The Break-Up

“It's not about doing the things you love, it's about doing things with the one you love!”

That’s what Brooke (Jennifer Aniston) said to Gary (Vince Vaughn) in the movie “The Break-Up”. We’ve all been there. Doing something we don’t really enjoy doing but we still did it anyway because it is something that our significant other loves.

Things like watching his favourite football team playing on the television together with him (even though you are not really crazy about watching 22 grown up men kicking and chasing after one ball or you don’t really fancy the team of his choice) or accompanying her to the hospital to visit her friend who had just given birth.

Why do we do it? The answer is simple. Because we want to be a supportive partner in the relationship. We want to do anything to make our partner happy. That’s what being in a relationship is all about. It’s about making a commitment and sticking to it. It’s about compromising, learning how to give and take and most importantly it’s about learning to live with each other’s idiosyncrasies. That is why you need to watch that game with him to see how he will react when his team looses the game i.e. whether he would sulk and refuse to talk to you the whole night or he would just shrug it off and say “oh well, it wasn’t their night. Life goes on. Let’s watch a midnight movie now”.

That is also why you men need to know when your gf/wife would be having her menses so that you can be more careful and sensitive to her feelings as that is the time when she is most sensitive and moody.

There was one part in the movie where after dinner, Brooke and Gary got into a fight about Gary’s desire or lack of it to do the dishes. Brooke got upset because Gary didn’t want to offer to do the dishes but instead only wanted to do it because Brooke had asked him to do it.

She said something like, “I want you to do the dishes because you want to do it, not because I had asked you to do it”.

Some may think it is a trivial matter but I bet you if you had asked some of the married women who had faced this kind of argument before then you would know it is not as trivial as it can escalate to something even more serious.

Women want to be romanced and appreciated when they do something special for their bf/husb. When she cooks your favourite dish after coming back from work, the least you could do was say “thank you”. You don’t need to buy her flowers everyday to show her your appreciation (once a year on her birthday will do just fine). We can’t be telling you all the time we want you to say “thank you” now, do we? I know we can’t expect you to read out minds but how hard is it to show your appreciation to someone you love for doing something nice for you. I know a friend of mine who sends flowers to his wife every month with a simple note that says, “Happy January”, “Happy February”, so on and so forth. She is of course envied by all the women at her office.

There is nothing spectacular about the movie “The Break-Up”. But as you are watching the movie, you will be reminded of every single fights you ever had with your partner, it is all so dejavu-ish and surreal. Exchange of words like,

“How come we always do what you wanna do and never do what I wanna do?” or

“Why can’t you just tell me this to my face instead of expecting me to read your mind?” or

“I am tired of being the only one who is trying to work things out in this relationship” or

“I just want you to say “thank you”. Is that too much to ask?”

I think every couple should watch the movie. Or rather anyone who has ever been in or out of love should watch this movie. At least you would have a general idea on how Aniston must have suffered when Brad Pitt left her for Jolie and broke her heart to pieces.