The Wife

she definitely was an unsympathetic character.

Read the thread " Totally related " below, you'll see that her type isn't very uncommon at all! People are rarely simple, fortunately my wife is a total opposite to Charlie.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Take a risk, Take a chance, Make a change. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

It's a movie, and actually we don't see her"comics" or however she feels or deals behind closed doors. So how are we to know she's unsympathetic?
And yes women like this are more common than what you think.
I was unfaithful to my self for almost 12 years.
I posted "totally related" because it was an eye opener from the other side.
Women are good at keeping secrets.
Oh and btw men and women see the "train wreck" coming a mile away and continue to gravitate towards it.

Actually, I found myself feeling sympathetic to both characters. I am not condoning her cheating, but did find myself relating to my own relationships. I am similar to Will, and even by his own admission, becomes voluntarily passive in a relationships as to keep a "easy going" "go with the flow" persona, whereas my partners tend to be more structured and organized. I see many, MANY relationships like this, where (like me, oft the male counterpart) takes an easier route, which also can be perceived as "more fun". The problem with this is that we typically do need SOME structure in our lives, so we latch onto a partner that provides the things that we don't. Their role is, more often than not, much more stressful than ours, and can take an immense toll on mental well-being.

Will admits that she was a good mother and he confessed to becoming more distant with Charlie. I don't think what she did was right, but having experienced similar experiences, and having seen similar situations, I have come to realize that there are always two sides to a coin.

"Come on in, and try not to ruin everything by being you."

I think it's easy to see her as "the bad guy" here because the movie's from the male lead's perspective... but let's face it: he's kind of a mess and the movie certainly hints at the idea that while he was busy being a great dad, he wasn't actually a very good husband and didn't really put in the necessary work to keep their marriage going ("happiness is not a sustainable position").

And then there's lines like when he wants to talk about how the girls might need more structure and the wife throws a schedule at him and lists all the various activities she has the girls involved in ("french, cello, tap, museum mondays, alternate cooking playdate every thursday afternoon, oral story-telling workshop for springbreak, breakfast and dinner everyday, cello practice everyday, reading them to sleep for an hour everyday).
Meanwhile, we see him not be able to get them to school on time and give them cold pizza for dinner and breakfast.

And most breakups are messy... she seems to genuinely still care for him and be a pretty great ex-

They have kids. She probably was torn between the idea of making it work for their sake and getting out of a now-loveless marriage when she was caught cheating on him. And she really seems to be invested in her kids.

Immediately after that exchange he's asked by the new lady in his life what went wrong and he concedes that she had a lot of money and he didn't and she gave up everything for him... and they were ALWAYS very different and while it was very fun at first it became less and less fun after awhile and he even throws out the great line that she stopped talking and he "enjoyed the silence too much."

I think it's reasonable to believe she's actually a pretty decent woman and he blew it, honestly. Not that it's super-simple... relationships seldom are. But I think she truly felt that she was unhappy for years and taking care of him before she was taking care of the kids and the whole time no one (including herself, mostly) was taking care of her.

If we had a movie from her perspective, we'd see him as "the bad guy" that took his wife for granted. It's all about perspective. It's always about perspective.

Having said all that, she DID get caught at the beginning of the movie cheating on him at the kids' fifth birthday party and the movie doesn't give her character much of a chance with such an introduction. But it IS a movie. While I could offer up an idea that she may not have had the emotional fortitude to tell him it's over and may have wanted to get caught because it was easier... the truth is that it's a movie and the over-the-top introduction was almost certainly just for theatrical purposes and she should get somewhat of a pass for that. It's a light-hearted affair from his perspective and that's why we see that - I think it's that simple. As soon as you get past that fact though... the movie goes out of its way to list tons of reasons we should consider her character as "sympathetic," I think. And if the movie is giving us ample reasons that it thinks we should find her as a "sympathetic character" then whatever your personal feelings about her, I think we're supposed to conclude that we are SUPPOSED to believe she's a sympathetic character.