What do you think happened that caused them to drift apart like that? What could have happened that made John say that "Paul hurt him the most"? And why, judging by the dynamics of the songs, does it seem like everything happened the other way around, like Paul is in the broken-hearted position (Dear Boy), while John is in the apologetic position at the end?
I think about this a lot, along with Allen Klein saying that John told him that every time he let his guard down with Paul, "Paul would hurt him". It's hard to make full sense of all of that, but this is my interpretation, as I've expanded on a couple of times before, and I know not everyone agrees with it. But based on everything I’ve read, many things point to the idea that John wanted a life in which his romantic partner and his creative partner were the same person, in a way that wasn’t hidden or relegated to the side. Even if he knew that such a relationship couldn’t be openly lived out with Paul in that world, I think he still hoped for something closer to what they had in 1967: him living on and off at Paul’s house (or even full time) and with Paul not committing fully to anyone else. John never seemed to mind Paul casually dating—he liked Francie, he liked Maggie—but he clearly struggled if a relationships became serious. I think John wanted Paul to remain unmarried, without the pull of a conventional family life, and to keep John as his primary emotional bond. John himself admitted that he was deeply jealous, so I could see him not wanting to "share" Paul with somebody else. It’s also significant that homosexuality was decriminalized in the UK in 1967. I think that moment gave John hope: that maybe they could continue as they were, or even deepen their bond, without legal consequences. But only a few months later, Paul became engaged to Jane. Yet everything suggests that Paul’s heart wasn’t fully in that engagement. Paul himself later said that after dating for so long, they just felt like they had to either marry or break it off. His family loved Jane, and there was a lot of social pressure. At the same time, in interviews throughout the 60s, Paul repeatedly said he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to settle down. Yet remaining unmarried would only intensify rumors about his sexuality, which by the way, were circulating at the time. As Ringo once said, if you weren’t seen with a woman, people assumed you were queer. Paul himself once snapped, “You think I’m a 26-year-old queer who’s never going to get married?” John, however, didn’t want Paul to give in to that pressure. John had a profound fear of abandonment. He even told someone that he felt he needed Paul more than Paul needed him.
This fear comes through very clearly in John’s 1971 rant, when he was asked about his problems with Paul. Instead of focusing on business disputes, changing band dynamics, or creative disagreements, John went on a deeply emotional tirade about how Paul had once chosen him over his father, but that in the end, "it was always a family thing.” He contrasted this with Linda, saying that she understood what Paul wanted and "has given it to him: the complete family life.” The anger in his words is palpable. That rant tells me that what truly hurt John wasn’t business problems or creative differences: it was the feeling that Paul ultimately chose conventional family life over him. If that weren’t the core wound, John wouldn’t have fixated on it so intensely. Yes, John became serious with Yoko before Paul became serious with Linda. And he even slept with Yoko before the trip to NY. But Paul’s engagement to Jane happened before John’s relationship with Yoko. That looming fear—that Paul would eventually leave him for marriage and family—seems to have been building over time. That’s why it’s hard to identify a single breaking point. It wasn’t one event; it was a slow unraveling driven by John’s fear of abandonment. This is why John later told Fred Seaman that Paul had given him "a sense of stability", but that once Yoko entered his life, he felt he had to “cut himself loose.” It’s possible John thought: He’s going to leave me eventually, so I’ll leave first. That also helps explain why John made his relationship with Yoko so publicly demonstrative. I don’t doubt that John loved Yoko, but I do think part of that openness was meant to provoke Paul—to force a reaction. Francie later said that whenever John visited Paul, "all he talked about was how much he loved Yoko", which "disturbed Paul." I don’t think that was accidental; it felt like a provocation. Despite noticing how jealous Paul was, John likely felt that Paul didn’t really “fight” for him (something he actually had done earlier on with Stu), which hurt him even more. Maybe he thought Paul didn’t love him enough.
