Carrie Bradshaw: How She Became Even Worse Of A Person Than We Initially Thought In The Ways She Treated Big And Aidan – And How She Wasn’t Actually The Biggest Problem In Her Rekindled Relationship With Aidan

So the cast of And Just Like That recently gathered together as a united front to promote the upcoming third season of the show at a photo call. Sarah Jessica Parker, of course, made waves as she wore a deep blue Vivienne Westwood gown that made her look like a princess. She paired the look with silver open-toed shoes and dark silver jewelry. Her blonde hair was styled in a deep side part with loose waves. Parker, who plays Carrie Bradshaw, completed the look with a beaded clutch and eclectic rings. Her husband, Matthew Broderick, was on hand to support her, as well as her co-stars, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis.

Another familiar face was John Corbett, as well as his wife, Bo Derek. Corbett, of course, played Aidan Shaw in the original Sex And The City series, and he returned to the revival show in the second season, where we saw Aidan and Carrie rekindle their romance following Mr. Big’s death. Carrie went as far as asking her friend Miranda, played by Nixon, ‘Was Big just one big mistake?’ as her relationship with Aidan progressed and became more serious. She later told her Che, who works for Carrie, that she did, in fact, make a mistake by not choosing to be with him. The end of season 2 saw Aidan break things off with Carrie because he didn’t want the relationship to take time away from his two teenage sons. Corbett is confirmed to be coming back to the show in season 3, so it’ll be interesting to see where their journey is headed. BUT…

And there’s a big ‘BUT’ in this particular case. You see, I don’t think that Carrie and Aidan were ever meant to last, and I believe that Carrie always knew it. I also believe that Aidan was always a void filled in her loss of Big; whether it be in their many, many, break ups, bumps in the road, and his eventual death. My previous post heavily discussed cheating in relationships. The relationship between Carrie and Aidan was practically destroyed and redefined by Carrie cheating on Aidan, so I thought it’d only be fair to continue to the discussion on the matter. You see in the previous post, we put all the blame on the cheating partner. But could the blame put on the partner who was cheated on? The answer is yes, it most definitely can, and Aidan is the perfect example of that.

Their relationship was always somewhat dysfunctional. It was characterized by a complex dynamic marked by a lack of commitment from Carrie and Aidan’s attempts to mold Carrie into someone she never was to begin with. Their relationship features periods of intense passion and longing, but is ultimately defined by Carrie’s inability to fully commit and Aidan’s push for a level of stability that clashes with Carrie’s desire for freedom and adventure. To break it down more thoroughly:

Key issues in their relationship:

• Carrie’s Fear of Commitment: Carrie consistently struggles with the idea of fully committing to a relationship, often delaying decisions about marriage and long-term plans, and seeking external validation instead of focusing on her relationship with Aidan. 
• Aidan’s Need for Stability: Aidan’s desire for a stable, family-oriented life clashes with Carrie’s preference for a more adventurous and independent lifestyle. 
• Lack of Open Communication: Carrie and Aidan struggle to communicate their needs and desires openly, leading to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. 
• Carrie’s Inability to Change: Carrie often resists making changes to her life for Aidan, even when it’s clear that he would like her to do so. 
• Aidan’s Pushiness: Aidan’s attempts to control Carrie’s behavior and push her towards a specific life path are detrimental to their relationship. 
• Past Relationships: Carrie’s lingering attachment to Big and her inability to fully move on from their relationship further complicates her relationship with Aidan. 

Why their relationship never worked:

• Incompatible Life Goals: Their contrasting lifestyles and desires for the future create a fundamental incompatibility. 
• Lack of Trust: Carrie’s past infidelities and her unwillingness to fully commit erode Aidan’s trust in her. 
• Aidan’s Stifling Love: Aidan’s attempts to mold Carrie into someone she’s not stifle her individuality and make her feel unloved. 
• Carrie’s Inability to Compromise: Carrie’s unwillingness to compromise her desires and lifestyle for Aidan further exacerbates the issues in their relationship. 
• Aidan’s Lack of Understanding: Aidan’s failure to understand and appreciate Carrie’s personality and her need for freedom contributes to their struggles. 

