Why would you leave your spouse after getting Amnesia

[Janx]

A new topic, not about shooting people, straight from a TV show.

Here's the situation, you've just gotten amensia. You spouse has supplied credible evidence that you were happily married and they are not a bad guy.

Why would you leave that to go find yourself, INSTEAD of staying put to find yourself.


I see the writers doing this as a way of yanking the audience's chain.

But tactically, it makes no sense.

The general consensus on being lost is, stay put. Especially if somebody is known to be looking for you.

If you don't know who you are, why would you assume you would "find" that by wandering around by yourself, instead of staying with the person who love you and would probably invoke instances of familiar past events and eventually rekindle a relationship by virtue of proximity.

 

[Umbran]

Not that amnesia as depicted on TV happens much at all in the real world...

For the one current TV example of this I know, the reason is simple - the marriage is, in fact, a fake. Presumably, even without memory, the character can feel this.

In general, "tactically" does not apply here. Tactics are what you get when someone is thinking 100% rationally, which a confused amnesiac isn't.

There is also the thought that, for the amnesiac, living with a spouse would probably quite awkward and stressful. They have a completely different view of the relationship than you do. They have expectations you don't. They may love you, and without the memories you don't necessarily feel that way about them.

There is (what I find to be) a truism about successful romantic relationships, and marriage especially - they cannot be based on the expectation of change. Your partner comes, "as is", and, "I'll marry you now, with the understanding that next year you'll be someone you aren't now," is a recipe for disaster. And, for the amnesiac, both people are surely entering into the relationship with that expectation. The only one who has an idea of what the change might really be isn't even the one changing!

Yes, they love you, and they want to support you. But you have to be *you* before you can be a solid part of a relationship. Your analogy fails because the amnesiac isn't "lost". He or she just *isn't*. The spouse is not "looking for" the amnesiac. The spouse thinks they know where to go, and is trying to lead the amnesiac there.

Thus, we get to the part of the story where we discuss how much or little we actually know each other. Can you lead an amnesiac back to themselves, or only to your characterization of them? And, is that leading process actually going to get the amnesiac to the point you expect them to reach? Because the process of the spouse leading is *nothing* like the process the amnesiac took to being that person in the first place.

 

[Stumblewyk]

I get what you're saying, but if you're truly amnesic - i.e. you do not remember who you were, you no longer ARE the person your spouse married.

You might, one day, have your memories and personality return, and you might go back to being that person, but you simple *arent*, until your brain recovers -if it ever will.

Until that happens, it's not unreasonable for the amnesiac to say "I don't know you, you think you know me, and until I figure out who *you* are and if i like you, I'm just going to stay...over...here..."

 

[Janx]

I get what you're saying, but if you're truly amnesic - i.e. you do not remember who you were, you no longer ARE the person your spouse married.

You might, one day, have your memories and personality return, and you might go back to being that person, but you simple *arent*, until your brain recovers -if it ever will.

Until that happens, it's not unreasonable for the amnesiac to say "I don't know you, you think you know me, and until I figure out who *you* are and if i like you, I'm just going to stay...over...here..."

Discounting nefarious ends or well meaning misrepresentation, I don't think it justifies "I'm going to hunt down my nemesis by myself, nevermind that together we ran a spy organization with greater means than I myself posess" or "I'm going off to the Swiss Alps where I might fall in love with a strange man named Jaque."

Certainly, the spouse isn't qualified to help you remember as a therapist. But leaving the area entirely seems like the opposite of trying to get better.

If you were roommates with your friend, and you got amnesia, you wouldn't move out. You'd continue to live at your place while your friend tries to remind you of things you did, etc.

A therapist should no doubt be involved with any recover and adapting to life as an amnesiac.

However, the spouse may be bound by oath "in sickness and in health" to render aid and stick by you.

I can certainly see an overly ambitious and clumsy handling of the matter by the spouse could cause problems.

However, just like all true marriage seperations don't result in couples getting back together again, the couple needs time together to begin a new friendship and relationship. Abscence does not make the heart grow fonder, especially in someone who has no memory.

