Let’s talk about morally grey men in fantasy and your mom.
You know the one. Well, you do if you are a fantasy or romance reader. Or really, just a reader or you’ve ever watched idk any show on tv.
The bat bad boy who is just so good to her even though he’s a thug to the rest of the world. He’s got a heart of gold even if he’s also low key really problematic in the things he does. He’s mostly a villain to the world, but he’s her villain. And he growls and it’s sexy when he does that, right?
Women seem to love a bad boy who’s still somehow a good man. Safe-enough but not so safe it’s boring. Not so safe that there is no passion or tension.
I’ve been on a re-read of ACOTAR and I’m realizing how morally grey all the characters are. Not just the bad boys.
They are doing the wrong things for the right reasons. And the right things for the wrong reasons. They are making choices that feel like forced hands. They are choosing long term consequences for short term needs. There are so many power dynamics- both in actual power and cages- and the kinds that are felt more than seen.
I’ve realized that usually all the main characters are morally grey.
They do the wrong things for the right reasons.
They do the right things for the wrong reasons.
They do things with positive intent that make horrid impact on others.
They do crazy short-term things to try to solve complex long-term problems.
They love people deeply and still hurt them.
They protect and control.
They help and harm.
They have backstories that make you understand exactly why they became who they are — and behaviors you still can’t excuse just because you understand them.
I think that’s most of the characters in our lives too- including us.
I have so many clients who’s difficult to have relationship with parents are morally grey. They loved their kids- and still do.
But some of those mothers let that “love” sweep all the family trauma under a rug of good and grateful. That “love” became enmeshment that consumed the mother into a morally grey martyr who is stuck in emotional immaturity to her eldest daughter who is no longer interested in being the one who emotionally regulates her parents anymore. The wrong things for the right reasons. And the right things for the wrong reasons. Some of the fathers have a mental illness, is that his fault? How do you expect more from someone if they truly are a narsacist or kinda just an ass or a lazy adult? Or maybe they are so wrapped up in their own stuff they don’t have capacity for you? Or they are a vortex of need that sucks you in or spits you out? How do we have relationship to difficult people when they aren’t abusive or awful, even if they have been?
How do we know when it’s good enough to stay or bad enough to leave? Those are the kind of hard questions that I don’t think we get pretty easy answers to. I think these questions, their answers, and the action to back them up- requires a deep sense of self trust and discernment.
Morally grey people and relationships are complex and nuanced. We can’t lean on requiring affirmation in order to trust ourselves in our lived reality. To allow something not working to be a good enough reason to change it even if it’s not a giant waving red flag.
We have to be able to set boundaries even if there isn’t a clear crossing of harmful behavior. We have to be able to stay in relationships that are uncomfortable and inconvenient. Both things can be true.
Healthy relationships and people are morally grey, too.
This is part of what makes relationships and boundaries so damn complicated.
It would be much easier if everyone who hurt us was a villain. If every no was with something bad and not sometimes the right thing at the wrong time. (More on the hell yes and hell no narrative in this blog)
It would be easier and simpler if the people we needed boundaries with were entirely bad. If they were characters of villains we like to think that harmful people always are.
If there was a certain amount of harm that automatically meant you leave.
A certain amount of good that automatically meant you stay.
A formula where we could plug in everything that has happened and get back:
YES. This relationship is okay.
or
NO. This relationship is not okay.
But most relationships don’t work like that.
Most people are morally grey. Most relationships, the best and the worst- have a little bit of the other sprinkled in. And no, I’m not talking about abuse here. And also, this is one of the reasons it is still so hard for those in abuse to leave- there is usually some or “enouhg” good that makes them want to stay- that keeps them hooked in this place of frozen paralysis of neither staying fully or going. I’ve seen it with so many meh or struggling marriages in my clients. The ones who won’t go but also don’t want to apply themselves or lean in fully to stay. They are like a caged animal who feels damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Most of us have some very clear hard lines in the sand around things. Even when the behavior can is clearly wrong, harmful, even abusive- it can feel muddy. The closer you get to morally grey people, the more complex they often are.
Sure, there are outliers. People who seem evil, cruel, awful no matter which angle.