When Carrie cheated on Aidan with Mr. Big in season 3, she was perceived as the worst person in the world, and she was even compared to Mr. Big in how she treated him throughout their relationship. I personally think she was worse than Mr. Big, because at least Mr. Big genuinely loved Carrie. The biggest obstacle in their on-and-off relationship was that he loved her in the best way he knew how, which wasn’t much, given that he was a divorcee and had an image to keep up with. That image and class that he was desperate to keep up with was why he married his second wife, Natasha, to begin with.

Aidan wasn’t the only one that was hurt in the entire situation. Natasha was too. But unlike Aidan, Natasha moved on from the situation with dignity and grace. She never looked back at her past. In season 1 of And Just Like That, we got to know that she got remarried and had children. We also got to know that Mr. Big left her $1 million in his will. She was confused by this gesture, and told Carrie to take the money back. Carrie understood exactly why he gave her the money – out of guilt for the way that he’d treated her in the marriage. Mind you, Natasha was only 25 years old when the whole saga unfolded. She was wise beyond her years; definitely much wiser than Carrie, who was 10 years older. Carrie, out of jealousy, always belittled, mocked and degraded Natasha when she wasn’t looking because of her age, but in reality, Natasha wasn’t ever the problem; Carrie was.

After Carrie cheated on him with Big, Aidan struggled with trust and insecurity. This manifested in his proposal and subsequent behavior, which some viewers saw as manipulative or controlling. Aidan initially broke things off with Carrie when she revealed to him that she’d cheated with Big. They reconnected after she and Miranda bumped into him and Steve, Miranda’s ex. In a twist of fate, Aidan and Steve became friends through their respective relationships with Carrie and Miranda, and even decided to open a bar together. Carrie was infatuated when she saw Aidan again. Since she last saw him, Aidan lost weight, got a haircut; really started taking care of himself more. And so, it suddenly became her mission to win him back. Her doing so was honestly embracing, and I’d even say stalker-ish. She dared to come to his house and make the typical 1980’s rom-com move, stand outside his house, throw little rocks at his window to get his attention and cry to him, ‘You HAVE to forgive me!’ And when he screamed at her that she broke her heart, she acted as if she was the one hurt in all of it and ran away from ‘the scene of the crime’ while on the verge of tears.

LMAOOOOO!!!!!

It was always astounding to me just what a narcissist Carrie is and how entitled she think she is to anything she wants. She acted as though Aidan was her property of sorts. No one HAS to forgive anyone. Forgiveness is a gift, and it has to be earned. That being said, that very moment outside his apartment should’ve been the very last time Aidan was seen on Sex Snd The City. But alas…it wasn’t what actually happened. He eventually forgave her, but the road to it was anything but easy. You see, Aidan was giving Carrie a very hard time at the beginning stages of their rekindled romance. There was an obvious sense of animosity towards her on his end. He couldn’t fully trust her, and understandably so. But the thing is, one can’t fully say they’re back together with the person who cheated when they can’t fully trust the person. Aidan was always one foot out the door with Carrie. He wasn’t fully present, and Carrie knew that. She tried really hard to gain his trust back and be the girlfriend that he wanted her to be.

The one thing Aidan wanted her to do was cut off any contact with Mr. Big, who’d called Carrie and left her a voicemail (remember, this was the 90’s, early 2000’s) while she and Aidan were having sex. This is a man that his girlfriend cheated on him with. He’s calling while he’s having sex with her, and he feels very comfortable calling her at hours of the night; of course he’ll have an issue with it. Carrie kept on telling him that she was willing to do whatever he wanted her to do in order to gain his trust back, but the one thing he asked her to do, she couldn’t. That should’ve been the end of the road for Aidan, but even that wasn’t it for him. He came back for more.

