{"id":3086,"date":"2012-12-07T02:54:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T06:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.districtdiva.com\/?p=3086"},"modified":"2012-12-07T02:54:26","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T06:54:26","slug":"that-is-not-love-a-teachable-moment-from-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/that-is-not-love-a-teachable-moment-from-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"That is NOT Love! A Teachable Moment from 'Scandal'"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was SO much drama in last night’s episode of ABC’s\u00a0Scandal<\/em>, but the most important thing I learned from watching it live and watching it on Twitter is that there are far too many people who do not know what love is. Yes,\u00a0Scandal<\/em> is just a masterfully written show by the anointed Shonda Rhimes, but (some of) the issues the show brings up are very real and people’s reactions to those issues are very revealing of their own thoughts on what love is and what it looks like. \u00a0Here is a clip from the episode that had many people in my Timeline passing out over how “powerful” MARRIED man, President Fitz’s love is for his mistress, Olivia Pope:<\/p>\n

Olivia confronts Fitz about how unlike herself she feels when she “smile”s in his wife’s face after she sleeps with him. She says she feels like he owns her. \u00a0He responds with:<\/p>\n

“YOU OWN ME! \u00a0You control me I belong to you! \u00a0You think I don\u2019t want to be a better man you think I don\u2019t want to dedicate myself to my marriage? \u00a0You don\u2019t think I want to be honorable to be the man you voted for? \u00a0I love you, I am in love with you, you are the love of my life. \u00a0My every feeling is controlled by the look on your face. \u00a0I can\u2019t breathe without \u00a0you I can\u2019t sleep without you. \u00a0I wait for you I watch for you. \u00a0I EXIST for you. \u00a0If I could escape all this and run away with you\u2026There\u2019s no Sally [Hemmings] or Thomas [Jefferson] here. \u00a0You\u2019re nobody\u2019s victim, Liv.\u00a0 I belong to YOU. \u00a0We\u2019re in this TOGETHER<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Man, goodBYE! Have all the seats in the White House for this tired speech. (SN: Shoutout to Shonda Rhimes for addressing the number one criticism of this relationship with the Sally\/Thomas reference). But Twitter exploded after these words with “that man LOVES him some Olivia!” and “I would love my man to say those things to me!! I exist only for you! WOW.”\u00a0Wow, indeed.<\/p>\n

Let’s deal with the facts of this case.<\/p>\n

Myth:\u00a0<\/strong>He “exists” only for Olivia.<\/p>\n

Reality: <\/strong>He has not divorced his wife, has no plans to divorce his wife. I would leave it at that, but some of y’all need a little more so I’ll keep going.<\/p>\n

Myth:\u00a0<\/strong>He wants to be a better man, wants to dedicate himself to his marriage and he wants to be honorable.<\/p>\n

Reality:\u00a0<\/strong>NOTHING in his actions suggest that this is what he really wants. \u00a0Otherwise, he would be in counseling with his wife and not declaring his undying love to his mistress on the South Lawn of the White House.<\/p>\n

Myth:\u00a0<\/strong>“If I could escape all this and run away with you…”<\/p>\n

Reality<\/strong>: He can, but he wouldn’t and he won’t. \u00a0That flashback scene was from well over a year ago. He isn’t currently making any steps to “escape” or “run away” with her. He could get divorced and walk away from the presidency if he wanted to, but it is much more important to him than an open, honest and unadulterous relationship with her. We’ve already seen how he treats the pregnant mother of his children, but if this is how he treats the so-called love of his life, I’d hate to see how he treats his enemies!<\/p>\n

Myth:\u00a0<\/strong>“We’re in this [love] together!”<\/p>\n

Reality:\u00a0<\/strong>“We’re in this [bondage] together!” And going nowhere fast.<\/p>\n

I need people to understand that this dysfunctional and harmful attraction \u00a0between Olivia and Fitz is NOT love.\u00a0Love wouldn’t cheapen you by relegating you to the sidepiece role. \u00a0Even if you WANTED to settle for standby status, love couldn’t let you do that to yourself.\u00a0Love wouldn’t make you feel bad about yourself or allow you to jeopardize or compromise your integrity.<\/p>\n

But do you know what WOULD do those things? Selfishness. Greed. Lust. Obsession. Pick one of those four, and call this relationship anything you want, but stop calling blatant disrespect of self, of the other person and of a spouse and children LOVE, because it simply isn’t, at all.<\/p>\n

The Word says: “This<\/strong><\/span><\/a> is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” (1 John 3:16) When you love someone FOR REAL, you sacrifice for that person. \u00a0As I’ve blogged about on my The Love Dare<\/em> journey, love cannot be selfish<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span> because love acts at the EXPENSE of self. Love is unconditional giving to another without expectation of reciprocity. \u00a0Love does not withdraw or ramp up it’s giving based on what another person deserves. It just GIVES. \u00a0It is inconvenient and it is true.<\/p>\n

Therefore, if Fitz really\u00a0loved<\/em> Olivia, he couldn’t possibly have risked her reputation, her integrity, and her self-respect by sleeping with her in the first place, let alone have a full-on affair with her. \u00a0He would’ve sacrificed his desire for her in order to shield her from the inevitable pain he would cause her by never allowing her the opportunity to be fully valued, respected and honored the way someone who loves you would know you deserve. Instead, he put his own desire to keep her around over her need to be validated, respected and honored.<\/p>\n

I’m not saying he doesn’t have “feelings,” for her. \u00a0But some of us are following our “feelings” right off a cliff. \u00a0The Bible tells<\/a><\/strong><\/span> us “the heart is deceitful\u00a0and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” That’s why the psalmist begs<\/a><\/strong><\/span> the Lord for a “clean heart” and a renewed, right spirit. \u00a0Our most carnal instinct is selfishness and self-preservation. It goes against our very nature to sacrifice ourselves for someone else’s benefit. That’s what makes love such a beautiful and rare thing — not chemical, uncontrollable, unexplainable attraction. \u00a0It is thoughtful and conscious action that is well-aware that its consequences lead to another person’s happiness at the expense of its own. Love tells its feelings to follow HIM, not the other way around. Bump a passionate speech! Sacrifice<\/em> for me so I know that it’s REAL!<\/p>\n

By all means, enjoy the highly entertaining and heart-stopping drama that is Scandal — Lord knows I do. But be clear: it is impossible to be both loving AND selfish. They are mutually exclusive. It’s one or the other, and everybody gets to choose. \u00a0Putting behind what you may have done in the past, which one will you choose today?<\/p>\n

Join me on The Love Dare<\/a><\/span> and learn what real love looks like.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was SO much drama in last night’s episode of ABC’s\u00a0Scandal, but the most important thing I learned from watching it live and watching it on Twitter is that there are far too many people who do not know what love is. Yes,\u00a0Scandal is just a masterfully written show by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[561,570,818,826,827,829,831],"class_list":["post-3086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-usual-dithering","tag-love","tag-love-is-not-selfish","tag-scandal","tag-self-destructive","tag-self-esteem","tag-self-love","tag-selfishness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7nB6F-NM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}