![\"The](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/84\/2015\/02\/The-Last-5-Years-Movie.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhen I hosted a party to watch\u00a0The Last 5 Years<\/em>, one of my guests tried to play diagnose-the-heresy with the two leads and claimed that they were both Pelagians, seeing happiness\/success\/virtue as simply a result of their own efforts. \u00a0I disagreed for several reasons, the most important being that I think Pelagians think that a good life is\u00a0harder<\/em> to achieve than either Jamie or Cathy does, and that Pelagians see their own weakness as the primary obstacle to their salvation, while Jamie and Cathy are focused on dealing with external obstacles.<\/p>\n I get the impression that Jamie and Cathy feel,\u00a0to borrow from another musical<\/a>, that \u201cIf you give me a job, Then the rest of the crap will get solved.\u201d \u00a0Both partners think they\u2019re basically all right in themselves, and that dealing with their\u00a0external<\/em>\u00a0pressures will finally give them the chance, as Jamie says \u201cto be happy \/ at some point down the line \/ Don\u2019t we get to relax?\u201d<\/p>\n As a result, they avoid acknowledging or asking for help with troubles that are rooted in themselves. As a result, the relationship comes off as unbalanced. \u00a0We don\u2019t see Jamie support Cathy in any way besides singing at her and trying to cajole her to believe in herself<\/a>, while Cathy logs hours standing at Jamie\u2019s readings, going to his publisher\u2019s parties, etc. \u00a0Jamie, meanwhile, struggles to make it to Cathy\u2019s summerstock shows in Ohio.<\/p>\n Except, as one of my friends pointed out, we see Cathy offer\u00a0logistical\u00a0<\/em>support to Jamie, sitting through boring parties, but we don\u2019t see her offer\u00a0emotional\u00a0<\/em>support. \u00a0Even if Jamie\u2019s attempts to encourage Cathy are marred by beating around the bush in \u201cStory of Schmuel\u201d<\/a> and anger in \u201cIf I Didn\u2019t Believe In You\u201d<\/a>\u00a0he notices that she\u2019s unhappy and tries to care for her \u2014 there is no parallel song where Cathy does the same for Jamie.<\/p>\n As we kept debating in the living room, several people argued that Jamie just doesn\u2019t\u00a0need<\/em> emotional support from Cathy. \u00a0His artistic career is wildly successful, while hers never really gets started. \u00a0He has, by his own admission<\/a>, a slightly swollen ego, while Cathy is plagued by self-doubt and self-consciousness. \u00a0In this reading of the show, Jamie is doing fine<\/i>; he\u2019s too stable to need much from Cathy himself, and he fails as a lover and a husband by not recognizing and responding to Cathy\u2019s need (perhaps blinded by his own self-sufficiency and good fortune).<\/p>\n But I don\u2019t buy it, because we get one song (\u201cA Miracle Would Happen\u201d) where Jamie is confronting a significant problem:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iuFjT5oeEBw<\/a>\n The miracle that Jamie asking for is to stop being tempted to look at or flirt with or (by the end of the show) sleep with other women. \u00a0He\u00a0wants<\/em> to behave differently, but he treats his temptation as a Jamie\u2019s impulses to stray are, in his mind, unspeakable and unforgivable. \u00a0He can\u2019t mention any of this to his wife, because support within a relationship is, in his understanding, only about things\u00a0outside<\/em> a relationship. \u00a0He can ask Cathy\u2019s help with a professional matter and he can try to help her as long as he frames her problems as\u00a0solely<\/em> personal, about her alone.<\/p>\n This is why I regretted a little the way the movie chose to stage \u201cNobody Needs to Know\u201d the song in which Jamie acts on his temptation. \u00a0In the stage version, it\u2019s generally understood that Jamie has a\u00a0single<\/em> infidelity \u2014 that the song takes place as a single reflection in bed, before the girl he\u2019s slept with has woken up. \u00a0The movie chose to stage it as a time lapse, as a parade of women come in and out of Jamie\u2019s bed.<\/p>\n I like the single error staging better, because it suggests that, if Jamie chooses to end the relationship immediately after betraying it, that he doesn\u2019t see any possible path to forgiveness. \u00a0He can ask his wife to help him\u00a0with\u00a0<\/em>other people (by dressing up and schmoozing) but he doesn\u2019t know how to ask her to help\u00a0him<\/em>. \u00a0Once he gives away that he is the\u00a0cause<\/em> of some of his problems, he doesn\u2019t imagine that Cathy would forgive him or choose him, if she really knew him.<\/p>\n Cathy and Jamie are both capable of allying with their partner, in league against external threats and obstacles, but they lack any expectation that\u00a0sometimes love is an alliance against our own weakness and foibles, where the beloved sees us and, rather than loving us exactly as we are, loves what we could be and our own efforts to grow into something better.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u2019d like to get an early review copy of\u00a0<\/em>Arriving at Amen<\/a>, my forthcoming book on prayer, you can enter the drawing through a link in my book updates email tomorrow<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I hosted a party to watch\u00a0The Last 5 Years, one of my guests tried to play diagnose-the-heresy with the two leads and claimed that they were both Pelagians, seeing happiness\/success\/virtue as simply a result of their own efforts. \u00a0I disagreed for several reasons, the most important being that I think Pelagians think that a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":11141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marriage-2","category-reviewsrecommendations"],"yoast_head":"\nproblem<\/s> challenge to solve on his own; he doesn\u2019t ask Cathy for help\u00a0here<\/em> the way he asks her to stand and smile at his readings.<\/p>\n