#this isn’t anti Jonathan but I’ll tag for safety? sorry for cross tagging it’s for my own organization

[findafight]

In my on going journey to find a fic where Jonathan and Nancy at least talk through if not fight about how Jonathan has been treating and lying to her, and the way she was looking at/flirting with Steve in s4 I have found that, with the majority of these few fics, Jonathan’s choice to not tell Nancy is framed as him being noble or making a sacrifice for her. That he is breaking up with her to avoid making her miserable.

This is fascinating to me because while I now think they should for sure break up, I went into st4 pretty neutral on jancy, and thought everything Jonathan was saying was cowardly. I think HE thinks he’s making some noble sacrifice for Nancy’s sake, but he is not letting Nancy know about it nor is he letting her decide what she wants (to stay with him or to breakup) based on the actual facts of what Jonathan is doing/will go for college. He’s just. Letting her wonder why he’s being avoidant and distant, worrying about weather he loves her still (which is partly why her eyes wonder in s4).

Jonathan isn’t breaking up with her. The whole point of his rant to argyle is that he ISN’T breaking up with Nancy. He’s avoiding her so he doesn’t “trap” her. He’s already lied to her about applying to the university she thinks they’re going to together and so he barely talks to her and starts they are in a “slow-mo breakup”. It seems like he is avoiding talking to her in the twisted hope that she breaks up with him, because he cannot bear to do it. He’s already trapping her in this relationship he’s so terrified of.

Nancy does not know what is going on in his head. All she knows is her boyfriend is avoiding her. Cancelling plans or calls. To the point where she thinks there is a possibility (however small) he might be cheating on her. That’s not a good place for a relationship to be! Why would she think what he has done is admirable and self sacrificial when she has been suffering due to his actions and choices and the assumptions he’s made about their relationship and future without asking her? Why would she feel he did what he thought was right when she has been kept in the dark and lied to, openly, and mislead about their supposed shared future plans? When he was too nervous to talk to her plainly about his worries and fears so instead let them dictate how he treated her.

Jonathan cannot be open and honest to Nancy because of his fears, but also because of that same fear he doesn’t rip the bandaid off. He cannot be the one to breakup with Nancy because if he is, he is definitely the bad guy. If he breaks up with her, he shatters any semblance of the idea that he is in the right, that he is making a sacrifice by not letting Nancy hypothetically make one. And he doesn’t want to examine himself or his actions that would make it abundantly clear what he’s done wrong.

By forcing Nancy into a position where she is unsure of the strength of their relationship, where she doesn’t have all the information to actually make the decision about the future he assumes she will make (that she is actually unlikely to make) he is doing what he fears he would be if he was honest about college. Trapping her in a relationship where they eventually grow to resent each other.

And idk. Im honestly surprised this isn’t a more widespread assumption? That Jonathan is being cowardly for lying? But it isn’t? Posing Jonathan refusing to communicate with his girlfriend as noble while she has actively questioned his loyalty to her, seems kind of cruel to Nancy. Sure maybe she hasn’t communicated enough to him, but has he let her? He is making these assumptions and decisions that impact their future together and he doesn’t discuss it with her because he doesn’t want to ruin her life (or, more likely, either remain in a LDR or get broken up with, the latter seeming more likely every day he lies.) That seems cowardly to me.