"Lily and Marshall, Rocking it since '96."
Kids, sometimes the answer you’re looking for
is right in front of you.
How I Met Your Mother is a show about Ted Mosby’s search for true love,
while right before his eyes (sharing an apartment with him)
is a perfect example of what love looks like in practice.
"You are an inspiration to the rest of us,
how you’re so devoted and connected."
Marshall and Lily, Judge Fudge and Aldrin Justice,
Marshmallow and Lily Pad,
this duo has widely been hailed as one of the best couples on TV, ever.
Been together 17 years? She's a spunky redhead,
he's got calves that launched a thousand lady boners?
But while Ted desperately tries to locate the girl of his dreams,
he fails to grasp the secret to his best friends’ relationship success:
that soulmates aren’t found, but made.
"Hey, look at this."
Here’s our Take on what Marshall and Lily tell us about
the reality of love, contrary to all the myths.
"Baby, did we just revolutionize modern marriage?"
"Damn straight!"
"You're watching The Take.
Thanks for watching and be sure to share and subscribe."
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"Lily and Marshall Awesome. Have you met the Awesomes?
Marshall, Lily, their son, Totally and their daughter, Freakin'?"
It’s highly unusual for a sitcom about 20-somethings to start off with
two members of the main cast already firmly coupled up.
"Will you marry me?"
Shows like Friends, Seinfeld, The Big Bang Theory, New Girl or
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia all introduce their main characters
as very single.
"C'mon, you're single. Have some hormones."
"But I don't want to be single, okay?"
There’s a practical explanation for this: unattached characters
ensure opportunities for storylines: dating exploits,
in-friend-group romances and plenty of will they-won’t they tensions
to be milked for seasons to come.
"Well, I'm just asking if this is a date."
But at the time of the How I Met Your Mother pilot,
Lily and Marshall have been a couple for over 8 years.
They’re so firmly committed they’re at risk of boring themselves.
"My hands smell weird. Smell this."
"They do, that's new"
On top of this, it’s pretty clear to the audience
that they’re great together.
"Hey, yo!"
So it’s not exactly like the average viewer is given much reason
to want to watch this couple experience major romantic turbulence and drama.
What was the reasoning, then, behind this choice that
seemingly limits the potential for classic sitcom romantic
subplots and development?
When the show begins, Ted’s closest friends embody
two opposite views on relationships.
"Do not pretend you're not the kind of guy who keeps a list
of all the girls he's slept with."
"I have one. It's called my marriage license."
On one end of the spectrum is Barney, the commitment-phobic player;
and on the other, are Lily and Marshall,
the securely bonded duo-for-life.
"We're Marshall and Lily, when people see us, they say,
'Oh, look at them, they've only had sex with each other.'"
"No, Marshall, they say, [sad voice] 'Oh, look at them,
they've only had sex with each other.'"
This "perfect couple" embodies an ideal of sorts, hanging over
the core story arc of the show: Ted’s search for his soulmate.
"What I know that Marshall and Lily have, I want that."
So what exactly is a soulmate?
"Do you have a soul mate?"
"Define that."
"Somebody who challenges you."
"I'm talkin' about someone who opens up things for you,
touches your soul."
Generally, the term signifies one person who’s perfectly suited
to another in temperament, beliefs and attitude-
a level of compatibility so intense that the connection is
often painted as mystical or spiritual.
"Soul mate. Two little words, one big concept.
A belief that someone, somewhere is holding the key to your heart
and your dream house."
One of the earliest documented uses of the term in English comes from
poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who wrote in 1822,
"To be happy in Married life... you must have a Soul-mate."
But this idea that there’s someone out there without whom
you can’t be content- the missing piece
in the puzzle of your life- goes back at least to antiquity.
In The Symposium, written between 385 and 360BC,
Plato describes the playwright Aristophanes telling of
an earlier time when humans had double bodies.
But Zeus split each of them in two, leaving each half
incomplete and wounded, perpetually searching for that
missing part of themselves in order to feel whole again.
"You complete me."
This is where the idea of finding your "other half" comes from.
"I believe that there’s that one perfect person
out there to complete you."
"And if you don’t find him, what!, you’re incomplete?"
Ted’s ideas about love clearly descend from this outlook.
"She’s 'the one'"
But the strengths of Lily and Marshall’s relationship
(which Ted claims to admire so much),
"I look at you guys, and that's all I want in the whole world."
don’t align with Aristophanes’ picture of love.
"The honeymoon phase may be over, but now you can get down to real stuff.
And honestly, it's the best part."
Since he’s obsessed with this Symposium-like idea of finding
his one pre-existing perfect match.
