Why So Many Power Couples Fail

this video is brought to you by acorn tv an ad-free streaming service packed with hit tv shows you won't find anywhere else you know there will always be challenges threats out there but you can handle it together there's couples and then there's power couples relationship unicorns in which both partners are at the absolute top of their game our society is fascinated with these couples whether they're thriving splitting up or long over hi everyone hi anderson hi pit unfortunately the problem with power couples is that we're always hearing about them failing even to this day since power couples consist of two high achievers often in the public eye they tend to be made up of two alphas ambitious people with a strong sense of self who like to be in control but this strong personality type that may be the key to their individual success may also trigger their relationships downfall he should have a wife that supports his every move and travels with him and does everything and i can't i feel like a failure a power couple can result in a competitive power struggle between the two parties or resentment when the relationship requires individual sacrifice i was a director in my 20s and was suddenly on the cover of timeout new york and i loved you and i didn't want to lose you but i'm in my 20s and i didn't want to lose that too and i kind of did ultimately whether any couple succeeds tends to hinge on whether both parties support each other's power whether they're willing to sometimes relinquish some of their own and how much they're confined by old school gender roles here's our take on the power couple and how they can either compete or combine forces ben and i are a power couple i've got a big meeting here ben is off running a congressional campaign i mean the only way we could be more awesome is if we had our own signature dance move [Music] if you're new here be sure to subscribe and click the bell to be notified about all of our new videos [Music] when two people who are used to being a boss get together they might start vying for the dominant position in the relationship in countless examples of real and fictional power couples the partners subtly compete with each other now admit that i'm better at the piano than you are at the flute never or feel envious if the other hogs more of the spotlight this is supposed to be my turn and thanks to you thanks to me people have shown up thanks to me people are interested one star outshining the other is especially problematic in the entertainment industry where a person's fame might constitute a big part of their identity the various versions of a star is born explore how a relationship between an established star and an up-and-comer suffers when he can't handle her career surpassing his you need to get all this approval by all these other people and it's just why can't i just be enough in hacks when a female comedian's career takes off her jealous performer husband leaves her for her sister i am starting to see why your husband left you for your own sister now power couples especially hollywood ones sometimes also feel overwhelming pressure due to being scrutinized by the public brad pitt revealed that he felt unable to cope with the level of fame that both he and then wife jennifer aniston held in the 90s a factor which seemingly contributed to their split and his starting relationship with angelina jolie during or after the filming of mr and mrs smith selena gomez and justin bieber's on-again off-again relationship followed this same trajectory in the 2010s there were rumors that bieber was unfaithful to gomez while both expressed how overwhelming they found fame to be as young people i had a different level of exposure in people i had a lot of money and a lot of things so then you have all these people around me just kind of hanging on wanting stuff from me infidelity has long been a common theme in many real-life accounts of hollywood couples and power couples in general in the 60s richard burton and elizabeth taylor who began an affair on the set of cleopatra while both were married to other people had irresistible chemistry on and off screen i want to be free of you i'm wanting you but their relationship was volatile and erratic with jealousy and accusations of infidelity leading to a chaotic back and forth that included getting married and divorced twice in addition to the fact that rich powerful people tend to have a lot of romantic options david snarsh's psychology today article why rich and powerful people cheat points out that highly successful and wealthy people also often have two characteristics that further encourage affairs they are often extremely competitive people to whom extramarital sex is about scoring and collecting trophies and they are frequently driven by a huge need to get a positive reflected sense of self from others cheating leads to one of the most problematic types of power imbalances the concept that whoever cares less in a relationship has the most power ultimately a power imbalance of any kind can be a major reason why relationships fail did you sign a pre-nut yes and i think you've got to be really careful and you've got to keep your own orbit going your power is your independence don't give up your power we can actually trace most of carrie and big's drama insects in the city to the financial and status power imbalance between them it was mr big major tycoon made your dream boat and majorly out of my league between carrie's high profile column and big's successful finance career the two present as a striking power couple however big has power over the financially insecure carry due to his money and resulting prestige in their social circles as well as the fact that their society prizes aging single men and devalues aging single women in the episode when carrie has to buy her condo or move big calmly throws money at this situation almost seeming to take pleasure