#its not a big deal just a pet peeve since it leads to scenarios exactly like dis one

[queercatboyrights]

tried using the link from that post to the DNS channel for pokemon mystery gifts only to find it leads to a private reddit page that I can't access 😔

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

One of my pet peeves is when fellow Spider-Man fans argue that Peter and Mary Jane not being together romantically will condemn them both to a lifetime of eternal misery or when people argue that their love and marriage have survived too many hardships in the past (such as the tragic loss of their baby daughter in particular) for them to ever break up.

Peter and Mary Jane are my favourite fictional couple of all time (always have been, always will be) and I want them to love each other and for them to be together until the stars turn cold and falls out of the sky but I refuse to accept the notion that they are each the other persons only sources of happiness. Also there is no such thing as a point of no return were a couple can no longer decide to end their relationship ever because of having endured too much together. That is not how relationships work, that is not how humans work!

Mary Jane could live a perfectly fulfilling life without Peter! She doesn’t need him but she chooses to be with him because she loves him and being with him makes her happy! That is a good thing dammit!

Peter once believed that Gwen was the love of his life and that he would marry her. Following her death he became depressed and sincerely questioned if it would ever be possible for him to love another person like he loved her, a most realistic concern after suffering such a devastating loss. But his life went on and we all know the answer to that question.

Later in life he even started to question if his relationship with Gwen, (the very person he once thought of as the love of his life) would have lasted even if she had lived, thinking that he and Gwen just weren’t compatible enough for their relationship to survive in the long run and that he most likely still would have ended up falling in love with Mary Jane regardless.  

If he lost Mary Jane too it would probably be even more devastating than when he lost Gwen, but he survived that loss and he would ultimately survive losing Mary Jane as well.

In summary: I want to think that Peter and Mary Jane stays together because they love each other and want to spend their lives together and not because they each represent the other persons only chance of ever finding happiness.

For me a big part of the appeal of Pete/MJ is that they’re both flawed, messy, real-seeming fictional people who work hard for their relationship, which by definition means that, yes, they could split up. That’s something that can happen with real people, even ones who love each other very much.

To be fair, I think a lot of fans (including me sometimes!) use “Peter and MJ would never break up!” as hyperbolic shorthand when what they mean is, “Okay, I can see xyz scenario where Peter and MJ would split up and it would make sense, but not because Peter gaslights MJ into agreeing to a deal with the devil who then alters reality so that a brick falls onto Peter’s head the night before the wedding because Marvel thought Peter getting a divorce would age Spider-Man too much, are you f***ing kiding me–”

Yeah I think a lot of the miserable without each other stuff is an interpretation/no prize style fix fic of the terms of whatever the Mesphito deal exactly is. Supposedly they’re supposed to unfulfilled without each other per the deal, but because OMD is a piece of shit comic we never really delve into how (except for oddly a small tease in the deadpool/spider-man comic of all ducking unlikely places). Especially since if we accept current events in the comics as the canon they’re supposed to be doing fairly okay (Peter is a goddamn billionaire and MJ’s doing her own thing with Tony and pals).

My personal interpretation of that is the deal is doing more than affecting than romantic lives and is undermining them in other aspects in the long term (they’re stuck in a perpetual one step forward two step back thing-Peter’s company will be lost and he’ll be poorer than before, MJ’s acting dream keeps getting snatched from her despite the obvious successes she’s had there on top of how every time they get closer to together some outside force intervenes and pushes them apart etc.) Although full disclosure, for the time being I’ve dropped Slott’s amazing run.

But otherwise yes. The above. What makes both Peter and MJ interesting as characters is that they actually have flaws and their own characters outside of one another. And those flaws complement each other in a very real way that works for a relationship that feels organic. But MJ is such a developed character she can (and does) support stories without needing Peter’s presence to make us care about her. Or in other words, she’s the mythical strong female supporting character who’s life does not revolve solely around her love interest.

I have to disagree with the points made here. Esepcially the OP...a lot.

 First of all...actually there is such a phenomenon wherein a couple will not break up. Different humans behave in different ways...but if you know enough about psychoplogy you’d know actually a lot of human behaviour can be predicted if you have a detailed enough psychological profile. And part and parcel of that is consistent behavioural patterns. The nature of comics essentially means we know EVERYTHING about a character because we live in their heads and are privy to all relevant information about them. Consequently by and large for the characters who’ve been around long enough and in enough situations we know what they are going to act most of the time. In theory if you knew as much about a human being the same would apply. In fact most of the time when we see people act in ways we didn’t expect or claim human behaviour is unpredictable or ‘people change’ the truth is that’s just us trying to explain behaviours that we didn’t know would happen due to a lack of information. We don’t know what exact variables are bouncing around and influencing someone’s thoughts and feelings which would lead to them acting a certain way, or don’t know that person’s behavioural history well enough to have seen a certain action coming. But we do with many fictional characters which means you cannot simply treat them psychologically or emotionally the same way you’d treat a real person and have them act arbitrarily differently because ‘humans don’t workt hat way’.

