why mikeâs problem of telling el that he loves her has nothing to do with karen and tedâs relationship.
we already know that there are many parallels between stancy and mileven as well as jancy and byler. and first of all we need to understand why NANCY couldnât say steve that she loves him, and to do this we need to go back to that legend scene with jancy getting murrayed, specifically paying attention to what he is saying to them about their internal conflicts.
first one will be jonathan:
speaking to him murray says that jonathanâs trust issues are directly connected to his relationship with dad. nancy herself confirmed that.
and NOW weâre moving to nancyâs part (cause itâs honestly the most interesting one for me).
describing nancy he NEVER EVEN MENTIONS her parents. but why? maybe its only because of her own self acceptance. she is afraid of what other people think of her and thatâs her main problem. she is trying to convince herself that she does have romantic feelings for steve when in fact itâs not true because she is already in love with jonathan.
and now letâs talk about byler.) byers and wheelers siblings have so much in common as we all well know. theyâve been raised by the same parents so they have pretty similar models of relationship. nancy and mikeâs key problem with building a healthy relationship is not because âtheyâve never seen love between their parentsâ but because they think that itâs possible to make relationship work without deep connection between love partners. karen married ted back then because it was beneficial for her and she was able to accept ted knowing that she would be safe and provided with all her needs to build a family. it was her priority - family - it was her own choice and thatâs why it was successful.
but times goes on, her children were born in a different time already, still homophobic and conservative but with more braveness to force that stereotypical life living rules. and now itâs harder for them to live like their parents. they really try to but just canât do it because they know that they do have the rights to live how they want to, not how everyone else does. all they have to do is to accept themselves for who they really are without worrying what other people think of them. theyâre different and thatâs okay. itâs their power not their weakness.
SO IN GENERAL, itâs about the fear of being judged. itâs about contradiction of who they want to be and who they need to be.
edit: i forgot to mention that iâve noticed one cute little detail. in the first jancy kiss thereâre blue pillow and yellow blanket in nancyâs room if that makes sense:)