The fragility of the self-absorbed

This afternoon I saw "Maestro," with Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein. It's not really a straight biopic (you should excuse the pun), but focuses specifically on his relationship with his wife Felicia … and therefore it shows us something of his many affairs (without cataloguing them or always bothering to give us names). Men and women both, of course, although it looks like the men outnumbered the women. At one point he meets friends on the street in New York: they are a young couple carrying their new baby, at whom Lenny coos and makes suitable noises. Then he bends down as if to address the baby very seriously and says, "You know, I've slept with both your mommy and your daddy!"

I also found myself thinking about the dynamics of having any kind of a relationship with a very self-absorbed person. Lenny appears to ignore Felicia for years; but when she gets sick (she died of cancer in 1978) it hits him like a pile-driver. And I reflected that Wife fought tooth and nail for decades to be "free" of what she saw as my overbearing domination; but when I said "OK fine, I'm going" she crumpled and was utterly lost. It's not an easy dynamic to understand.

Of course, Wife was never a world-famous conductor, either.

It's late, and I can't think of anything insightful to say. So I'll stop here. Maybe I'll think of something more in the next few days. But the comparison did strike me.