How Many Kristen Wiigs Are There?

Kristen Wiig

Bridesmaids

I'm probably the last person to see Bridesmaids.   

Quick  therapydoc  synopsis:

Annie (Kristen Wiig) has a relationship with a man who tells her, after a night of serious hard work in bed, that he wants her out of his apartment toute de suite.
It is morning.   It is against the rules, sleeping over.

She knows the rules, and she knows who makes them.

Right away we have a problem.  Annie is creative, she's smart.  She looks like Meg Ryan, but is so much funnier.  She shouldn't have trouble finding a man who will treat her right.

It's a trite theme.  Girl in her thirties tries to please a guy who isn't good enough for her, who treats her badly.  It is a friends with benefits relationship. Even Annie would say that the benefits don't outweigh the emotional costs, a rich-boyfriend-who-uses-her-for-sex versus always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

But she hangs on, probably because she doesn't want other people to think she's always alone, a definitive loser. At least that's what my patients tell me, and there are many like Annie in therapy.  To her credit, she's taking some control because indeed, she doesn't want to be alone. Not every. .  single. .  night.  She wants someone she thinks of as her boyfriend.  She wants someone to love her.

We call it settling.  Something's better than nothing-- the rule, not the exception in relationships.  And let's talk-- many a woman would settle for a man who looks half as good as Jon Hamm.  But this is the movies and most of them don't.

In reality, men are treated poorly in relationships, too.
Being a guy doesn't prevent a significant other from walking all over a person, the wishes and needs of the other ascendant, superseding their own.  It isn't gender-specific, self-denial.  The denier feels powerless, pathetic.

Not an unusual topic in therapy. Therapists, like friends, want to shake the patient, who tends to be among the good people in the world, a sincerely giving individual.  We want to scream, The best is yet to come!  Ditch him!  Ditch her!   Easy for us to say.  Tempting, but inappropriate.  Not our call to make.  More powerful coming from the patient.  We'll get there, give it time.

So of course you want to take a look at the family of origin.  Who raised Annie?

Her mom (perfection, Jill Clayburgh) goes to AA meetings and sponsors alcoholics even though she doesn't drink.  She never did.  What's up with this?  Why not Al Anon, go to meetings with people who have to deal with people who use?

We can assume that people in Jill's family did drink, and that Annie's mother got very comfortable in the fixing role, the helping role.  Alcoholics need a lot of help (read Dry, but Augusten Burrows, if you haven't already).  Annie's mom is that woman who can't give up the rescue role (co-dependent), who loves to see a down and outer get off the sauce, needs to be a part of it.  She desperately wants to be involved in the sobriety of others. A talented artist, she can lose herself in her healthy coping strategy.  Annie is artistic, too, there's clearly some transference.  But Annie isn't out there fixing an alcoholic.  She is the addict, and the drug isn't alcohol.

Mom adores Annie and Annie loves her mom, knows she can come home any time.  And  when Annie hits bottom, desperately trying to help her friend Lillian, the bride, she does.  She comes home, penniless.

Did Annie watch her mother do everything for her father with very little, maybe nothing in return?

I think so.    Seeing your mom in that selfless, co-dependent, giving role, it has to wear off on you, especially if she is as wonderful and as entertaining as Annie's.  She's so good, so selfless.

Says it all, don't you think?

Annie is chosen as Lillian's Maid of Honor and she wants to make everything wonderful for the bride, beginning with the bachelorette party, the shower, a dinner to celebrate.  Her wacky blunders are probably the movie's draw for most people.  The film is a comedy of errors, everything Annie does, a disaster.  We like her more for her incompetency, of course, and because she's so naturally funny.   Lillian can depend upon Annie to make her laugh. Most people who know her probably do.

That's a role in an alcoholic family, too, being a clown.  Somebody has to clown around, make everyone laugh, so that nobody has to look at the problem:  Dad's a drunk, not funny.  Somebody do something funny, please!  Distract us.

I love a good movie about co-dependency.  This one worked for me on that level, much more than as a comedic film.   I really didn't need to see that first scene, how hard Annie works to sexually satisfy a guy who will never work that hard for her at anything.  It is a stellar example of co-dependence.

You give, but you don't get back, and you'll settle for that.
It's what you're used to seeing in the family or origin, you can bet on it.

therapydoc  

Rubberband

November 2007 I wrote about the casual relationship, otherwise known as friends with benefits. Thanks to a recent comment, we're getting back to it. To do this I am recommending you also watch a new video, PG for those of you who worry, the first and perhaps last video featuring a therapydoc who poses as me, of all people, on the Everyone Needs Therapy YouTube Channel.

