New Bogus Term: Martyr Complex

Did you ever cut yourself? Burn yourself? Push yourself so hard that you passed out? Stayed quiet when you were in pain? Kept your mouth shut when the truth should have come out? Does that make you a martyr? Maybe, maybe not.

I see Martyrs in the two main characters of the film "Sleeping With the Enemy" which was based on a book, and most of the fans of the book state the book was better. Julia Roberts plays the wife and because she's one of America's sweethearts, the husband looks like a terrible villain. They were both villians, in my opinion, and both martyrs. That's why I say marriage and room mate compromise sucks. It sucks. If you have your own place, you are not a martyr. If you have to bunk with someone else, you might be. Compromising every single day of your life will make anyone feel like a martyr.

The wife in that story runs away. She changes her name and tries to hide her whereabouts so that her husband doesn't find her. She's terrified of him and she's tired of living under his rules. She just wants to be "free" to be herself. Find her own rhythm without demands. This depiction has been shown in other movies as well, like the wife played by Stockard Channing in the "To Wong Fu" movie. It happens too often. But for the sake of marrige, country, honor, duty, and faith in God, we stay with it much much longer than we should. Sometimes there is no where to go. Sometimes there is no option, which was discussed in Kate Chopin's "The Awakening". Edna tried to escape her "martyr" life, but saw that every road just led back to it. That's why she committed suicide, and that's why the book was banned for so long. How can America be America if we all say, "Marriage sucks!" ???

Compromise is the cross. Julia as the wife resented her husband's OCD. She didn't want to put the cans on the shelf like a stock boy. Her husband resented her aversion to that. He didn't want to spend a half hour looking for a can of peas when he wanted some. There was no way to compromise on that and so as the wife, she had to bend, because it was his house even though she was cooking the meals. His house? But not her kitchen? In the bedroom, she had to f him with the same creepy music on. She didn't get to pick the music, even though she made the bed every day and washed the linens. His house? But not her bedroom?

Yet even if he had given her the whole house and let her be the absolute Queen of it all, he would not have stayed with her. She would have been in that big house all by herself. Again, there was no compromise. He would not have been happy with HER WAY, and she was not happy with HIS WAY.

So she runs away. That's got to be the answer right? We can both be happy if we're not together. Edna tried the same thing.

Who showed up next? The boy next door. What did he want? To be her husband. To tell her what to do. Remember when she dropped the apples? Deal or no deal? Is that a game of compromise? She said, No deal.

Then her husband found her and what did he say? "If I can't have you, no one can." I think my mom said that to me like this: "I made you and I can take you out." Yeah, it's quite scary.

But the boy next door kills the husband, because he wants to be the husband. Really that's just like Jim Morrison's song about Eudipus: "Father, I want to kill you. Mother, I want to f you." Yeah, Women, we've been f'd since the beginning of time. America promised to save us, but I suppose there's no escaping the curse from the Garden.