 Which brings us to this point. When people have been in a relationship for a long enough amount of time and endured certain things that act as bonding experiences it becomes less and less likely that they would split for various reasons.  One of which being that they are among the only people who understand what it was like to go through said bonding experiences which can take the form of traumatic experiences. This is why veterans or war or even of the police, specifically ones who’ve fought together are often so close and stay friends for most of their lives following a traumatic event.

 So in Peter and MJ’s case your talking about people who’ve lived though shittons of tragedies and hardships indivoidually and faced obstacles to wanting to enter into a relationship together. MJ was almost pathologically opposed to any form of commitment due to a traumatic upbringing but still renegaded on that because of her feelings for Peter, an event which occurred following the knowledge that her very life would be at risk through association with him. You cannot sell short how big of a deal for someone in her position thus its a testament to the degree to which she wanted to be involved with Peter, even when she was trying to actively stop herself from being so.

 Your talking about someone who for years knew fully well from first hand experience that she was going to deal with being stood up, with a lot of worrying and that she could be killed at any time and her actual biggest issue with getting together with him was worrying that she’d wind up trapped and miserable. But in reality she gained a lot of emotional fulfilment from being involved with Peter even though it actually required MORE commitment than her mother or sister or brother-in-law ever had to deal with. Those issues for her stemming all the way back to childhood (you know the shit which absolutely stays with you in life) was so deep rooted that she was still tempted to run away the night before her wedding but never did.

 She had other options at her disposal. Any number of people with money, security or almost anything she wanted would’ve liked to date her or be in a long term relationship with her but she never went for them. At that point you  are dealing with someone who is very, very, very seriously dead set on being attached to the person they want to be with.

 And then on top of all this your dealing with people who’ve been through multiple  immensely stressful and traumatic bonding experiences over the course of several years and both have a consistent track record of responding to such tragedies and traumas by growing closer together never apart. As an acquaintance of mine has said, conflict in life and in marriage either drives you apart or closer together.

 Sure, enduring a miscarriage doesn’t mean 100% two people aren’t going to split up. But in Peter and MJ’s case you aren’t dealing with JUST that you are dealing with that on top of everything else in their lives and relationship and then they went ahead and had even more of that crap thrown at them after the clone saga and during the JMS run. In fact they were much closer after the miscarriage and during the JMS run than they’d been even before, highlighting what I said before about how they react to tragedies and traumas.

 And here is the thing, the OP and other observers making similar points are making the error of not actually looking at the specifics of the Peter/MJ relationship but rather utilizing knowledge garnered from most people’s relationships, normal relationships. I’m not suggesting Peter and MJ have some sort of magical miracle romance or anything but it is precisely because of their lives before and during their relationships and the tragedies and traumas they faced that it is illogical to judge them the same way you judge most people’s relationships. It’s atypical even for the closest real life equivalencies such as police officers and their spouses.

 So yes in fact in real life and in fiction even moreso you can definitely say past actions inform how someone is going to act now or in the future. And in this case your essentially dealing with two people who’s relationship on an emotional level doesn’t erode as crap keeps getting piled on top of it but consistently actually deepens. Could there be something hurtful enough to facilitate them ending their relationship? Maybe...but realistically its very unlikely unless they just fundamentally change as people. The notion that their relationship will end b because they get fed up with the lifestyle one another have led up until this point is ridiculous or they go through something really hurtful and traumatic is essentially ridiculous. When you’ve got people who stayed together and grew closer after multiple kidnappings, multiple near fatal attacks, stalkers, home invasions, the belief that one another were dead for 2 weeks-six months and then a miscarriage which was just the chrery on top then yes...ending it due to something like that is something that would’ve happened a long ass time ago, not at the end of over 5 years of marriage and 10 years of friendship. That is in fact extremely unbelievable and realistic.

 Moving on lets talk about the nature of need here.

 MJ chooses to be with Peter because he makes her happy. So...she does in fact needs him to make her happy in regards to romantic/emotional fulfilment. She doesn’t need him for financial support, security, or the kind of fulfilment she gains from acting or the dignity that comes from having a career.