"Okay, I'm ready! Where is she?"
Ted acts like a detective seeking clues in the mystery of
tracking down his soulmate.
He obsesses over minor details about potential mates -
like whether they like Star Wars or play bass guitar -
to decipher if these are signs of compatibility or incompatibility.
"Well, what's perfect?"
"Attractive, college-educated, she wants two kids-a boy and a girl,
She likes dogs, Otis Redding, does the crossword."
But in the very first episode, Lily and Marshall cast doubt
on the idea that these seemingly symbolic details actually lead to
any meaningful insight.
From observing his friends, Ted has crafted a very thin theory
that soulmates’ tastes should embody an ideal of balance:
"The olive theory is based on my friends, Marshall and Lily.
He hates olives, she loves them."
In a weird way that's what makes them such a great couple.
A Perfect balance."
Later, though, it’s revealed that Marshall was lying about
disliking olives:
"You like olives!"
"Well, I was eighteen, okay? I was a virgin.
Been waiting for my whole life for a pretty girl to want my olives."
So from the pilot, the show announces that a person’s preferences and
affinities don’t dictate whether they’re the one for you-
the question is just whether you accept those things about them
(and in the end, the details don’t matter at all).
"Lily, I like olives."
"We'll make it work."
Ted also believes, in keeping with Aristophanes’ idea, that when he meets
his soulmate he should immediately know it’s her.
"When I saw you doing the chicken dance out there,
I'm not gonna lie to you, big time thunderbolt."
To quote the Symposium, "And when one of them meets with
his other half, the actual half
of himself...the pair are lost in an amazement of
love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of
the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment."
Thus Ted often insists on following his gut feeling, even when this feeling
is not reflective of reality- he’s chasing the kind of ‘thunderbolt"
feeling that reassures him a woman he meets is "the one."
"It was like something from an old movie,
where the sailor sees the girl across the crowded dance floor,
Turns to his buddy and says,
'See that girl? I'm gonna marry her someday.'"
But the thing about gut feelings, otherwise known as intuition,
is that they are actually our brains’ rapid guesses
based on previous experience.
So these intuitive feelings are more likely to be accurate when
they are based on a wealth of information about the topic at hand.
This explains why Marshall, early on in his relationship with Lily, has doubts.
"But is everything happening too fast?
I mean, maybe I should see other people."
while later on (when he knows her better)
he’s completely convinced she’s the one for him.
"When I think about spending the rest of my life with Lily...
committing forever, no other women doesn't scare me at all."
At first, his gut feeling is based on his ideas of what life should be like,
whereas later it’s based on years of actual experience being with Lily.
"More and more each day, I love you, Lily."
Marshall and Lily’s secret- the one Ted fails to understand
for a long time- is that they haven’t been together
forever because they're perfect for each other.
It’s being together, loving each other through everything,
and choosing to act in their mutual interests that makes them
become perfect for each other.
"I vow to keep at least 80% of these vows."
"That seems high."
"And I vow to keep updating them as we go."
"As we mature, the relationship matures with us."
Where Aristophanes’ metaphor describes love as a blissful static destination,
Lily and Marshall’s merits as a couple actually point to
a second theory of partnership: love as a journey-
defined not by a predestined compatibility,
but by the choice to stay together.
"Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things."
As a University of Toronto study outlines these two dominant theories:
"Love can be metaphorically framed as perfect unity between two halves
made for each other or as a journey with ups and downs."
It’s notable that traditional wedding vows typically warn
the bride and groom that there will be good and bad times ahead-
requiring them to accept this person
"in sickness and in health, for better or worse,
for richer or poorer."
And it’s adhering to this outlook on love that actually makes
Lily and Marshall work.
"When I married you, I married your problems too,
the ones I knew about, and the ones I didn’t."
There’s actually lots about this supposedly "perfect couple"
that’s far from perfect.
None of the "big moments" in their relationship look like
the fairytale, Hallmark-card images they’re supposed to.
Their engagement is both banal and traumatic.
"Pretty easy right?" [Lily screams] "OH!"
Their first apartment as a couple is a catastrophe.
"The next 30 mortgage-paying years of our lives will be spent on this floor,
and it's crooked."
They cancel their first wedding, (causing great public embarrassment
to them both) and on their actual wedding day,
everything that can go wrong, does.
"Lily, are you okay?"
"What are you kidding? Of course I'm not okay!
Everything that could possibly go wrong at my wedding has!"
These are all the kinds of inauspicious "bad signs" that might make
a Ted Mosby call it off. Yet for Lily and Marshall,
the idiosyncratic imperfections of their courtship tend to
bond them closer together.
