I guess I’m a bit like Belle- maybe way more forgiving than I ought to be.
Believe it or not, (because just about everything RG said in this thread, or says in any thread these days has me nodding my head thinking, “PREACH IT SISTER”), I’m the same.
Years ago a friend was drawing up my birth chart for me, calculating everything and looking up her text books, and every now and then she’d write something down and just shake her head and laugh because it was so me. One of those things was that I give people the benefit of the doubt way too easily, give them far more chances than they deserve. It hadn’t really occurred to me before then, but it’s totally what I do. At that point in time it was my ex-husband, who had left me in quite an insensitive way, (nothing says “see ya later” like an email from interstate on the eve on the 10th anniversary of the day you met, and then refusing to take my calls after the fact), but I didn’t rage about him to anyone, I didn’t even really badmouth him, (even though I would have been justified to do so), because what if by chance things somehow turned around, and that couldn’t happen if I’d talked all the smack about him. Nope, I just went on quietly wearing my wedding rings and hoping for some sorta miracle. And that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t raging and destroyed inside, but part of me still refused to give up on it all because I always give people all the chances, even when they may not really deserve it. A day came when I accidentally whacked the knuckle of my ring finger (and only my ring finger) on a door frame and had to yank the rings off immediately before it swelled up, (whacked it so hard I couldn’t straighten that finger for a few years after). It was quite clearly some force of the universe telling me, “Take the freaking rings off already!” But because I’m me, I just started wearing them on my other hand instead, and did so until he actually filed for divorce (here you have to be separated for a whole year before either party can file for divorce).
With this show, I got involved in a relationship with it, and believed in it, and we had some seriously fun and inspirational times together. The “ring I exchanged” with it is still on my finger, and maybe the “divorce” moment will be when the show ends and until then I’ll keep holding out for some sorta miracle, giving the showrunners neverending chances to win me back. So in that sense I guess I haven’t learned my lesson, but hey, it’s just how I roll.
But this time it’s not just me feeling heartbroken, there are many of us (not just on this forum) who feel the same sense of betrayal in the relationship, and perhaps that’s why I can call it out and vent and rage about it this time around, because all of us are like a support system for each other and it’s comforting to know that we’re not alone, and letting it out is better than keeping it in and letting it fester. Not all of us are at the same place, some of us are still watching, some of us aren’t watching but still haven’t disconnected completely, others just dropped the show like a hot potato and want nothing more to do with it. Everyone deals with relationship problems differently. And everyone has different aspects of a relationship that they prioritise, different limits, different opinions of what’s tolerable and what isn’t. Each of us, for better or worse, has their own unique relationship with the show, and has the right to react to it however we see fit, even if unfortunately it’s in a negative way.