 But...is she deep down happy with that stuff alone sans whatever fulfilment she gets from Peter? Not exactly no. Check the JMS run. MJ had a well earning career. She could be with her friends and family from NYC if she wanted and if not plenty of people in LA to hang around. She had a certain degree of fame and she lived in luxury. And she was...totally miserable. In fact before Gwen died we know MJ loved to party but actively chose to cut back on that because of her relationship with Peter. She decided that she was going to implicate herself in his life in the 1980s stories despite having a lot of those same career options and knowing the baggage Peter came with. As frustrated and upset as she got upon losing a lot of her success she prioritized her marriage above those things and made sacrifices for it’s sake.These are not merely the actions of someone who finds someone else makes her happy but clearly finds great fulfilment from said person.

 I’m not saying MJ NEEDS Peter to survive and that she’d fall apart without him. But am I saying that she would be without a certain large source of fulfilment in her life without him? Or that Peter to her is much more than someone she loves and who makes her happy but whom she doesn’t exactly need as part of her life? Or that without him there would essentially always be something missing in her life she’d want to fill? Yes to all.

 Indeed the idea MJ gets this type of deepset fulfilment from her relationship with Peter goes a Hell of a long way to explaining exactly why she has a Job-like patience and tolerance of the massive stress, danger and traumas that comes from being his friend, lover and spouse and why she made an exception for him as far as her commitment issues were concerned.

 That doens’ make MJ weak or dependant at all. Different strokes for different folks and some people simply need certain fulfilment in their lives through a romantic relationship.

 Now moving onto Peter...this is where the OP is really getting ridiculous.

 Yeah Peter Parker, aged 19-20 years old tops who’d dated exactly 3 girls in his whole life and one of those was just a handful of casual dates thought that Gwen Stacy whom he’d known for at most a year and a half (as in had known her face/name for that long, not actually befriended, dated or been in love with her for that long) thought Gwen Stacy was the love of his life and the person he would marry...without telling her his secret identity.

 It’s almost as though he was a young and naive idiot who whilst genuinely in love with someone for the first time ever and built it up to unrealistic levels in his head and heart precisely because he didn’t know any better. Peter didn’t have puppy love but...he kind of had the equivalent except he genuinely was in love with Gwen.

 Simply put he was a very inexperienced naive kid who didn’t really know what he was doing...also he was like super stressed most of the time trying to save the world but that isn’t the point really....

 Now yes after he died he did question if he could love another person like he loved Gwen and he was depressed.

 And he got through that and did eventually love somebody like he loved Gwen. As in it was Mary Jane. As in this wasn’t him merely ‘moving on’ it was him moving on with someone very specific who helped him in very specific ways. More than once the Spider-Man narrative has made the clear cut point that Peter would have REMAINED depressed, and wouldn’t have moved on and would’ve gone off the deep end if it wasn’t for Mary Jane’s presence in his life at that time. He didn’t simply work to get over it and allow time to heal all wounds. From the moment Gwen died it was Mary Jane’s support and presence as a friend in his life which enabled him to survive losing Gwen that way. Conveying it as a simple case of someone losing a loved one and moving on like many people do is belying the actual specifics and realities of the situation as it was presented.

 To reiterate Peter only moved on from Gwen the then love of his life because

a)      He was making a bigger deal out of their relationship than was warranted and

b)      Because Mary Jane herself was the one helping him to move on and was the person he moved on to. Flash Thompson and Aunt May weren’t the ones who were going to see him through that crisis

Att he same time....where precisely did Peter ever once say even if Gwen had lived he and MJ would’ve wound up together anyway? Never in all my years have I ever encountered such a story or moment.

 The closest things I can think of are Webspinners Tales of Spider-Man where Peter wonders if he and Gwen would’ve stayed together if she’d lived or Web of Romance where he compares MJ to Gwen and says Gwen would’ve needed him to protect and support her most of the time whereas MJ didn’t because she was a stronger person.

 The latter doesn’t really support the OP’s statements as it has nothing to do with Peter questioning if he and Gwen would’’ve been together later in life but is simply observing how MJ and Gwen cope differently and maybe that MJ is a better match.

 The former however does have Peter questioning if him and Gwen would’ve stayed together...and not coming up with an ironclad answer. But even putting that aside that was a late 20s/early 30s year old Peter Parker who’d done a Hell of a lot of growing up since the days where he was dating Gwen Stacy as a much more naive kid. Of course  he’d wonder if he and Gwen would’ve gotten married if she hadn’t died. He has hindsight on his side at that point and lacks youthful naivete to cloud his judgement.