I think, more than anything, Aidan didn’t want to hurt Carrie, despite her ultimate betrayal. Yet again, after he told her he wanted her to cut ties with Mr. Big and she told him she couldn’t, she yelled out that he HAD to forgive her. He never truly resolved his trust issues with Carrie. In fact, he only wanted to marry her because he wanted ‘the whole wide world to know that you’re mine,’ meaning that he wanted Big to know that she was his. The fact of the matter is, this was never a good enough reason for them to get married, and Carrie did absolutely the right thing by refusing to marry him just to make him trust her; no matter how much he pushed her to do it. She was never emotionally ready to marry Aidan. When she first saw the engagement ring, she threw up, and when she tried on a wedding dress, she had a panic attack. You might say that it was just jitters. But I say it was much, much more than that. It felt like she only said ‘Yes’ to the proposal for as to not hurt Aidan’s feelings when he got down on one knee.

It’s true that Carrie and Aidan’s relationship was doomed because Aidan got back together with her without him having fully trusting Carrie’s again following her cheating on him. He was always one step forward, two steps back with her when they got back together. But it was much more than just the cheating that destroyed the relationship. Carrie’s attempt to rebuild their relationship was constantly undermined by Aidan’s insecurities and his need to control her. But the need to control her and change her started even before the cheating; like when he told her not smoke because he didn’t want to date smokers. This very much highlighted a pattern of control and dominance that was detrimental to their relationship. 

Aidan was perceived as a ‘nice guy’, particularly by the audience. But he didn’t fully understand or appreciate Carrie’s free-spirited personality. He wanted her to change her habits and embrace a more conventional lifestyle, which didn’t sit well with her. Carrie was always a city girl, and she lived an unconventional life, especially in those time, where a woman was expected to get married and have children. It was exactly what Aidan expected out of their relationship. As he told her in his pushing her to get married, ‘people fall in love and get married; that’s just what they do.’ She, however, never wanted all that, and she never settled for the life Asian expected her to live, which was honestly admirable. This was very much the opposite of her behaviour with Aidan in their reunion 20+ years after the breakup. I was disappointed in Carrie for the decisions she made in her newfound relationship with Aidan. She somehow became an entirely different person – the person she never was – just so that she wouldn’t lose him. Her decision – buying an apartment for her and Aidan to live there just because staying at the apartment she’s at now would bring too many bad memories…because of Big. It seemed as though Carrie’s desperation to keep Aidan got the best, and the worst, of her. It changed her into a completely different person; all because she was afraid to lose him. She was afraid that if she did something wrong, he’d leave her, just like he did when she didn’t want to get married to him. After all, she did question her decision in choosing Big instead of Aidan, so maybe she was making up for what she’d lost based on questionable decision. This stemmed from before too; from their second shot at love. She unwillingly helped Aidan take care of his dog, Pete, when he couldn’t so that she could show him that she was someone who could be trusted.

In hindsight, she was trying to make up for everything she didn’t do, or did do but showed obvious disregard and disinterest in what she did for him. Like when he took her to the countryside at Suffern, NY. It’s a place that Carrie wouldn’t ever put on her foot down even if her life depended on it. But she did..for Aidan. As soon as she stepped foot in the country yard, she’s having a panic attack as soon as she sees an animal that seems out of touch in her mind. What she wears that day doesn’t help much either, a couture. Aidan gets her to do some sort of work on the house and well… nothing good for Carrie comes out of it. Thereafter, Carrie left to invite Big to come to the house as he was having relationship issues and felt Carrie was the only person he could turn to. This was, of course, shortly after Aidan told her he didn’t want her to see Big ever again. There was an obvious lack of respect for Carrie towards Aidan and his feelings, and the same could be said about Aidan towards Carrie’s feelings. That specific episode where Aidan took her to his country house aimed to showcase their very different lifestyles. Carrie, as we all knew, craved a social life. She looked for excitement and adventure in her life. Aidan, in contrast, preferred a more domestic and quiet lifestyle. Carrie was a city girl. Aidan was a country boy. This fundamental difference in their needs created friction and tension in their relationship. But it also could’ve been seen as his silent way of getting Carrie as far away from Big in being the third person in their relationship, and maybe Big eventually coming to his country house was a representation that no matter how much he tried to get him out of sight, out of mind, it was just impossible.