But more often than not, people are complex even when their behaviors are clearly wrong. Sometimes people who cause us great harm, are also well loved. Upstanding or popular or successful to other people. Some can be kind and graceous to their community and cruel inside their own homes. People can be good at masks. Sometimes even within the same relationship. They shift and change depending on how much of yourself you let off the leash. How much you don’t fawn or freeze. There is a reason that these relationships are hard. The dynamics are not just on the surface- they are felt. They are controlling us at an energetic and somatic level.
I think we need to bring complexity back to the conversations around boundaries and really just about humans in general.
Sometimes someone loves you and consistently disappoints you.
Sometimes someone has beautiful intentions and a painful impact.
Sometimes you understand exactly why your mom is the way she is — and being around her still knocks you off center. Or her love has become an enmeshment. The things unsaid aren’t just festering- they are a rotting.
Sometimes your partner is a really good person and something in the relationship still isn’t working.
Sometimes the roles you and this friend fell into don’t work anymore.
Sometimes someone has changed, but your body still doesn’t trust them.
Sometimes you genuinely want more closeness with someone AND every time you move closer you remember why you created distance.
Sometimes you need less access, not no access.
Sometimes you need to leave.
Sometimes you need to stay.
Sometimes you don’t know yet.
That’s the messy middle.
When is enough, enough?
There isn’t always a perfect boundary. No perfect pretty bow to tie on things.
Recently, there was a local pregnancy provider who was arrested for some pretty awful charges. The FB group conversations and social media was flooded with outcries around some of the dodgy, harmful, selfish, and many used the word abusive claims against them. There were also many in the community who saw and experienced the same individuals and business as helpful, healing, good hearted. So which is true? Can both be true? How much harm or mistakes- intentional or unintentional strips someone of their safety or goodness? How much good or time could redeem a person from it?
What is cancel culture, and what is accountability? I personally want no part in cancel culture. And I also don’t want to see even the best and the good of us not take accountability and truth spoken to our bullshit when it harms others. No matter how well intentioned we are, I believe we need to own our impact. And, I hope we can also treat others with compassion.
Holding both feels harder and harder in this world to be honest.
Does their intent matter or only the impact? What about when your parent or partner has a mental illness?
How much is or isn’t their fault or their responsibility?
I can’t answer this for you. And honestly, I think so much of it changes depending on the person and also in your capacity to be with them without being in harm. But relationships also don’t have to happen in the binary. You can love someone and no longer trust them with certain access or vulnerabilities. People can move circles of access not only based on their behavior, but on your capacity and your needs.
There isn’t always a clean answer for:
How much is enough?
How much is too much?
How much is not enough?
Am I asking too much of them?
Am I tolerating too much from them? Too little?
Do I need to accept who they are?
Or am I using acceptance to keep abandoning myself?
Is this compassion?
Or am I explaining away behavior that is hurting me?
Do I need a stronger boundary?
Or do I need the capacity to tolerate the discomfort of being in relationship with an imperfect human?
Those are different questions.
And I don’t think we answer them particularly well by simply categorizing people as good or bad. I sometimes think that labels, and even a diagnoses makes us leave people off the hook for the reality of how they treat us in relationship and our capacity for it.
Sometimes the question in a relationship is whether or not to go no contact. I’ve walked along side women who asked that question, and also many who refused to even think it at first because this person is good and meant well. I’ve also seen where it’s more complicated than that. Where you are co-parenting with a partner who is an absolute NO for you- and yet is a yes and a maybe for ways that you must co-parent. I’ve seen where you stay in relationship but with more distance and self trust of how you navigate and show up to that person.
Sometimes the first thing we have to learn is much smaller and much harder:
How do I stay with myself while I’m with you?
The boundary isn’t always the distance between you and them.
Forgiveness does not always mean access. And honoring someones goodness and sovereingty as a human doesn’t necessarily mean you continue the relationship as is. When you are trying to establish a healthy relationship- you have to be in relationship to the reality of this morally grey person. Not just your expectations- not their potential- who they are and how they are.
Often, we use “boundaries” as a way to look at how the other person is or isn’t showing up or meeting expectations. I wonder, how are you showing up? How are you breaking your own boundaries? What are you allowing to continue? Where is your hinge of choice and sovereignty and dignity?