"Our-our wedding vows, maybe they were just too perfect
for real life. Real life is messier than that"
Lily and Marshall also don’t measure up to their society’s ideas
of an ideal couple in many ways.
"These hips, are not Eriksen baby compliant."
They’re not the picture of put-together, responsible adulthood,
"Our baby's first outing was to a bar."
"I dribble Cuervo on Marv's soft spot."
and can’t relate to the mature, "settled" other couples they know.
"Let's start drinking!"
"Oh, not so fast. In order for the tannins to mellow,
you should let it breathe for about thirty minutes."
"Freaking tannins."
But they demonstrate the relationship truth that-
instead of getting hung up on others’ conventions-
couples thrive when they let themselves be and act the way
they feel most comfortable.
"Please, Queen Kong... be gentle."[Lily growls]
And crucially, they put stock in their own made-up traditions-
like putting notes in the other’s lunch,
or telling each other what they eat each day.
"Two eggs, a slice of cheese pizza and some steamed veggies."
"Everything bagel, chicken breast, some celery sticks and
a spoon of peanut butter."
Their self-created rituals serve as souvenirs of the journey
they’ve traveled together and how far they’ve come.
"A muffin, a pastrami sandwich, and a bag of chips, and
I know it’s way past lunchtime, but I love you."
So by being on this journey together, Marshall and Lily have become
each other’s soulmates.
"Like here in this bar there’s only one thing that I see and
I see her brighter and more clearly than anything else in this world."
Perhaps the defining distinction between our two central theories
of love is how they relate to the concept of fate.
"Kids, destiny intervenes."
"Kids, never underestimate the power of destiny."
"That’s the funny thing about destiny."
Many who believe in soulmates also implicitly trust the guiding force
of destiny must somehow lead the two other halves back to each other.
"You guys are meant to be together."
In fact, the unity-versus-journey theories of love have also been
characterized as "destiny beliefs" vs "growth beliefs".
Without any guarantee that fate will take the wheel, though,
the prospect of the soulmate can become very sad and troubling.
What if our perfect other halves are out there but we never even meet them?
"The chances of one person being another person's "The one"
are like six billion to one."
As Nick Hornby’s lyrics in the Ben Folds song "From Above" go,
"Sure, we all have soulmates, but we walk past them every day."
This spectre of the absent soulmate can breed dissatisfaction in
all your actual relationships, if every time you’re with a person
who’s not obviously perfect for you in every way, you can’t
shake the feeling that there might be someone better out there.
"What are you doing right now?"
"Oh god, no."
"Awesome, ok I'll see you in like 10 minutes? Great.
Sorry Henrietta, something came up."
How I Met Your Mother doesn’t wholly dismiss either of our
two conflicting love theories.
We see that the lightning-bolt, instantaneous soulmate connection
does exist-for example, when Barney meets his baby daughter.
"You are the love of my life."
and, of course, when Ted finally meets Tracy
"Funny how sometimes you just find things."
Lily and Marshall also meet in a way that seems, to them, fateful.
"For some unknown reason, I felt drawn to room 110."
But it's later revealed that Lily took fate into her own hands
to engineer this perfect moment.
"I didn't know which room you were in so I had to create a little destiny."
And crucially, from that point on, it’s not fate that makes
their relationship work - it’s Marshall and Lily.
So the major takeaway is that - even if destiny does play a part -
"It was love at first sight."
It can only get you as far as meeting someone you like.
After that, it’s up to you.
"Aren’t you tired of waiting for destiny, Ted?
Isn't it time to make your own destiny?"
In fact, we witness several occasions where Marshall and Lily try to leave
a difficult decision up to fate.
"See, this is destiny. So, captain, can you take us out
to international waters and marry us?"
only to end up doing what they know is right for them instead."
"That little look. You two just shared a look."
"We don't want to do this."
"We don’t."
While it may sound like more work and less fun than lightning bolts,
the journey mindset gives lovers agency -
the freedom that comes with deciding that your love-life
depends only on you and your partner, rather than on
external signs or social cues.
"We won!"
"Best couple of the world!"
Meanwhile, the love-as-unity mindset can lead to the frustration of
feeling totally powerless over your own life and happiness.
"I’ve been waiting for it to happen and waiting for it to happen."
I’m tired of waiting."
Love stories onscreen frequently end at the moment when the lovers
have overcome the obstacles keeping them apart and
finally gotten together - again echoing the Symposium’s idea
that the whole point is uniting with your missing piece.
But anyone who’s ever been in a real long-term relationship understands
that getting together is often the easiest part.
