the mentally and physically absent one who cannot be reached even in crisis. Somehow that unpredictable tension keeps their marriage in balance in ways no one but they can understand. Unfortunately R and her husband are not the only couple I know where some variation of this theme plays out in the relationship - hers is just at the extreme end of the spectrum. 

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