John himself later said that one of the great things about his relationship with Yoko was that his best friend "could hold him without—". He even stopped himself mid-sentence while saying it. He talked about living together, being creative partners, holding hands, going to bed together every night. That sounds to me like the life he may have wanted with Paul, at least in an ideal world. Not necessarily openly, but committed—without Paul marrying someone else. In a world where homosexuality wasn’t stigmatized, that they could be openly affectionate without worrying what others would say. I believe John would have wanted to live with Paul as both his romantic and creative partner (and I don’t think Paul was fully against that either, he just knew that wasn't possible during the time period they were living in). John wanted what Cynthia described as "the closest thing to a male partner", but embodied in a woman—a point echoed by Peter Brown and Magic Alex. We see this clearly in John’s comments about Yoko: that she was "like a mate", that she looked "like a man in drag", that she fulfilled both an emotional and a creative roles, as well as being his public romatic partner. Which is basically what John originally wanted with Paul—not necessarily something public, but something committed, exclusive, and emotionally primary. I genuinely struggle to find any other explanation for the depth of his pain. I can’t imagine Paul intentionally doing something unbelievably cruel to John (because “no one hurt me like Paul did” suggests an injury of extraordinary magnitude) and I can’t think of anything else that would have hurt John so profoundly. The pain didn't seem to be about a single, concrete action; it was about loss—about realizing the relationship was never going to be what he wanted it to be. Which is why he later told Fred Seaman that he believed his relationship with Paul was a "romantic illusion."
And yes, Paul felt rejected. He later described their breakup as being “like two men scorned" in a marriage, instead of a man and a woman. Both felt rejected in their own way. That’s why so many of Paul’s songs feel like the voice of someone who’s been left behind, with Oh! Darling being a prime example. I can imagine John telling Paul,"I don't need you anymore!", like the songs says (maybe that's why Paul avoids that song so much. He never sings it and never talks about it. It's painful). But Paul likely understood that the relationship they had with John (or what John wanted it to be) wasn’t sustainable in the society they lived in. That’s probably why he never discarded the idea of settling down and getting married, even though he was deeply ambivalent about it and knew it would change his relationship with John. He got cold feet with Jane (he said it suddenly scared him) and with Linda. I think part of the reason it took Paul so long to get married was because of his relationship with John (alongside, of course, his desire to preserve his “freedom” and bachelor life). Right before marrying Linda, he was in deep distress. He cried at Maggie’s house—not really because he wanted to be with her instead, but because he knew that marriage would permanently alter his relationship with John. I’m basing this partly on Maggie’s own perception, as relayed to me by someone who spoke directly to her. Another factor is that Paul wanted children, as Maggie said. John himself seemed to understand this, telling Allen Klein, “Paul treasures things like children. It would take him more time [to leave Linda].”
John’s comment to Fred Seaman that his relationship with Paul was a “romantic illusion” has always haunted me. It's like he's saying that it felt real at the time, but John later felt betrayed by his own expectations. He believed it was going somewhere, and when it didn’t, he reinterpreted it as a mere illusion. That lens has also made me reconsider the song Girl. I never took seriously the idea that it might relate to Paul until I remembered that phrase, “romantic illusion.” Lyrics like “She promises the Earth to me and I believe her. After all this time, I don’t know why” feel deeply personal—about a long-standing relationship that promises more than it can give. It doesn’t fit Cynthia, and it doesn’t feel hypothetical. It sounds like someone staying because of love, even while knowing the relationship is going nowhere. I’m not saying all the lyrics are literal, but the emotional core feels unmistakable. John himself said he had to “cut himself loose” from Paul, which also echoes the line, “When I think of all the times I try so hard to leave her…”
Everything points to a profoundly codependent relationship. John said Paul gave him stability. People around them consistently said their bond was stronger than their respective, official romantic relationships. And when John pulled away first, Paul was devastated. His behavior in 1968 reflects that heartbreak. Suddenly, Paul felt a "desperate" need to settle down, as Maggie observed, even though he hadn’t felt that rush before. Seeing John with Yoko pushed him to seek stability elsewhere, just as John had done with Yoko when he felt Paul would eventually "leave" him. Which is why Paul said both they "spurred each other into marriage." What Yoko told Philip Norman also fits in, in some ways. Even though I don’t believe Yoko truly thought John’s feelings were one-sided—and she had a few reasons to frame it that way—what her comment suggests is that she understood John wanted "an affair with Paul", and that it didn’t happen, or at least not in the way he wanted. She seemed to grasp that this unfulfilled desire was at the root of John’s anger toward Paul, an anger she herself struggled to understand. Personally, I believe John and Paul did have a relationship, but not one that could fully exist openly or evolve into something more secure. So the problem was that the “affair” didn’t happen in the way John wanted (not that there was no affair to begin with). And the quote itself is also muddled, because Philip Norman added his own words and interpretations, something he later admitted to, including inserting the phrase “immovable heterosexuality” to describe Paul when trying to make sense of why the “affair” didn’t take place. We will never know exactly what Yoko said. What I take from it instead is this: John wanted something more committed with Paul (though not necessarily publicly) and he either realized it wasn’t going to happen or knew it never truly could—because of the era they lived in and because he knew Paul was ultimately going to marry and build a conventional family. That, to me, is what hurt John most, and that's the source of the anger Yoko noticed. John believed that Paul’s willingness (even though he actually wasn't so willing) to form another primary bond meant that their relationship was going to change forever. And that realization devastated him. What he thought he was seeing was that their relationship was going to always be something secondary or hidden, while Paul having a public, more “acceptable” primary attachment. In that sense, John may have felt foolish or even delusional for believing things could be different. That’s why he later called it a “romantic illusion.”
