My cultural awakening: Love taught me to leave my cheating partner Emma Thompson

I He was 12 years old when Love Actually came out. In the eyes of my younger self, it was a wonderful movie – vignettes of love that I could only imagine feeling one day, all colored with fairy-tale Christmas lights. There was also an appearance by Mr Bean himself, Rowan Atkinson. The film captures the romance I longed for as a teenager, and the idea that maybe a kid I fancied in my class would learn the drums for me and go through airport security to ask me out.

I was young enough to think it was cute to have Keira Knightley’s husband’s best friend show up on her doorstep declaring his clearly unrequited love. I even thought it was adorable that he ruined their wedding video by only filming close-ups of her face. Of course, I now feel differently about problematic moments like this — even if the movie is to thank for introducing me to Joni Mitchell.

I’d be happy to never watch it again, but one scene that always sticks with me is when Emma Thompson’s character discovers that her husband (Alan Rickman) is having an affair. She discovers a gift-wrapped necklace in his coat pocket and assumes it will be a Christmas present for her. Instead, when she opens it, she finds a CD of Joni Mitchell’s book Both Sides Now, and the realization that he gave the jewelry to another woman. She went upstairs, put the album down, and we watched for a few tense minutes as the weight of betrayal and deceit hung over her. She stands alone in her room and allows herself a moment to cry silently before returning to her family downstairs.

I was moved when I first watched it when I was 12, not even understanding what her husband had done. But there was something about her performance. Silence from him. How she desperately tries to control her emotions in a way that I can somehow understand, even as a teenager.

When I returned to this film over the next few Christmases, I continued to be amazed by Thompson’s performance in this short story, and how much power you can retain by holding back. But also, how sad she looked. It was this sadness that made me think to myself: If I find myself in this situation, I will leave. When I watched this one Christmas when I was a teenager, I made a little promise to myself that I would choose to end the relationship rather than stay and live with this pain. Surely it would be better to end things than to treat her this way.

A few years later I was in a long term relationship. Our agreement was monogamous, and like most relationships, it was fun and good from the beginning, but it soon became abundantly clear that things weren’t right. I see now that I was feeling suffocated and distressed by most of what happened, yet I was manipulated into believing that my unhappiness was of my own doing. I couldn’t feel like I deserved better, so I stayed.

But one spring morning I found myself sitting in the living room, listening to him confess a long and painful series of betrayals. We had an argument that somehow led to this admission that he had been cheating on you throughout the relationship. I was completely blindfolded.

I looked around at this little life we’d built together—the cluttered bookshelves, the guitars on the wall—and I saw nothing but the lies that were its foundation. He wanted me to forgive him and move on, and he truly believed I would.

But later that day, as I sat alone in the bedroom, this scene from Love Actually popped into my mind. She thought of Thompson standing in the corner of her room, wiping away her tears as she listened to Joni Mitchell. Unlike her, I was able to cry out loud, and I did. But these were more tears of sadness for all the time I felt I had lost, wasted. It was immediately clear to me that this was my way out. That little promise I made to myself while watching the movie one Christmas provided me with the boundaries I desperately needed — something clear and real when everything else felt so disorganized.

This decision to end the relationship was the easiest decision I’ve ever made, perhaps because I made it so many years ago. And for that I will be forever grateful to Emma… and Johnny.