in showing off how easily he can fix her problem he just gave you thirty thousand dollars well as alone i would pay him back when a man gives you money you give him control in phantom thread the plot ultimately proves that maintaining any relationship depends on finding a solution to power imbalance at first established fashion designer woodcock is clearly dominant over his unknown muse alma whom he uses as a vessel for his artistic expression you have no breasts my job to give you some so when he starts to get bored with her she has little power over him but almost saves their relationship by taking power going so far as to poison woodcock so that he'll be temporarily sick and need her i want you flat on your back helpless and the final twist is that after he figures out what's going on he implicitly gives his consent to be poisoned understanding that he has to give up some control for their relationship to thrive kiss me my girl before i'm sick [Music] we want to take a quick break to thank acorn tv for sponsoring this video ever since i discovered acorn tv i've basically been in a power couple with my tv want to hear how we fell in love after spending so much time inside this past year i was starting to feel like i'd exhausted all my movie and show options and was craving something new that's when i turned to acorn tv the largest commercial-free british streaming service they offer everything from period pieces to noir to critically acclaimed offerings like my current obsession jack irish not only is guy pierce's jack witty hot and a little edgy he's also part of an on-again off-again pi journalist power coupling himself what's more he's exclusively available on acorn tv it's beyond easy to stream acorn tv by downloading the app or streaming via apple and android devices amazon fire tv google chromecast roku and more so join me get 30 days of acorn tv for free by going to acorn.tv and using the code the take in all lowercase alright let's get back into the video make sure to stay tuned at the end for a conversation between our creators i was the brains behind some of misty j's greatest stunts not that he let anyone know it many power couples meet their demise in part due to the pressures that traditional gender roles put on relationships jessica simpson and nicolas shea's early 2000s reality tv show newlyweds saw their marriage at its worst but it wasn't just that they were adjusting to their star status tensions grew as jessica and nick realized that they each had different expectations about the rules that they would play in their marriage i really never cooked until i got married because nick wanted me to become more of a woman before he proposed to me the conflict over whether jessica would take on a more traditional homemaker role was heightened as her career continued to take off while his entered a slow period why don't we have to hire someone to do everything like why can't we just do something ourselves because i don't have time nick i don't know if you've noticed but i haven't been at this house in two months the implicit social assumption that the man should be the more career-oriented or successful partner is still hugely prevalent in our culture both on screen and off in 2002 sylvia ann hewlett reported that only 39 of high-achieving men were married to women who work full-time compared to 90 of high-achieving women who are married to men who work full-time more recently two million women left the u.s workforce in 2020 either because the pandemic directly put them out of work or because they left in order to support their children's online schooling due to these norms and cultural cues even when women do overcome those statistics their male partners might struggle with feeling overshadowed is this about mom making more money than you countless stories real and fictional involve the male partners of successful women having affairs which are implied to be triggered by the man's sense of inadequacy over his wife or girlfriend being a higher earner or having more status in big little lies gordon has an affair with his kid's nanny because he's insecure that his wife renata is more successful nanny we can even see the gender binary affecting queer power couples in the l word bet porter becomes overwhelmed by the pressure to provide for her wife tina and unborn child after being labeled the man in the relationship by those around her you're having the daddy blues because now there are two other lives that are totally dependent on you keeping everything together though she had originally liked being the more dominant one in her relationship she begins to view tina's dependency as overbearing oh and starts an affair as a self-sabotaging way to end the pressure in grey's anatomy the relationship between rising star christina yang and established surgeon preston burke begins to strain when preston's career is threatened my hands are the only things that i have that are of any value to me to you not to me yes to you you want preston burke and in mad men jones and greg's marriage ultimately fails because greg wants to be the controlling conservative breadwinner husband you should be watching those shows not reading them it's a hoot i guess that's okay i'm glad you approve but it turns out he's not cut out to be the super successful alpha earner so he's increasingly insecure and threatened whenever his more brilliant wife shows agency retired let me do the driving johnny stop you know what i am tired joan originally believes that she too wants this conventional idea of a marriage but comes to realize that she's actually happier when she doesn't have to bend to the will of someone who's ultimately less smart and driven than her holloway harris how may i help you of course please hold for joan this is joan one of the major problems of trying to live up to this old-fashioned domestic ideal of the male breadwinner and female housewife is that it was fairly manufactured to