How to Spot a ‘Bluebeard’ in the Dating Pool
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts –
I am writing because I am desperate for advice. I’m dating this guy I’ll call B. He’s not the hottest guy I’ve been with, and the lumbersexual look does not work for him, but he refuses to shave his beard, so, whatever. He’s super rich, and at first he literally treated me like a queen. But now that we’ve agreed to be exclusive, it’s like he’s a different person. Moody, uncommunicative, distant.
Last week he went on a business trip, and, I know I shouldn’t have, but I used his Amazon password to break into his email. Big mistake. Huge. Turns out, he’s had like, a gazillion girlfriends before me, and, same deal. Everything’s going great, they start to get close, and then he ghosts them. They beg him not to do it, they say he’s literally killing them, but he just doesn’t care. It’s like he actually enjoys it.
So of course I totally freaked and tried to hide what I’d done, but for some crazy reason I couldn’t clear the cache and he found out I’d been spying. He went totally ballistic, which I sort of understand? But now I think he’s doing the same to me as he did to all those other girls, which is so lame, because I really thought he was The One. My sister says I am being completely codependent and this is an abusive relationship, and my brothers want to kick B’s ass, but I think maybe with couples counseling we can work this out? Please advise.
Signed,
Fairytale Romantic
Dear Fairytale –
Sounds like B. has a classic case of Bluebeard Syndrome. Bluebeard, as you may know, is an archetypal legend about a king with a blue beard, who marries women, then kills them and hides the corpses in his castle.
When he marries his final wife, he gives her the keys to the castle and tells her she can look in every room except one. As soon as he leaves on a trip, the wife looks in the secret room, and discovers the bloody remains of her predecessors.
Try as she might to wash the blood from the key, it won’t come clean, and when Bluebeard finds out what his wife has done, he vows to kill her, too. Begging for mercy, she buys herself enough time to alert her sister to her plight; her sister tells her brothers, the brothers kill Bluebeard; everyone shares in the king’s fortune, except, of course, Mr. Beard.
Versions of this folktale appear in nearly every culture, with variations — in India, Bluebeard is a tiger who disguises himself as a man to win the heart of his intended victim, and in Italy Bluebeard is an ogre. The story is classified by folklorists as Type 312, in which the heroine is rescued by her brothers, and is also similar to stories where the heroine rescues herself and her sisters.
It may interest you to know, Fairytale, that you are not the only one to fall for the “ladykiller” type.
Bluebeard as a figure remains a source of cultural fascination — writers from Dickens and Thackeray to Anatole France and Kurt Vonnegut have reworked his tale, and more recently Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, and Helen Oyeyemi have considered the legend from a feminist point of view. Bela Bartok wrote him into an opera, Joanna Newsom made him the subject of a song, the film “Ex Machina” features a company named Bluebook in his honor, and Disney World includes crypts for Bluebeard and his wives in a display at the Magic Kingdom. On screen, he’s been interpreted by John Carradine, Richard Burton, and Charlie Chaplin, among others.
As your letter attests, the fable of Bluebeard has several interpretations. Like those misfortunate heroines Pandora and Lot’s wife, Bluebeard’s bride is punished for the fatal flaw of excess curiosity, of desiring knowledge and defying authority in pursuit of forbidden information. Like Lady Macbeth’s blood-stained hand, the bloody key in the tale suggests unconscious guilt, representing Bluebeard’s wife’s desire to be punished for her transgression.
But what to make of her husband giving her the key in the first place, and telling her not to open the secret door? Clearly he wants to be caught, as well. Is it self-destructive shame? The wish for an accomplice? Is he powerless to his compulsion to kill?
From “The Bachelor” to George Clooney, serial monogamists who repeatedly destroy their relationships (best of luck, Amal) continue to fascinate us. We find them both terrifying, yet oddly compelling. But that doesn’t mean they make great marriage material.
My advice to you, Fairytale, is to listen to your siblings.
This guy is a loser. Get out. Now.
This article originally appeared on Signature.
Jennie Yabroff is a former arts writer for Newsweek magazine. She has also written for the New York Times, Salon.com, and Elle Decor. She lives in New York.
