How do you see Jackie's crazy marriage phase in the show? What do you think caused it aside from bad writing and drama?
The first cause has always been the way she was raised in a society where the best a woman could do was to get a good husband. She’s in love with Hyde and she knows she wants to be with him forever, for her is obvious one day they will get married.
Fez gets married suddenly. For whatever reasons, he does and then Donna and Eric get engagend, and Kelso is a father and Jackie has– nothing. Her mother’s going in and out of her life every three heartbeats, her father is in jail, she doesn’t have a job, and some times, her boyfriend seem to not mind her wishes at all (**).
When Eric and Donna get engaged, her competitive nature must have awaken at the sight of Donna being engaged and sure to be married before her. This is when she realized maybe Hyde won’t marry her ever, because that’s not who he is. He doesn’t believe in that sort of stuff and their differences start to crash there.
Every time Donna and Eric talk about their wedding, Hyde gets nervous at the idea of Jackie walking in and to be part of the activities because he knows the thing is getting on her nerves and she thinks she will be able to make him change his mind by shoving at him all her own wedding plans.
Hyde ultimately sees her in a wedding dress and thinks her beautiful, Jackie assumes from this he will eventually want to see her on a wedding dress again, which means they will get married.
But then Eric doesn’t show up to his wedding and Donna is left to humiliation and sadness.
Eric, who is so completely commited to Donna, who has never shied away from wanting to be married and have a family, who is more of a man of his home, abandoned Donna and this must had put a big red flag on Jackie’s mind.
Because if Eric, who is all these things, can’t commit to Donna and marry her, what on Earth makes her believe Hyde, who doesn’t even believe in marriage, would eventually commit enough to her to get married?
I think she started doubting her relationship with Hyde out of this fear of it never happening for them, and when he starts to act odd in season 7, her heart makes a mess of her head and she gets wedding crazy again.
Again, she tries to make him change his mind using the worst tactics in the world, as she explains in the horrible break up from 7x12.
Hyde treats her horribly during this arc and only starts acting like himself again until ‘Street Fighting Man’ (7x14). The writers manipulted his character to act this way as their wished so they could create drama, but an in character answer to all this may be that, like Jackie, he’s damn scared of all that is happening around them.
We have to remember how things have changed for Hyde since Eric left Donna at the altar. While he wanted to help Donna feel better, he’s injured and learns he has another father. His biological father couldn’t be more different in all the extention of the word and meaning.
He’s rich, he’s well educated and polite, and nice, and wants to make him part of his life. This is all new to him, and in top of all, his friends are moving into other directions: Kelso is a father, Eric is in a point of his life in which he isn’t himself anymore, Fez has been married already and is suddenly moving in with Kelso, and holy shit, this is it.
Most of the things he has ever loved have eventually leave him and with his friends growing up and moving, the fear of it happening again may get bigger. Then it’s the fact that there’s a whole new world in front of him in the way of his new found family, the new work he has, he owns something now, he’s responsible for that place, and to add another responsability with marriage shit? No, thanks.
The fear just gets stronger with Jackie’s sudden reaction to all of it, wanting to get married, wanting him to marry her because otherwise, for her, it means he doesn’t love her properly and damn.
Yet, Jackie gets to a point in which she doesn’t want him to propose right away or marry her in this right second. She just wants to know if he believes they will eventually get married, that they have a future together. And when he answers to not know, her world falls to her feet and her worst fear has become truth.
Really, I don’t blame them for being scared. But God, just talk to each other.
**: I don’t believe this be the case. I don’t think Hyde doesn’t mind Jackie at all, It’s just that he will never be the kind of boyfriend going around saying shit out loud as Jackie wishes he would be some times.
I think fear blinds her to a point in which she forgets Hyde has always showed her he loves her, and I also beleive she does deserve to be told she’s loved. We all need that at some point, and maybe Hyde’s mistake was to think it’s ok to not say it, to think she doesn’t deserve it.