 The OP’s point was Peter thoguth Gwen was the one and only person he could ever be with but she wasn’t and he even questioned it as such therefore the same logic should apply to Mary Jane or any woman he was with. But this again takes a broadbrush 1:1 approach to both relationships.

 Mary Jane and Gwen and their respective relationships with Peter are immensely different. Just because Peter at one point believed Gwen was the one and only person he’d ever love and no one else could compare and was proven wrong doesn’t mean that in reality he’d be wrong for holding the same belief about Mary Jane at a much later point in life. Because again it’s coming from a completely different place in his life and from an entirely different emotional level.

 So no. If Peter lost MJ he would absolutely not survive that loss the way he survived Gwen. Because again...he only survived losing Gwen because of Mary Jane.  People forget this but Peter is someone who isn’t at the end of the day a great loner. He really does need people and I don’t just mean for the sake of emotional fulfilment. Peter didn’t just love MJ or feel she made him happy. He literally needed her presence in his life as proven by stories like Kraven’s Last Hunt, ASM #150, the Clone Saga, Doomed Affairs, etc. MJ was vital to keeping him afloat and he’d have gone down a long time ago without her influence.

  So yeah Peter and MJ do stay together because they want to and because they love one another. But more than likely when you break down the characters and their experiences, especially in Peter’s case...yeah. Actually there probably isn’t anyone else for either of them. Not at the very least to fulfil them AS much as they would otherwise be in one another’s company.

   I know we like Peter and Mj becuase they are more realistic and try to make things work but...honestly there comes a point where you really do have to look at the charaacters and what they are and have dealt with and see them for how they’ve been defined. 

 Sure their relationship is messy and requires them to work hard in spite of character flaws. But it honestly at this point (or rather before OMD anyway) would be immensely difficult to believably and yes realistically split them up

 The only way to do it is if you have them completely change in their personalities and lose the very aspects that one of them loved about the other. And outside of very mean spirited stories where they have kids who are violently killed or where Mary jane is victimized in some way (which Marvel would never due out of fear of the PR and the desire to keep using the character for branding purposes) those changes aren’t going to happen. Marvel would of course never change Spider-Man permanently in any significant way to the point where he loses his personality because again branding.

 But if we’re talking about stuff we’ve already seen before now, if we’re saying they remain essentially the same in their personalities and they go through similar tragedies and traumas as they’ve gone through up until now and those things break them up...Hell no. they aren’t going to split up over that stuff. If they were it would’ve happened decades ago. It’d have to be something really extreme or out of the ordinary like one of them being rendered disabled and blaming the other or something. But even that...I don’t buy they’d do that given the losses they’ve endured already. Losing your kid is so much worse than that.

 As for the ramifications of OMD...as I’ve said before OMD is a different continuity from pre-OMD Spider-Man and furthermore is literally a consistent series of OOC BS moments stretching across years. Sure if we look at the current stories and say Peter and MJ are perfectly happy without one another...but it isn’t that that proves that actually they are fine without one another. It just proves how deeply the post-OMD comics misunderstand the characters and the series. This stuff has little to do with OMD and actually goes back way into their histories, for example in the JMS run BOTH of them were miserable and missing each other a Hell of a lot.

 We never even SAW either of them post-OMD all that upset that the most significant romantic relationship in their lives which was stated in and out of universe to be tantamount to a marriage. Not once. We hit the ground and Peter is macking on some stranger and MJ is dating some loser actor. Not even a hint of them being upset over breaking up and we’ve to this day never seen anything accurately reflect the realistic sadness either would feel, even if this was like a fairly standard relationship.

 To reiterate, I’m not saying Peter and MJ have some kind of miracle magic romance where everything is lovey dovey all the time. But I’m just saying because of who they are and what they’ve been through yes it is actually very difficult to dream up a realistic scenario wherein they’d believably break up like many people do. Because many people have not lived thorugh what they have and have not developed their personal relationships in the same ways.

 @horselover107 I don’t disagree with your last paragraph but I think there is a difference in discussing a character’s creative standing and issues of mental/emotional satisfaction and fulfilment. Similarly someone doesn’t need their lives to REVOLVE around someone they love for that person to still be fulfilling in their lives and the most important person or aspect to it. MJ herself acknowledged this as such. She acknowledged Peter was more important to her than anyone or anything else in her life but that didn’t mean everything she did hinged upon taking him into account or that she didn’t have her own things going on. Ditto for Peter. He’s acknowledged MJ as the person he loves most and needs in his life but he has other shit to do as well. But that doesn’t mean that for MJ there would be a big hole missing in her life without Peter leaving her at least never as  happy as she would be with him, or that for Peter he wouldn’t eventually fall apart without MJ supporting him.