why we romanticize past relationships
What lessons have you learned about how a love story should unfold? Most of us learned what our culture says a love story should be by watching movies and TV shows or reading books. And most of us have learned time and again that what we were taught doesn’t pan out. I’ve mentioned before that I’m pretty particular about romcoms because I don’t want a clichéd story. I want nuance and realism in the relationship, even if the film itself is fanciful. I don’t want to keep being taught the same false lesson about what love is supposed to be.
Today’s film – Past Lives directed by Celine Song – is not a clichéd story. It explores something many of us experience but don’t always name: the tendency to romanticize past relationships. It’s almost an un-fairytale. It’s quite romantic, and it’s also very sad and real and full of complex feelings. It doesn’t leave us with easy answers or a clear lesson. If you’ve ever wondered why a past relationship can feel more meaningful than the one you’re in – or why it’s so hard to let go of someone from your past – you might really connect with this story. Spoilers abound, so take care.
the ballad of na young & hae sung
Past Lives is the story of an epic love that reaches across time and space, connecting two individuals: Na Young and Hae Sung. Na Young and Hae Sung were each other’s first loves, growing up together in South Korea. When Na Young is 12, she and her family emigrate to Canada, and she begins going by her new name, Nora.
Many years later, the pair reconnect and spend hours talking with each other through video calls. Nora realizes it’s not a relationship she can continue because it’s keeping her from living the life around her, as a writer in New York City. They stop speaking, and it’s more than a decade before Hae Sung visits New York, ostensibly for vacation, but in reality, to see Na Young.
This reconnection, in person for the first time in 24 years, is not the turning point in their story it seems: Nora is now happily married to a partner she loves.
why we romanticize past relationships
One of the more interesting parts of being a therapist is that in the safe, insulated space of the therapy room, my clients can have conversations – real conversations – about the lack of simplicity in their relationships. For so long, we’ve all been told a story that falling in love simplifies everything. In reality, the relative simplicity of our lives is uncorrelated to whether we’ve found our person.
It’s like once the door closes and it’s just us in the therapy room, finally we can start wondering if we’ve been sold a fantasy. We have, we all know it. But I think there’s also a small and significant part of us that sits with a felt sense of truth that fairytales are real. It’s hard to say which is worse: that fairytales are just that – a fairytale. Or is it worse that they might be real? Because if they are, why the hell hasn’t mine worked out yet? Am I doing something wrong?
inyeon: the role of fate in our relationships
Past Lives, to me, felt like it was asking us to let the simplicity of fairytale die by sharing the story of a fairytale romance that never comes to be. The Buddhist concept of inyeon comes up several times in this film, which Nora says “means providence or fate, but it’s specifically about relationships between people.” She goes on to say, “If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of inyeon over 8,000 lifetimes.”
The day Arthur and Nora meet, and the day that Arthur first learns of inyeon.
Interestingly, in this scene, she is talking to Arthur – her future husband – on the day they first meet. Despite the backstory between Nora and Hae Sung, Arthur is no minor character. When Hae Sung visits New York, Arthur names his own role if this story were a traditional fairytale: “Childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later only to realize they were meant for each other….In the story I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny.”
This reflection is one of the most emotionally poignant scenes in Past Lives. Arthur must process what it’s like to be her husband and have the knowledge that the story of their meeting is so ordinary compared to that between Nora and Hae Sung. He has a sense of loss about it. No anger at Nora or Hae Sung. But clearly hurt and tenderness.
the difference between history & compatibility
Arthur’s observations about the difference between his relationship with Nora and that of Na Young and Hae Sung created a mental image for me, stacking the two relationships up against each other.
the impact of a shared past
Something about the past often calls to us. When it comes to love, having a shared history lends a relationship a sense of gravitas and legitimacy that a newer one can’t compete with. But only if we’re using a fairytale lens. It’s easy to romanticize a past relationship that only lives in memory because everyday life hasn’t had the chance to complicate it.
Our history matters. It formed us and brought us to where we are now. But it can only define so much because life continues on, and who we are continues to change and grow. Na Young and Hae Sung have no future together. The version of Na Young who stayed in Korea and never became Nora is the person Hae Sung loves, and she lives in his past. Taking a step back, the only thing the relationship between Na Young and Hae Sung has going for it is a beautiful backstory. And unfortunately, a beautiful backstory does not a relationship make.
a different kind of fairytale
The concept of inyeon is what turns the western understanding of a fairytale on its head in this story. Our western sensibilities – shaped by romcoms, Jane Austen, and Disney – tend to have a much more shortsighted view of happily-ever-after. Through the lens of inyeon, it is Arthur and Nora whose marriage is the fairytale. They’ve been through 8,000 lifetimes to finally marry each other. And this version of happily-ever-after carries with it the depth and nuance that I love in a romance.
Na Young and Hae Sung bid each other farewell, a deeply felt end to an important and meaningful connection
After Na Young walks Hae Sung to his Uber, their final farewell as he returns home to Seoul, Nora finds Arthur waiting for her on her stoop. In this moment she finally allows her reconnection overwhelm her, and Arthur holds her, walking her back inside, while she cries over Hae Sung.
what it means to make room for reality in love
Our willingness to accept that a loving, stable partnership may sometimes include comforting our spouse when their childhood love leaves them means our relationships feel more resilient and safe. But it also means we must accept that our relationships aren’t happily-ever-after in the way we’ve been told they should be. There will be ways we cannot comprehend what our partner is going through. There will be times that our partner’s other love stories impact our own. There will be times our partner’s experiences completely exclude us. Can we – like Arthur – make room for this?
