Megan Thee Stallion and Klay Thompson I finish. Before the dust settles, A SNL The comedian was on national television calling Clay “shit” and declaring that Meghan needed a “real man.”
The audience loved him. Of course they did.
This is the kind of thing no one wants to hear on a Sunday morning. This drawing is a bag of M&Ms for dinner. Delicious going down. You’ll feel terrible after an hour. And then you go home to your partner and pick a fight you didn’t mean to get into.
I am a couples therapist. I watch this exact pattern destroy true love every week. So let’s talk about what really happened between Megan and Clay, because I promise it has nothing to do with him being dirty.
The other’s story is always a lie
When a relationship ends, your limbic system turns on. We are hardwired to need love. We are born needing a primary attachment figure from cradle to grave. When it seems that this person is not there for you, or that you are not enough for them, your nervous system goes into a state of biological panic.
It hurts to feel like you failed. It hurts to feel like you weren’t chosen. So, in order to survive this pain, people construct a story in which they are the good guy and their ex is the bad guy.
Culture is happy to help. Your friends help. Comedian on SNL Helps. TikTok helps.
I call this the story of the other. And it’s always a lie.
In any conflict between two people who care about each other, four things happen simultaneously. You’re both hurting. And you both react and protest against this harm. Two plus two. It is never one monster and one saint.
Calling Clay “dirt” is just a protective strategy dressed up as a joke. It’s easier to be angry and dismissive than to feel deep, heartbreaking sadness about a bond that didn’t work out.
So when you’re laughing about it, ask yourself who you’re actually protecting. Maybe it’s your own version of this story, the one you tell about your ex.
Everyone walks into my office as a global expert on their partners
I see this every Tuesday in my office in San Francisco.
A couple comes to the brink. One person lives in the master bedroom of the house. They are the good ones. They tried. Their yoga girlfriends agree. The magazine they read this week told them that they are a queen and that their partner is probably a toxic narcissist.
The other partner is stuck in the garage. They go to a bar and grab some peanuts and the boys immediately agree. Yeah man, we’re not good enough, are we? Let’s go play some golf.
They both entered my office as the world’s leading experts in solving their partner’s problems. If you held a global conference tomorrow about what’s wrong with your spouse, you would be the keynote speaker. They will be keynote speakers at your conference.
People have a post-doctoral degree on the failures of their exes. They bring receipts. TikTok agrees with me. My therapist agrees with me. now SNL He agrees with me.
If you want to actually know what cycle you’re stuck in instead of borrowing a comedian’s diagnosis, get a free relationship assessment. It’s the same map I use with the couples on my couch.
What I see across that couch is neither a hero nor a villain. They are two frightened human beings who have armed themselves with cultural phrases to avoid feeling vulnerable. They think they are diagnosing the problem. They pour gasoline on it.
No one is the bad guy here. Nobody at all.
The algorithm rewards certainty. The diagnosis is absolute certainty. It turns pain into a story with a villain, validating contempt, withdrawal, and self-protection. Megan accused Clay of cheating on her.
But snacks don’t nourish people. They are deregulating.
The truth about Megan and Clay is more sympathetic and sadder. They were two people who tried to care for each other. When you give your heart to someone, you are asking the two most terrifying questions anyone can ask. Are you there for me? Am I satisfied with you?
A relationship ends when both of these questions are answered “no” too many times.
If Clay withdraws or stays silent, that makes sense. He probably got to a place where he felt like he would never be enough, so he retreated to protect himself. This type of procrastination always looks cold on the outside and sinking on the inside.
If Meghan gets frustrated and eventually protests, that makes sense too. Maybe she felt lonely and had no priorities, and her heart was doing what hearts do. I arrived, paid, and finally left.
This is the waltz of pain. The relentless lover cries for closeness because abandonment is intolerable. The reluctant lover backs down because the feeling of constant disappointment is unbearable. Both moves make the other worse.
Disconnecting is a feature, not a bug. Conflict is evidence of love. The only reason a breakup is so painful is because the connection means something.
What I would actually say if they were on my couch
If Megan and Clay sat down with me tomorrow, they would throw up SNL They stepped on each other, I was going to stop them from trying to win.
I would say you already know how to list each other’s mistakes. This will not heal your heart.
To a partner who feels unloved, I would say your pain makes perfect sense. When it seems like your person isn’t there, of course you protest. Of course you criticize. You are sad about the loss of real-time connection.
For a partner who feels like dirt, I’d say your pain makes perfect sense, too. When you feel unable to make someone you love happy, of course you back down. You’re trying to stay safe.
You’re both hurting. You both act in a way that hurts the other more, not because you’re bad, but because being separated from someone you love is unbearable.
We have to get to what I call cubed empathy. Mercy for me. Mercy to you. Have mercy on us. You can merge two separate suffering bubbles into one shared suffering bubble.
The same dynamic plays out in more subtle betrayals as well. If you want to see how protective walls form before a relationship reaches the page six stage, I wrote about the science behind micro-cheating and how breakups creep in long before anyone packs their bag.
The line that deserves a screenshot
You don’t have to turn someone evil just because the emotional system between you broke down.
You could be two people who love each other and can’t figure out how to stop stepping on each other’s toes. You can end the relationship gently, while respecting the fact that you both tried. And you can do it without calling the person you once loved “dirty” on national television, in a group chat, or in the quiet courtroom of your mind.
This is the hardest story. It’s also the only one that will ever free you.
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Empathi Founder Figs O’Sullivan, LMFT and his wife Teale are a couples therapist and relationship expert at Stars and Silicon Valley, founder of Empathi, and built the platform Figlet, an AI-powered relationship coach trained in their clinical work.