This wasn’t the only time that we get to see glimpses of how different Carrie and Aidan are and always have been. It was when her computer broke and therefore lost all her work because she didn’t back any of it up. Carrie’s laptop crashed suddenly while she was in the middle of writing a column. Aidan tried to CTRL ALT DELETE the problem away, but she has a Mac, and all he gets is a sad Mac face. She then took it to some Techserve place wrapped in a pashmina. Aidan came with her and all she did was snap at him every time he tried to make the situation better for her and make her feel more at ease. Of course, she’d never backed up her work so that made things even worse for her. It was one of the most entertaining scenes in the entire series, but it was also a metamorphosis to the fragility of Carrie’s relationship with Aidan, as well as the impermanence of life and relationships. The act of a computer crashing can be seen as a visual representation of something unexpected or unexpected happening, just like how unexpected events happen in life. Carrie’s line, ‘After all, computers crash, people die, relationships fall apart. The best we can do is breathe and reboot,’ encapsulates this sentiment. The metaphor emphasizes that things can be in perfect working order one moment and then completely fail without warning, just like how relationships can end unexpectedly. It also suggests that it’s a natural part of life to experience setbacks and that the best response is to accept these changes and move forward.  It’s a metaphor for Carrie’s relationship with Aidan, of course, but it can also be relevant for any romantic relationship in real life that’s on the verge of breaking down. It shows that even the most reliable things can break down. At the end of the episode, Aidan gave Carrie a brand new computer, which also allowed her to back up her work. It represented a fresh new beginning for her, or ‘a blank canvas’. It represented a chance to start fresh after a potentially difficult time with her existing computer, just as a new relationship can be a fresh start. More thoroughly:

• New beginning: A new computer symbolizes a clean slate, a chance to start anew, free from old files and glitches, just like a new relationship can offer a fresh start. 
• Potential: A new computer holds the potential for new creative endeavors, just as a new relationship can open up new possibilities and experiences. 
• Rejection: A new computer can be seen as a way for Aidan to “reject” Carrie’s old computer, which represents her old life and past relationship, much like a new relationship can signal a move on from a previous one. 
• Re-imagining: Just like a new computer allows for re-imagining and re-creating one’s work, a new relationship can lead to a re-imagining of one’s life and identity. 

This is actually important, because Carrie was very hesitant to accept Aidan’s new computer as a gift. She wanted the old one to work. She wasn’t ready to let go of the past just yet. And yet, once Big passed away and she had her time to grieve, she jumped at the chance to get back together with Aidan and turn into the girlfriend he so wanted her to be. She practically changed everything about herself to make him happy. And yet, in his rekindled relationship with Carrie decades later, he was the one who couldn’t move on from the past. The specter of Big always loomed large, even in his death. Carrie was so attached to Big that she even brought him to Aidan’s upstate house for a cursed weekend after they had an affair. And this was odd to me. It was as though Aidan expected Carrie to completely erase Bjg out of her life for him. When he initially asked her to do so, it made perfect sense. But now…

