When Love Is Not Enough

I finished watching A Woman Under the Influence and one word has stayed with me:

Unequipped.

Mabel’s family loves her. Nick loves her. Her children love her. And yet they have so little understanding of what is happening to her, and so few tools to respond.

They are unequipped.

That is what I found most painful.

Pain is expressed through behavior. The behavior frightens or hurts someone. They react from their own fear, anger or helplessness. That reaction creates more pain. Nobody quite understands what the other is experiencing. Nobody knows how to interrupt the cycle.

Pain. Inability to express it. Reaction. More pain. Guilt. Tenderness. A return to normal. And then it begins again.

There is love throughout all of this. That may be the hardest part.

Love can be something I feel, but loving is something I do—and to love someone well, I have to understand what they need.

We can feel enormous love for someone and still fail to listen, or try desperately to help while doing the very thing that makes them feel more alone.

Nick wants Mabel to be all right. He wants to protect her, protect the children, protect their family. But he doesn’t know how. His fear becomes anger. His protection becomes control. His love sometimes becomes something Mabel has to survive.

He loves her. But he doesn’t know how to love her.

And Mabel cannot give words to what is happening inside her.

Again and again, everyone seems to be asking her to behave differently when perhaps what she needs first is for someone to understand what she is trying to say.

One sentence keeps returning to me:

“Daddy, will you stand up for me?”

It is such a simple plea.

Someone please see me.

Someone please listen.

Someone please be on my side.

Not necessarily because I am right, but because I am struggling.

And then there are the children.

They are there through all of it. Watching. Listening. Learning.

What do children learn about love when love and fear live in the same room? What happens to feelings that nobody helps them name? How much of what they witness will they carry into their own relationships?

And then, after everything that has happened, Mabel and Nick tidy the room.

They prepare their bed. They get ready to sleep together.

Life returns to normal, except nothing has really been resolved.

That ending felt so real. Haven’t we all done this in one way or another? Pushed what hurts under the carpet, put everything back in its place, said we love each other, and carried on.

Until the pain finds another way out.

We have come a long way since the time depicted in this film in understanding mental health, trauma and family dynamics. We have words and knowledge that many families simply did not have.

And yet people are still unequipped in so many ways. But we are learning.

And perhaps understanding has to begin with ourselves. If we don’t understand our own fears, needs and reactions, how can we understand what belongs to the other person and what belongs to us?

We cannot completely enter another person’s mind. We cannot always fix what hurts them. Sometimes we don’t even know what questions to ask.

But we can learn to notice ourselves before reacting.

To listen before answering.

To ask instead of assuming.

To try to understand what is underneath the behavior—theirs and ours—before responding.

And perhaps this is where my earlier thought—understand before judging—needs to go one step further.

Understanding is not only an alternative to judgment.

It is also part of learning how to love.

Because loving someone and understanding them are not always the same thing.

And sometimes love needs listening before it knows what to do.