begin with one classic example is i love lucy's tv archetype of familial all right bliss bye but the behind-the-scenes marriage of stars lucille ball and desi arnes reportedly played into all the common power imbalance cliches ball cited arnes's infidelity as the main reason for their divorce while their demanding careers took a toll with arness stating i think one of the problems is that we were both working too hard look lucy this whole thing was my fault it was something that i said that started this whole thing what'd you say i do thankfully some modern media examples offer a framework for how to overcome oppressively rigid gender expectations i'll take the west wing you take the east wing you can be the first gentleman and why it can be great if the man is sometimes the one to take a step back or excel in the domestic space in the incredibles 2 mr incredible feels emasculated when his wife elastigirl is picked over him to be at the forefront of a new superhero initiative elastigirl is our best play better than me but both partners eventually learn to accept that within their power family their individual roles are malleable and can go through various shifts over time for now elastigirl owns being a working mom even if she misses not always being with her family i missed jack jack's first power while mr incredible takes pride in being a more active father go firing the baby around the house you understand this is potentially dangerous and we're trying to teach him to control his powers okay a similar narrative plays out in new girl where schmidt starts out invested in the idea of himself as a successful alpha male type and his initial pursuit of cc carries a subtext of proving his alpha male merits since she's a model and a unicorn-like image in his mind good night cece yes yes she is sleeping on my sheets right now not yours bro however the successful man trophy wife relationship that we thought was being set up is eventually inverted when cece starts her own company and schmidt realizes he's much happier channeling his drive into being a great stay-at-home father daddy's butt has been bleaching all outdoor planting surfaces you could prepare a chicken on that slide i can't live without you but i don't want to one key reason why power couples can work is if both truly respect and admire each other's individual power and achievements raymond holt is as smart as anyone in this department but he chooses to use his intelligence to make our city a better place lasting power couples like neil patrick harris and david burka tend to sing each other's praises he is one of the most unique people i have ever met and whatever he touches her family turns to gold likewise reddit founder alexis ohanian is more than willing to gush over his equally if not more successful wife serena williams she won the australian open while pregnant no male players ever done that nope it never will never will but another major reason why sunpower couples work is that sometimes one partner is willing to at least temporarily seed some ground and step out of the spotlight it's an unfortunate reality that often one partner does have to be the supporting player or take a step back in service of the others demanding high-powered career after kim kardashian and kanye west announced their divorce kim spoke on keeping up with the kardashians about how kanye's particular needs surrounding his creative endeavors and mental health demanded the full-time support of a wife who doesn't have a career like hers i think he deserves someone that can go support his every move and go follow him all over the place and move to wyoming i can't do that and this is us randall and beth's relationship is resilient because they come to understand how to support each other's careers figuring out when each should step back and allow the other one to thrive it's perfectly normal for a mommy to go to work in a daddy to stay at home women can do anything in grey's anatomy meredith is like many women the one who makes sacrifices in her career to prioritize her family with derrick and support his ambition go and do what you have to do and we will figure this out but eventually derek realizes that he too needs to make a more conscious commitment to their family in order to keep their relationship alive i thought dc was everything and i was wrong you're everything jennifer patrick glier's research highlights the importance of power couples facing all these complex challenges by talking to one another she writes dual career couples overcome their challenges by directly addressing deeper psychological and social forces such as struggles for power and control personal hopes fears and losses and assumptions and cultural expectations about the roles partners should play in each other's lives mr and mrs smith the movie that famously launched brangelina is ironically a story about power couple problems to the max a pair of secret assassins are so alienated from each other they are literally trying to kill each other mr and mrs smith find a happy ending by learning to open up with each other you approached our merits like a job something we recon planned and executed and you avoided it as well as to stop trying so hard to act like a normal couple you think this story's gonna have a happy ending happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet similarly in bridgerton the relationship between power couple daphne and the duke only really works once they're willing to be emotionally vulnerable with each other i cannot continue acting as if i as if i do not love you because i do i love all of you i do not want to be alone i know that now we can see how real-life power couples that work likewise are all about these key practices supporting and communicating with each other not being too hung up on traditional gender roles fluidly adapting which partner may be more in the spotlight for a time and viewing themselves as a powerful unit