"Being in a couple is hard, and committing, making sacrifices,
it's hard."
And Lily and Marshall’s relationship is one of the few sitcom romances
that delves into the complexity of what happens after happily ever after.
Interestingly, while this couple’s strengths stem mostly from
the love-as-a-journey mindset, a number of their problems arise from
slipping into a love-as-"unity" mindset.
Throughout the show, these two have to fight
their tendency to become too bonded.
"Oh, I need to get some eggs."
"Oh, I'll come with you."
They struggle to function without each other,
to an extreme that borders on codependency.
"I mean, you have been preoccupied with Marshall all weekend."
"I have not!"
"You have been sleeping with a doll made of cushions
that you named after him."
At one point, Ted even accuses Lily and Marshall of basically
becoming one of the androgynous creatures from Aristophanes’ myth.
"You and Marshall have basically melded into one big hermaphroditic blob."
Some of us want a partner who challenges us to grow and evolve."
So, in practice, this lovely-sounding ideal of merging with another
and acting like one organism puts both people at risk of
losing themselves.
We see this when Lily takes the drastic step of breaking up with
Marshall, because she’s terrified she has no individual identity anymore.
"I just need to go to San Francisco and do this art program and
figure out who I am outside of us."
Meanwhile, the couple can be guilty of the kind of moral complacency
that occurs when you spend most of your time with someone
who almost always thinks you’re right.
"Good advice. Don't keep score."
"They're not even close to finished."
"How do we not keep score, you ask?"
"Huh. Hm. Sounds like somebody wants to hear some examples, sweetie."
"Mm-hmm."
Bridget Jones even gave this phenomenon of
self-satisfied superiority among couples a name: "smug marrieds."
"The only thing worse than a s mug married couple-
lots of smug married couples."
Their smugness can lead Marshall and Lily to invasively criticize
and interfere in their friends’ lives.
"You broke me and Karen up? Are you insane?
What gives you the right to do that?"
"I did it for your own good."
Whenever they fall into these negative patterns, though,
Lily and Marshall find their way back on track by recognizing the need
for separateness- like when Lily sees that Marshall has been sacrificing
too much of his personal dreams for their family plans,
and needs to put his idealistic ambitions first for a change.
"Once you've cleaned up all the oceans and saved the planet... you know,
like, a year from now... then we'll start a family."
Some notable other positive relationship models in sitcoms also
showcase the health of the love-as-journey mindset over
a love-as-unity one.
"You know when I said that I want you to deal with this
relationship stuff all on your own? Well you're not ready for that."
"I didn't think I was!"
and likewise posit that soulmates must be made instead of found.
"If soulmates do exist, they're not found, they're made."
And finally, in the universe of How I Met Your Mother,
the controversial finale delivers two final nails in the coffin
of the unity theory of love - through Tracy’s abrupt demise and
Ted’s decision to try his luck, for the umpteenth time, with Robin.
With Tracy’s death, the writers almost seem to be punishing Ted
for his obsession with surrendering to fate -
as if sending the message, don’t put all of your chips
on destiny, because destiny has no obligation to come through for you.
"Do you know how many signs I've gotten that I should or
shouldn't be with someone and where has it gotten me?"
Meanwhile, the show suggests that all those years by each other’s side
have made Robin Ted’s soulmate - and that their bond is deeper
than the more ideal soulmate connection he "found" in Tracy.
"The point of the story is that-"
"Is that you totally, totally, totally have the hots for Aunt Robin."
Throughout the course of the show, the gang spends a lot of time
theorizing about the rules of dating and relationships,
but Marshall and Lily are often the ones who prove these theories wrong.
After Barney and Ted explain their "crazy eyes" theory to Marshall
"She’s got the crazy eyes."
"Dude, the eyes, they’re crazy."
Lily ends up acting far more irrationally than any girl
in Barney or Ted’s life,
"You have crazier eyes than anyone I’ve ever met."
yet it makes no difference to the man who loves her.
"I’ve missed you so much."
So despite the gang’s best efforts to figure out the inner workings
of relationships, they can’t. Love is a journey without a roadmap.
Still, in Lily and Marshall’s relationship, we find the key to
the show’s overall philosophy on this central mystery.
"Because one set of vows, it can't cover a lifetime
of growing and changing with you."
It’s never completely perfect, even with the perfect person by your side
"I love you more than life itself, but you’re a million degrees.
I’m surprised your hourly pee breaks aren’t just steam."
But if you make your own destiny together, whatever challenges
fate throws at you, you’ll never have to face them alone.
"Us? Uh, we're adorable." "We're Marshmallow and Lilypad, bitch."
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[Music]