In April 2005, the nation’s attention was intently focused on the story of the runaway bride. Thirty-year-old Jennifer Wilbanks disappeared just four days before her wedding. Her disappearance spurred a nationwide hunt that was closely followed by Americans. Pictures of her grief-stricken fiancé, John Mason, and her family were shown continuously. It was a media frenzy. People came out in droves to help with the search.

The night before the planned nuptials, the nation breathed a sigh of relief – Jennifer was found, not seriously harmed and safe. She called home from southeast Albuquerque – out of money, disguised and under stress. Presumably she had been kidnapped by a man and woman outside Atlanta and managed to escape.

Jennifer was brought home and reunited with John.

The events were a classic love story. First was the storybook romance, leading to an extravagant wedding with 500 guests. Next came the complication in the plot – Jennifer’s disappearance and the resultant days of frantic searching. Finally, the climax and ending – Jennifer is found and the couple is rejoined to live happily-ever-after.

Yet, much to the media’s delight, this was not the end of the story.

A few days after being “found,” Jennifer admitted that the abduction story was one she had concocted as a way to explain her disappearance. She had chosen to flee, distraught over the prospect of the impending nuptials. In her public statement to the media, Jennifer admitted that she “was simply running from myself and from certain fears controlling my life.”

The media relish these stories – an actual series of events that mirror the best dramas from Hollywood. I found this fascination with a woman’s distress and her estranged fiancé not at all surprising, given America’s current obsession with reality shows. Such a fascination, although we might view it with disdain, is, simply, human nature.

Social psychologists have demonstrated numerous times that we are motivated to examine and understand others, especially when such stories attest that others experience the same disappointments and disillusionments that are part of all our lives. Accounts such as the runaway bride provide a sense of hope for our own relationships, flawed though they may be.

What I did find fascinating was the public reaction to John Mason’s decision to remain firmly committed to Jennifer following her confession. “Just because we haven’t walked down the aisle, just because we haven’t stood in front of 500 people and said our ‘I do’s,’ my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I’m not backing down from that,” said John in an interview with Fox News.

He declared publicly and without hesitation that he loved Jennifer, had made a lifetime commitment to her, and was dedicated to helping her face and conquer the fears that had caused her to run. His statement brought a barrage of negative commentary. “MSNBC’s online poll shows that a huge majority wants the bridgegroom to jilt the bride,” wrote the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum. “He should dump her” was the oft-repeated refrain. He was labeled a fool blinded by love, a coward, and worse.

These reactions echo similar comments I have often heard in the seminar on close relationships that I teach as a professor in the Psychology Department. One of the topics covered in this course is the “dark side” of relationships – conflict, lying, betrayal. We then discuss resolution and forgiveness. “If someone betrayed me, I would never forgive him/her” is an almost unanimous refrain from the students. They firmly believe that if someone truly loves another, he or she would never act in a destructive and harmful way. Further, if this unlikely event should occur, forgiveness of such actions is the behavior of a spineless chump, someone who clearly lacks self-respect. We may attribute this to the idealism of youth and to some extent it is, but these same statements were made by countless thousands from all walks and stages of life with regard to John Mason.

This is not to say that there are times when it is absolutely critical to end a relationship that is detrimental to one’s well-being. However, the assumption that such dissolution is always the best decision takes this view to an extreme, one which is a negative consequence of Americans’ zeal for individual happiness and romanticism.

According to research on cultural values, America is one of the most individualistic cultures in the world. The primary emphasis is on independence and personal achievement; that each person is separate and unique from others, possessing a set of individual rights, including the pursuit of happiness. In other words, “to our own selves we must be true.”

This belief has permeated our perspective on relationships. Katie Couric interviewed Jennifer and John on the Today Show. In response to Couric’s comment that some have called John an “idiot,” Jennifer states, “Aren’t there any hopeless romantics left? There is such a thing as true love.”

I would argue that the problem is that there are too many hopeless romantics. Recent generations have been raised to believe in storybook marriages, an ideal that is not only unrealistic but is also often incompatible with our belief in individual happiness, which argues for one’s own well-being above that of others. According to recent polls, young adults in the United States would not marry a person who was an ideal mate in all respects if they did not love that person. In other words, romance and passion are essential in order for one to experience marital bliss. Conversely, research has clearly shown that such passionate bliss does not persist over time. Closer attention to the “real” reality would provide ample evidence that we cannot expect marriages to be “happily ever after.” Sometimes they do require sacrifice of personal happiness.

It is one short step then to understanding the derisive comments made in response to John’s decision to stay committed to Jennifer. Someone who is willing to sacrifice self for the commitment to marriage is weak.

John was not pursuing individual happiness, and therefore rejected a fundamental American value. Moreover, he is doing this for a marriage that will never come close to the romanticized ideal. How could Jennifer and John ever be a storybook romance again? In the American ideal of a romantic relationship, portrayed in countless fairy tales, TV shows and movies, marriage is a lifetime of love and passion, absent of tedium, periods of doubt, personal misery and estrangement from one’s partner. With such a cultural belief, the public condemnation of John is all too predictable. Sometimes the reality shows are too real for comfort.

– Andrea E. Chapdelaine, Ph.D.,
is acting vice president for
academic affairs and
associate professor of
psychology.