Mr. Big is dead. Carrie was married to him for a decade, and together with him for more than 20 years. He didn’t leave her life by choice. Of course she’d be keeping pieces of him in her life, and for Aidan to think otherwise made him selfish. Big was Carrie’s one true love, and the fact that he’s gone doesn’t change that; no matter how many times Carrie tries to tell herself otherwise. It was jarring to watch Carrie seriously ask Miranda whether or not her nearly 20-year relationship with Big was a ‘big mistake’ in light of her burgeoning romance with Aidan. It’s even more dismaying to see her double down on the sentiment when she tells Che that the reason why she and Aidan didn’t work out before was because of a ‘mistake.’ And are we just to forget about Aidan’s ex-wife and three sons? Would Aidan say that they were a mistake too? Let’s also not forget to go back to season 1 episode 6 of And Just Like That. Carrie went to a plastic surgeon to support Anthony during his consultation appointment. The surgeon automatically assumed the appointment was for Carrie. They all laughed, but Carrie asked for her own consultation. The surgeon proceeded to make her face look 15 years younger on the computer by showing her what he’d do if she decided to go ahead with the surgery. She looked at the picture with loving eyes and softly said, ‘I liked the last 15 years.’ She was obviously talking about her time with Big. So are we just going to pretend that the time she spent with Big never happened; or believe that she really saw it as a mistake and wished she could reverse back time and chose Aidan instead?

In my eyes, this made Carrie look even worse than she already was. To me, it made her seem like she loved something deeply, but only until she found something that she thought was better. Big wasn’t the perfect man by any means, and he did, in fact, mistreat Carrie many times. But there was never denying that he did love Carrie. Aidan did too, of course. They actually have a lot more in common than one might think. No matter how much Big f*cked up in his relationship with Carrie, he always tried to make his wrongs right. Carrie, a lot of the times, failed to realize that about him. Let’s go back to when he and Carrie were about get married in the first movie.

At the beginning of the movie, Carrie and Big were planning their wedding. Big always wanted a no-hoopla small wedding with just the two of them in sight. Carrie, even though she said she agreed, went ahead and planned the hoopla wedding that Big didn’t want. On the day, as Carrie was getting ready to walk down the aisle, Big called her and told her he wasn’t coming. It wasn’t that he was getting cold feet about getting married to her, but rather that he’d gotten anxious about the prospect of the wedding being everything he didn’t want. He was married twice before. Both marriages ended badly. He was afraid of the same thing happening in his relationship with Carrie, and he was afraid to lose her. As he was in the car, however, he realized he could get over his fears and went back to Carrie. Carrie, however, was too selfish to see things from his side. He wanted to get married to her even after she betrayed him and went ahead with her own wedding plans, he still begged her to take him back. He wrote her poems every day for a period of time – something that was so out of character for him. And then, even when she betrayed him after she cheated on him with Aidan when they were having a rough patch in their marriage, he forgave her and was still somewhat seen as the villain in the situation; like he’d done something wrong by not necessarily doing everything Carrie wanted him to do.

And Aidan…

Big, old Aidan. I missed him, but I also wish I never had to see him again after Carrie begged him to take her back when she stood outside his apartment. Even Bo Derek herself revealed that she thought the same. She revealed that while she felt Aidan was a good fit for many women, but ultimately not the right choice for Carrie, ‘I just didn’t think [Aidan] was right for her,’ she told Entertainment Tonight. She also mentioned that she thought Carrie made the right choice by ultimately being with Big. And she certainly did. I just wish ahead wasn’t so dismissive of him following his death as soon as she found happiness with Aidan. It was dismissive and disrespectful. Big didn’t deserve that. It was like…. she wanted to forget about her old computer altogether; and forget all the work that she’d done in the past in the old computer. It was like she wanted a completely clean slake with the new computer.

That said, Aidan will never have the right to complain about Carrie’s mistreatment of him again, because no matter how much she hurts him, he always keeps coming back to her. Carrie’s not the biggest issue here. He is. It’s almost expected that Carrie will somehow hurt Aidan one way or another whenever he’s in the picture. Even in Big’s death, he’s somehow jealous of him. Does he even have the balls to ever truly reject Carrie at this point? I doubt it. Even Berger, who infamously broke up with Carrie via a post-it showed more prospect. Now, I’m not saying that Carrie didn’t deserve to find happiness following Big’s death. I only wish she found it with someone completely new.