What kind of relationship do YOU want and need with them?
This is where we bring boundaries back to you. Back to your relationship to your self first.
You stop immediately orienting toward their feelings.
You stop trying to predict their response before you’ve even figured out your own.
You stop abandoning what you know because they’re disappointed.
You stop making their intentions more important than the impact something is having on you.
You stop requiring yourself to prove that they’re a bad person before you’re allowed to admit something doesn’t work for you.
You stop needing everyone else to agree with your decision before you trust yourself enough to make it.
You learn how to feel you AND them.
Connected enough and separate enough.
Can you feel and use your backbone- without needing to brace or become constantly angry or mad?
I can have compassion for why you are this way without making myself responsible for fixing it.
I can understand your intention and still tell the truth about the impact.
I can forgive you or love you and give you less access to me. Or no access.
I can be disappointed in you without making you a villain.
I can let you be disappointed in me without making myself wrong.
I can stay.
I can leave.
I can move closer.
I can move farther away.
And I can continue paying attention.
Boundaries aren’t just one time decisions- they are a living breathing thing.
Sometimes just that permission, reminds you that you are not stuck with only the option of the current relationship or not having one at all. Especially when we are talking about relationships that are messy and tricky which to be honest is usually most of them.
Social media loves quotes like “The only people who get upset when you set boundaries are often the ones who benefited from you having none.”
You know who is great with boundaries? Toddlers. They love the word “no”. One of the first signs babies learn is “all done”.
Ya know who haves and get’s upset with those toddlers boundaries? Their parents. Their loving healthy losing their grip on control parents.
As a person, I have the need and desire to have alone time as an introvert. I like quiet. I have a kid who had a need as a infant and toddler to be a stage 5 clinger and also never stop making sounds.
Our needs and wants are often uncomfortable and inconvenient for other people. Morally grey or not. Even the healthiest people and relationships are hard. Because being human is hard and loving another human is hard.
The reality is that our wants and needs often clash. Most of the things people label as someone breaking their boundary is more of you having a conflict between what you want and need and what they want and need.
I love psychoanalysis as much as the next millinial mom trying to heal my trauma and break cycles but I do think it sometimes goes too far. I do think we can use therapy speak to avoid the real issue- taking ownership for what comes next.
Not everything with a morally grey man or your mom is their fault or even your fault. What matters as much, if not more is not whose fault it is- but what you will do with that now.
Where is your impact and choice? Where is your hinge of agency? What resource and power do you have to change things? Not them, maybe not even the relationship- but the way YOU show up in it. Or even how you pull back or step away from the dynamics.
When it comes to these messy middle kinds of boundaries with morally grey people- we need to come back to you being able to feel the boundaries and then MOVE them.
Someone doesn’t need to be a villain for you to change your relationship to them.
All over the internet, there are adult kids blaming their parents and parents blaming their adult kids for estrangement and no contact. Apparently, it’s a new trend. Some are blaming therapy. Some are blamming tiktok. And some of them are all probably at least a little right.
There is diagnosing and psychoanalyzing the other. Finger pointing. Villain and victim conversations. And it’s fascinating to me watching it from both “sides”. It’s interesting how much energy is being placed on the “other” in this content.
Those conversations are loud because people love a common enemy.
We love to trauma bond around who was wrong, who hurt us, who is toxic, who is the narcissist, who is to blame. It can feel like connection, except sometimes it leaves us even more lonely — not only from each other, but from ourselves.
Brené Brown calls this Common Enemy Intimacy:
“Common Enemy Intimacy is counterfeit connection and the opposite of true belonging. If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection.”
— Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness
I hate that we can be harmed and demeaned by other people to the point that we become disconnected from our own sense of agency, choice and power- even in relationship to that same person.
I hate that we can get frozen in fear. Flooded by past emotion and energy so much so that we forget who we are now. The highly capable 45 year old client who feels 14 again. The mother who feels powerless to her seemingly power hungry toddler. Our bodies can learn to survive by going quiet, appeasing, disappearing, fighting, performing or staying small.
We can become so accustomed to a role or dynamic that changing it feels impossible.
