Recently, a patient told me about his new test for determining a woman’s suitability for marriage. It’s not politics, religion, or whether she wants children. He wanted to know what she thought of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who killed her three children.
At first, I thought this was an unusual dating rule for a man. Then other people in my clinic started bringing up the case. A murder case somehow turns into a compatibility test.
This question isn’t really about Lindsay Clancy. This is more personal: What does your answer tell me about what it would be like to build a life with you?
Some men hear sympathy for Clancy and get nervous. When women say “that could have been me,” they may not hear sympathy for severe mental illness. They might hear someone identify with the murder of a mother of three. So the question arises: Does mental illness eliminate responsibility? Where do the compassion and excuses begin? If we had children, would I trust this person to take care of them?
While men respond with nothing but anger to Clancy, women may hear something very different. He may have thought he was expressing his fear of the death of his three children. She may be wondering what his reaction indicates about how he will treat her. If I got seriously ill after giving birth, would he understand what was happening? Will he help me or just blame me?
Neither reaction necessarily represents someone lacking empathy. Often, in these situations, men and women sympathize with different people and worry about different things.
For some men, the Clancy case raises a scary question about marriage: Can I trust you to care for our children? For some women, this raises another question: If something happened to me, could I trust you? The problem is thinking that one view can answer either question.
We do this more and more on dates. How did you vote? What are your thoughts on Israel? Transgender athletes? treat? We don’t just listen to answers. We use it to decide whether someone is compassionate, trustworthy, stable, selfish, or safe to live with. Now obviously we’re dealing with a murder case.
I understand the temptation. Dating requires making huge decisions using very incomplete information. You don’t know how someone will behave after ten years of marriage, during a financial crisis, after the birth of a child, or when one of you becomes seriously ill. However, these are the most important things you want to know before trusting someone with your life.
So people looked for clues. Questions about Lindsay Clancy became a way of trying to understand something that was not yet known.
But people are not so neatly sorted. One might believe that Clancy is seriously ill, but still believe that protecting children comes first. Someone who can focus on the child and not be indifferent to severe postpartum mental illness. One might believe that parents are legally responsible and still feel great sympathy for her mental anguish.
The trouble begins when an opinion becomes a judgment on the person who holds it. “You sympathize with Lindsay Clancy” became “I can’t trust you to take care of our children.” “You don’t sympathize with her” becomes “If I were mentally ill, you wouldn’t protect me.”
I see smaller versions of this often in practice. “You don’t understand why I’m upset” becomes “You don’t care about me.” “You spent too much money” became “You are irresponsible”. A message becomes an explanation for the whole person.
Dating is tempting because everyone wants to know what they are going through. But you might have known someone for years and still not know how they’ll cope with grief, how she’ll cope with months of sleepless nights with a newborn, or what it’ll be like for either of you when money gets tight. No first date questions can tell you that. The more we pretend, the easier it is to confuse consistency with compatibility.
You can find people who share your views on politics, COVID-19, Israel, and Lindsay Clancy. That doesn’t tell you how either of you will behave when life gets tough.
Clancy’s questions may work, but not for the reasons one might think. What matters is what happens when couples disagree. Can you hear a point of view you don’t like without thinking it tells you everything about the other person? Before deciding what this difference means, can you ask why someone would view this case differently? Is it possible for you to immediately wonder if the relationship is doomed without consent?
Maybe it’s not such a bad question to ask Clancy on a date. Just don’t mistake the answers for a quiz. The person who gives you the “right” answer today will eventually give you an answer you don’t like. How you two handle that moment may tell more about your future together than anything either of you can say about Lindsay Clancy.
***
Jonathan Alpert is a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, D.C., and the author ofhealing nation”. Find him on X @JonathanAlpert.
This article is part of Upstream, The Telegraph’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insights and human stories—from our featured writers to you.