I also think Paul understood why John pulled away or why their relationship broke down far more than people tend to assume. Many point to Paul’s public interviews, where he appears confused or awkward when asked about the breakup, not knowing the source of John's anger and pain, as evidence that he had no idea what went wrong. But of course Paul wouldn’t openly articulate the intimate dynamics of their relationship. That’s precisely why his answers often sound evasive or uncomfortable—he can’t explain the truth without revealing too much. If Paul truly had no idea what happened, we would expect to see that confusion reflected in his songwriting—songs asking, What went wrong? What did I do? What happened? But that isn’t what we see. Instead, both John and Paul wrote songs filled with love, feeling of rejection, anger, jealousy, longing, and resentment. Those songs don’t sound baffled; they show awareness. They reflect two people who understood, at least partly, what was happening, even if they couldn’t say it out loud. It’s true that John’s homophobic comments in the early 70s seem to contradict the idea that he would have considered a more committed relationship with Paul. However, I see those comments more as a reactionary distancing from that part of himself, like a form of denial serving as a defense mechanism after being hurt by the end of his relationship with Paul. He didn’t seem nearly as homophobic in 1967, when he was buying and openly wearing pins from gay magazines and when he and Paul were acting like a domestic couple. In 1972 he wrote the poem "Why make it sad to be gay?", and in 1974 he was going often to gay bars, flirting with men and telling them that there "was nothing wrong" with two men exchanging feelings. I just think he went through cycles of denial and acceptance.
In the end, both of them felt rejected. John feared Paul would choose family over him and leave, so he left first. Paul, in turn, was heartbroken by John’s withdrawal and was very jealous of Yoko. He wanted to preserve their relationship, but quietly, privately, on the side, and likely coexisting with his public, female partner (which he wanted/needed for many reasons, including children, social expectations, reducing speculations about his sexuality, stability, and being with someone who could serve as a maternal figure). Both men replaced each other with partners, who also functioned as emotional anchors and, in many ways, maternal figures. Tragically, the kind of relationship John and Paul had couldn’t survive openly in the world they lived in. They both knew that, even if John was partly in denial. We also have to take into account that John didn’t always think or act logically. He was often paranoid and prone to letting his emotions cloud his judgment. That and his fear of abandonment contributed to his rush to commit to Yoko and to his constant fear that Paul was going to leave him (in addition to Paul getting engaged to Jane). As for why John’s songs in the 70s sound apologetic, it may be because he began to think things through more rationally and started to accept that what he wanted their relationship to be was unrealistic at the time. In doing so, he may have come to realize that he had hurt Paul deeply by pulling away. This acceptance may be why they made up so quickly (even if they still had their differences). By 1972, they were talking on the phone for hours, like best friends. If Paul had truly done something, directly and explcily, to hurt John “like no one else,” that wound would not have begun to heal so quickly (though that sense of hurt seems to openly resurface again in the late 70s, but that’s a whole other topic). Paul, on the other hand, seems—judging by his lyrics—to believe that things didn’t have to end the way they did. In “This One,” he asks, “What kind of magic might have worked if we had stayed calm? Couldn’t I have given you a better life?”, suggesting regret and a sense that a different outcome might have been possible if rash emotions hadn’t taken over. A similar idea appears in “Arrow Through Me,” which Paul has described as being about "a character" (whom he later implied was himself) who was “wounded” by the end of a relationship that “could have been fantastic.” Lines like “It could be a finer fling, with no other thing offering a note of distraction” seem to suggest that he believed there might have been a way for their bond to survive, despite everything, if they hadn’t acted so impulsively and had communicated better or reached some kind of compromise at the time.
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