The video requires a post in and of itself, so you'll have to wait a bit for more about the casual relationship and the inherent problems of these dyads. First, a foundation.

Rubberband theory is a way of thinking about relationships that has been around for as old as time. If your mother recommended that you play hard to get, she has an intuitive understanding of the psychological process inherent in the theory, a part of it.

Relationships aren't games, however, and there is no need to play games with people. Intimacy can be fun, but frankly, it is psychological work. Just try to make it a game of it. Go for it..

Rubberband theory is discussed in books (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus for one) and on blogs, but is much older than we are, for I learned it at the Center for Family Studies/Family Institute of Chicago a decade before John Gray's publication made all the noise, and we're grateful that he did, by the way. Do read his book about planets.

The theory here, the one that I learned, is that

(a) people need people, most of us do
(b) we also need individual space, uninterrupted psychological space in which to think, to live our lives; time to be creative, to work and to relax, all by ourselves
(c) most relationships start somehow and succeed when the needs of two people for psychological space match.

This often explains why parents tend to suffocate teenagers when they breathe within close proximity. A physics major might explain it better, but the needs just don't match.

But let's talk about love and being in a "relationship" that is intimate, although the theory underlies all relationships, parent-child, employer-employee, teacher-student, brother-sister, etc.

We start out as people attracted to one another and subtly negotiate how often we'll talk, get together in vivo, in person. Maybe it's a first date and one of us can't wait for the other to call, to initiate time together. When I met FD (a random meeting at a student union) he asked me for my phone number, but I wouldn't give it to him until he confirmed that he would call, not crumble it up and throw it away. My need for space at the time wasn't sufficiently broad enough to allow, say, a week to go by without hearing from him. He called within forty seconds, not a dumb guy.

You have to know yourself and your needs and be true to them.

So here you are, knowing you need someone in your life and somehow someone pops up, seems to be interested in playing this role. I've Finally Found Someone is in your head, and Bryan Adams, for whatever reason, is singing with Barbara Streisand.

And it's going well until one of you needs more space. The one who needs more space will just take it, usually, for there are no real chains, no leashes in relationships. No one can force anyone else to be with them, to communicate, make love, or even play. And when the person who needs space is gone too long, other songs, angry or sad songs become the songs of the day.

But not necessarily. Emotionally mature people realize that the center of life, the focus of a partner, a significant other, even a friend, cannot be, should not be, themselves. Life is about living, doing, giving, creating, learning, working, that sort of thing. This is not to say that a person shouldn't have a primary relationship, a Number One "go to" person. Having one a relationship like that is very nice if you can get it. Not everyone can get it, however, and we don't roll over and die because we are alone.

Or lonely. We shouldn't, at least.

So surely distance can be frustrating if you're in a relationship that you see as primary, loving, and committed, even if that commitment is sealed with only a handshake and a kiss. It is frustrating for both because

one distances, the other chases, then the first has to distance even farther, which is more work for him/her, and the needier partner has to chase again, and this goes on and on and on, and it's exhausting, frankly, psychologically.

A younger, less seasoned therapydoc will suggest what the therapydoc in the video below suggests, that the person who is chasing, who is begging for more time, more attention, should back off already. Give the space.

Be generous with time and space. This is the gift worth giving and is so appreciated that it truly buys love and gratitude from a psychological-space- craving partner.

The seasoned therapydoc, however, will get a couple like this into therapy and the subtext is different. Sure, we all need space, but the ideal, the most satisfying dynamic in relationships, really is intimacy. Although our hobbies, our jobs, our friends and our other needs for self-actualization are elemental to feeling good about life, it is intimacy with another that becomes a foundation, ultimately, for psychological security and serenity.

Humans are a lot like ducks.

We all need our support system at the end of the day, or maybe the end of life. Thus the therapeutic mission is about getting happy inside the smaller rubberband, not the other way around, and adapting to different sizes. Over time both of us are going to change. And both of us will need to accommodate to it.

This is the best reason, by the way, this theory, for tying the knot, being committed body and soul to one person, one person who will be around when you need someone to bring you tea. Your will need tea.

With sincere, non-accusatory, empathetic communication, all of this adapting business becomes less hard. It is what relationship therapy is all about.

Now, the video. The video is insufficient, of course, because it panders to the intuition and advice of less-than-seasoned therapists who recommend that if you give enough space to your partner that you will live happily ever after. Surely you know that not everyone lives happily ever after.

Not every relationship problem is even about psychological space.

You might say that one of the on-going jobs of relationships is finding the right amount of space, preferably the kind we experience when we first fall in love, the boing-y kind with the right amount of intimacy, the right amount of tension. But when in doubt, shoot for cozying up in a smaller, not a bigger rubberband.

Okay, here you go.



therapydoc