rather than competing against each other i'm always very proud of her when i see her speaking at the international court of appeals in strasbourg you know with her robot prince harry and meghan markle are both famous and influential individuals but they appear to uplift each other and have used their collective power to build a highly lucrative brand and production company in order to get there they had to openly communicate during difficult times i was really ashamed to have to admit it to harry especially but i knew that if i didn't say it that i would do it and prince harry had to cede some of his original status and financial power by distancing them from the royal family in support of megan your family cut you off yeah chrissy teigen and john legend are another power couple who have seemed to thrive thanks to open communication and supporting each other's individual goals we grow together we go to therapy we do all those things too and try to take care of each other and be responsive to each other's needs relationships succeed when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts while today's culture puts a lot of emphasis on individual achievement and self-actualization a big part of working as a couple is forgetting about who's the alpha who makes more money or who gets the credit because you're working towards something together arguably the whole concept of a power couple as even notable is based on the assumption it's the norm for one partner to hold all the breadwinning power and that historically that's the guy so as we strive for more equality between the sexes and more models for what couples can look like across the gender spectrum we can hope powerful couples become so commonplace that they don't need a special label they're just a regular couple so i'm here with the other half to my power couple is there a power couple that captures your imagination michelle and barack obama they seem to have a good dynamic you know how they're both incredibly talented and intelligent and barack took the spotlight as president and maybe now it's michelle's turn one that popped into my head was marie curie and her husband i thought the same thing they did make an impact together they followed their passion in science a power couple is a pretty exciting couple to watch on tv and to read about in the news yeah i think there's something about the power couple that just makes us so excited as viewers it's such a wonderful dream to see both partners so fulfilled as individuals two really charismatic creative or influential people coming together so many couples that present in this both strong alpha way particularly in the public eye don't work it's such an old cliche we keep assuming that it must get better but then you just hear about them constantly failing and breaking up the pandemic hits and you hear about more and more women stepping back having to stay at home or at least temporarily take a break there are structural problems that are not being addressed yet and you wonder are we making progress is it just as true as ever that one partner needs to take a more supporting role and that's typically the woman the importance is that we talk about it and that we use movies in the shows that we're watching to help us think about it it's so important that the portrayals we see on screen not only reflect the aspirational quality of two powerful people together but also show us it's great if the man and the woman split the domestic labor and that's not emasculating that's normal that's expected one of the examples we use that i enjoy is schmidt a new girl just realizing that he loves being a stay-at-home dad and putting his crazy workaholic energy into that that's really important to show as a great choice for some men and a really exciting aspirational one it's so true maybe one of the key ideas is choice it is what choices are we given and what choices are we able to really explore and it's so wonderful to be able to watch it on screen movies or shows contemporary or more modern maybe they offer a little bit more hope for the idea that the power couple as a equally successful equally fulfilled couple can exist some of these power couples that do last you can see some some serious crises in their relationship it's true i mean i think what one of the questions we're pondering of course is like what constitutes power what are you really looking for in in gaining and achieving it what you're looking for may be different than the couple next door the idea is how do we create that space for couples that want to both take on an alpha role how can you have the power or influence that you want to have in the world and make the kind of impact you want to make in the world you know i think getting over that individual ego that it's about me or it's about him or her it's important to bring that sense of what team am i a part of and what do we want to accomplish or what's important to us maybe there's something to the fact that a lot of power couples haven't stayed together because the traditional system might not allow for it but it doesn't mean that it can't work it just may mean that we have to disrupt the system well what power couples are you excited about please share them you're the most amazing woman i ever met never gonna stop trying to make you happy cece [Music] you

Channel: The Take

Views: 403,109

Keywords: jay z beyonce, michelle barack obama, Chrissy Teagan, john legend, neil patrick harris, David Burtk, bennifer, selena gomez, justin bieber, jessica simpson, nick lachey, angelina jolie, brad pitt, taylor swift, harry styles, ally and jackson, a star is born, mr and mrs smith, carrie and big, satc, uncle phil and aunt viv, fresh prince, alex and jo, greys anatomy, jennifer aniston, incredibles 2, gordon and renata, big little lies, mad men, joan, bette and tina, l word

Id: lChH6UJKUF8

Length: 22min 18sec (1338 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021