And I also believe reclaiming that agency is our innate right.
I believe there is a part of each of us that is God-made.
It cannot be given to you by another person.
And it cannot ultimately be taken away by one either.
Someone else can absolutely hurt you. They can betray you. Horribly impact you. Neglect you. Manipulate you. Fail you in ways that have real consequences.
But healing asks us, eventually, to come back into relationship with the part of ourselves that can choose.
Not because what happened was our responsibility.
Because what happens next is ours. We don’t always get to change our story, but I do believe we can redeem it.
Certainty can make boundaries easier.
A villain can make leaving easier. Being able to have those clear awful things or people agreeing with us or validating our experiences is what often makes us feel ready to leave. But it also makes us feel trapped to stay.
This is why gaslighting and emotional abuse is so damn hard for people to leave. Because you always find the good, the silver lining. You can lose your perspective on reality, on behavior, on outcome- and ultimately what you are wanting, needing, and actively choosing.
It can feel noticeably lonely and quiet when you’re someone determined to hold complexity and curiosity around people and situations.
Because what happens when nobody is entirely the villain? When you can hold multiple complex truths, realities, identities in one moment or relationship?
What happens when you understand their childhood?
When you know why they do what they do?
When you know they really do love you?
When you can see the beautiful parts of them right alongside the parts that hurt you?
You still get to respond to reality.
Understanding someone does not require unlimited access to you.
Compassion doesn’t require self-abandonment.
Accountability doesn’t require dehumanizing someone.
And someone’s humanity does not require you to tolerate their harm.
There is a space where we can hold both.
Grace AND accountability.
Compassion AND radical responsibility.
Love AND limits.
Agency AND acknowledgment of what happened to us.
The holy AND human of all of it.
And sometimes, you still won’t know.
Sometimes there isn’t a right or easy answer or decision. A perfect boundary or defining of the relationship that makes it easy or simple or clean. It stays messy even as you heal. You break hearts- theirs and yours- even as you try to preserve them.
There isn’t always a pretty bow to tie on people or relationships.
Sometimes there are just less-than-ideal things we have to learn how to live with.
You might make a boundary and change it later.
You might move farther away and eventually come closer.
You might try again and realize you can’t.
You might stay in relationship and discover that what needed to change wasn’t necessarily the relationship itself — it was your ability to stay rooted in yourself while you were in it. You might have stayed in a relationship and now are facing a sunk cost and wondering when and how you know when it’s time to call it. When is enough, enough?
When are we being greedy and when are we being grateful? When does goodness outway the bad and vice-versa.
I guess that’s all in how you decide to write your story. How you decide you want to be with morally grey men, and also maybe your mom.
You might realize you’ve spent years asking:
“What is the right boundary?”
when the deeper question was:
“What allows me to remain in my own integrity here?”
No perfect certainty. No perfect boundary. No perfect outcome.
Just you and your integrity against the world. Just you and self trust and liking your reasons why you stay or go or somewhere in that fucking messy middle. FMM.
Brené Brown introduced me to FFT’s. Your fucking first time. It’s a common loving reminder my sister and mom and I say often. Maybe someday some gal will text her bestie or her sister- it’s your FMM. Your fucking messy middle.
Not figuring out which character is the good guy and which one is the villain.
Learning to trust yourself inside complexity.
Learning how to notice when you’re getting sucked into the vortex and come back to yourself while you are in the room with them.
Learning how much closeness you actually have capacity for.
Learning when love asks you to stay, and then teaches you how.
Learning when love tells you to say absolutely not, we are all done here. When to walk away or flip tables.
Learning when love asks you to step back.
Learning when you’ve reached enough.
And learning that you don’t have to abandon yourself while you’re figuring it out.
Because most of our boundaries and relationships live here.
In the messy, complex middles with morally grey people.
Hey, I’m Becca and I hope this blog made you giggle or gave you some good language or tools to support your relationship to your morally grey characters in your life. Professionally I’m a somatic healing practitioner. Personally I’m a millennial mom and music loving, weight lifting, book nerd. I perpetually watch the Office as my only show and usually have at least one emotional support beverage on me.
Do you love a morally grey man in your books- I want to hear from you! Dm me on IG
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