 

[MarkB]

It may not be tactically sound, but I can certainly see someone feeling the need to do it on an emotional level.

If you're in a situation where everyone knows you but you don't know any of them, that can feel incredibly one-sided, especially if they're constantly trying to jog your memory by bombarding you with tales of an unfamiliar life. Being constantly confronted with things that should mean something to you, but don't, could get incredibly frustrating very quickly.

Wanting to get away from all that and find a way to center yourself emotionally, without being constantly thrown off by all that emotional baggage, is a perfectly legitimate response. And taking the pressure off might well be the better, healthier option in the long run, even if it delays the return of memories.

 

[fba827]

for a romantic sort of person, love is something you feel, not something you are told that you feel. if you don't feel it, yet someone else keeps saying that you do, would you not want to rediscover yourself first to understand whether or not you do really feel it?

having said that, sure, it does not make logical sense as you would be leaving the only foundation/comfort that you have in a world that is completely foreign to you due to amnesia. but, love/romance never does make much logical sense...

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Ah, tv-amnesia. What series it is this time?
I guess reaction to spouse in tv-amnesia depends what kinda general situation. If there is dangerous things around, romance with someone you don't remember doesn't feel safe. When there are threat it easily causes paranoid feelings for someone who doesn't remeber his/her social connections at all. And some people just have suspicious nature. Sometimes such personality qualitly does not reflect to memories. And some shadows of semi-formed memerories might be there, and make you generally suspicious if you feel people around you aren't telling the truth. Tv-amnesia naturally.

 

[MarkB]

Ah, tv-amnesia. What series it is this time?

I'm guessing it's Once Upon a Time - at least, that's a very recent example. That particular example, however, is complicated on multiple levels.

 

[Janx]

Ah, tv-amnesia. What series it is this time?
I guess reaction to spouse in tv-amnesia depends what kinda general situation. If there is dangerous things around, romance with someone you don't remember doesn't feel safe. When there are threat it easily causes paranoid feelings for someone who doesn't remeber his/her social connections at all. And some people just have suspicious nature. Sometimes such personality qualitly does not reflect to memories. And some shadows of semi-formed memerories might be there, and make you generally suspicious if you feel people around you aren't telling the truth. Tv-amnesia naturally.

In this case, the final episodes of Chuck.

I'm totally fine with the concept of "You've got Amnesia, let's not snuggle."

But that doesn't make crashing at our place, I'll sleep on the couch a bad idea.

And I would couch that only in times where it is obvious this is the truth. If you don't believe the situation, that's a different problem. But abscence of any conflicting evidence, it just doesn't make sense.

I have no problem waking up with TV Amnesia, getting told who I am, who you are, and deciding that I'm hungry and need a place to stay, so I would ask what did I normally like to eat and where do I live and then going to those places.

Particulary because TV Amnesia tends to remove memories, not personality or language ability.

I think the real reason TV does it the other way is because their goal as writers is to bring couples together, inch by inch, rip them apart, and then document them regrouping together again. It's yanking the audience's emotional chains.

 

[Umbran]

Here's the situation, you've just gotten amensia. You spouse has supplied credible evidence that you were happily married and they are not a bad guy.

But that doesn't make crashing at our place, I'll sleep on the couch a bad idea.

And I would couch that only in times where it is obvious this is the truth.

Well, hold on there a second. You're talking about super-spies and "obvious it is the truth" in the same breath? Really? You're talking about people who manufacture much more complicated "truths" as their daily bread-and-butter.

"Hi, love. You don't remember me, of course, because you have amnesia, but I'm your amazingly hot wife, and we're super-spies together!" Yeah, that should *totally* engender confidence in the amnesiac.

Didn't you ever see Total Recall? I mean, clearly, the amnesiac won't remember seeing it, but... geeze, the genre trope would be that it was totally a trap!

You want sound tactics? The first person who says you're a amnesiac super-spy? Run away from them!