Hockey Wives: Season 1, Episode 7
This episode was a little more freeform than the last one. We saw a few women together, but for the most part, this episode was focused on women and their partners as Christmas approaches. My favorite reviewers from The National Post were entertaining again this week, although I didn't directly connect any of their points to the rest of this entry
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Oooh, interesting point about Brandon treating her the way figure skating coaches would. I hadn't thought about that at all. She might find it familiar if it's the same kind of thing. Although that makes it disturbing in another sense - coach-athlete is a dynamic with a huge power differential that you really don't want to replicate in a healthy partnership/marriage. Maripier seems like she learned about relationships from romantic comedies and bad women's magazines, which made more sense to me when I found out she lived away from home (and not, it sounds like, with billets like hockey players do which at least gives you some other exposure to adult relationships) for her teenage years.
Tests: SO WRONG. They've been together for five years (although I saw some discussion on Twitter about how he was publicly dating someone else three years ago or so, so maybe it's been off and on) and living together for at least two assuming they moved in together when he came to Montreal, which does seem like enough time to know most of what they need to know. And if there are other things they need to know before making that kind of commitment, that is a thing they should talk about, not play mind games around.
The godparent thing: I think you really hit on all the reasons why it doesn't seem to symbolize what she thinks it does. In a previous episode she tells Tiffany that she would be happy if Brandon proposed because it would mean he wanted to commit to her. I expect that's the piece she wants out of a proposal. This is where I think Tiffany's comment from the last episode that the fights don't go away just because you're married is really good advice. Maripier seems insecure in her relationship - both in the things she's said about being jealous and in her obsession with Brandon making some kind of commitment to their life together - but I don't think a proposal would actually fix that. I mean, they already have an apartment, a dog, and a restaurant together, and that's not making her feel secure. And she herself said in an interview, "If you want to cheat, whether you're a hockey player or a teacher, you're going to cheat." If Brandon wants to cheat on her or leave her, a wedding ring isn't going to stop him. Her trust, jealousy, and insecurity issues aren't going to go away if they get married.
You have such a good point about the framing! Maripier said in an interview after the first two eps aired, "I kind of got mad at them. I was like, 'You can't make me look like something that I'm not.' I'm not looking to get married next year or in two years or in three years." But it's not like they're making this whole thing up; she and Brandon are having these conversations, and she is saying these things to the camera. If she didn't want this to be part of how she's portrayed, she should have had different conversations in front of the cameras - it's not like she doesn't know they're there. I think she maybe doesn't see how awful her relationship looks from the outside (and of course she's getting something out of it, and sometimes it's good). Really, watching her and Brandon feels so much like a Captain Awkward letter. I keep hoping the outside perspective of the show is either going to make her see it differently or make other people she might listen to when they express their concerns see it differently.
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