A rant about the double standards regarding Corinthos/Quartermaines and their spouses
This is a comment I left under a different post, but I feel the need to share it in my own post:
Long rant incoming:
With all the Corinthos/Quartermaines, if the outsider spouse cheats, immediately they “deserve” to loose custody of their kids — which is absolute crap because if it were the other way around, everyone would be pressuring the outsider spouse to forget and forgive (ex: Olivia with the Ned and Alexis fiasco, Lulu with Dante when he cheated on her with Valerie). When Michael cheated with Kiki while she was with Morgan, literally everyone made MORGAN THE BAD GUY (if I’m remembering correctly), when MICHAEL AND KIKI WERE THE ONES WHO CHEATED.
Willow deserves to be judged and ripped a new one, sure, but loose her kids? Girl, she has literally been pushed to the brink of snapping. Yes, partially due to her horrible choices, but a heavy part of it has to do with controlling men — yes, Michael falls into that category — and Harmony, the woman who raised Willow to have and follow a cult/submissive mentality). When you are pushed to the brink, you will snap and do things you normally wouldn’t do. And let’s be real, Willow was right: Drew would not have stopped until he destroyed half that town and suffocated her more than he already had (yes she brought that on herself initially, but he screwed with her mind a lot and he was becoming such a problem for the whole town; drugging him literally gave everyone a respite from his vendetta). Do I think it was right of her to do that? Hell no, irl that’s awful, but I can understand what led her to do it in the show, as this is fiction.
And let’s not forget Michael played just as dirty to rip the kids away from Willow (he literally sued for full custody FIRST just as a power play to make sure she was afraid and would settle for half custody). Michael also has a problem with women having as much or more power/control than him in the relationship. Every woman he has been with so far has had less financial and familial means than he does (Kiki, Nelle, Sabrina, Rosalie, Abby, Sasha (before they made her a Scorpio, and even then the Scorpios aren’t exactly rich) and Willow, before she found out her birth family).
The second Willow gains enough status, family, money, and influence to go toe to toe with him, he needs to push her back into a position where she is at his mercy and under his control (you’ll understand if you watched the 8/13 episode).
And Willow was not unreasonable at first (regarding after she freed herself from Drew; when she was with Drew, girl—). She asked for 50/50 custody… literally 10% more than what she already had. Literally there is not that much difference than having 40%, it would have barely affected Michael’s custody schedule. However, it also would have put her on equal legal footing with Michael. And Michael couldn’t have that. Why? The reasons he gave are bs in my opinion. He doesn’t like that she would have just as much say/control/power as him over Wiley and Amelia. And he basically threatened her to go back to court and got stressed when she didn’t back down because frankly, she had a good chance of winning.
The whole Jacinda mess was a justified crash out on Willow’s part. Girl, if someone drugged me while I had my kids, I’d be EXTREMELY pissed too. What if Willow got behind the wheel? What if Willow got aggravated and started hitting the kids? What if Willow passed out? What if Willow slipped off the balcony? That would have traumatized those children. Your brain on drugs isn’t rational and has a warped sense of reality. So much could have happened if it wasn’t for pure dumb luck regarding timing.
Michael was bs-ing that whole downplaying that he was doing, because if the roles were reversed, Willow would be in the pine barrens. And frankly? I’d take him to court too because there would be no way that you allowed a person known for drugging others into my child’s life, knew that they drugged me while I had my kids and could potentially get behind the wheel, gaslight me, and still have custody. I know it’s a show and that we have to suspend reality, but come on; anyone would crash the hell out and would be justified to do so.
And now, after the 8/13 episode, which basically proves my point, Willow is at a disadvantage. Again. And barely anyone seems to understand why she is so angry.
And this is a double standard with all outsider spouses of the Corinthos/Quartermaine clan, mainly women unfortunately. Ava has to tiptoe around to keep her custody of Avery. Jax literally lost custody of Josslyn because he was gonna win and Carly asked Sonny to plant drugs in his house, even though he was the better fit parent let’s be real. Everybody made Elizabeth a pariah over Jake (the Lucky aspect of the slander she received was 100% justified though), when in the end she was right to keep Jake’s true paternity a secret, Carly even admitted it. AJ, though he had a lot of problems, deserved to know that Michael was his son. Carly and Jax kept Spencer away from Nikolas all because Jax wanted a son and Carly wanted Jax. Carly kept Nina’s children away from her TWICE. Sam was give such a hard time for waking up and not wanting the kids near Jason and his mob central. Valentine is always favored with Charlotte (I consider him Corinthos adjacent via Carly), and while yes Lulu needs to chill, she still isn’t wrong to want to protect her from a father that while undoubtedly loves his daughter, enables and supports her worst traits and brings danger around.
I’m getting very fed up with the strange imbalance with custody when it comes to the Corinthos/Quartermaines. The only person who has come out unscathed is Sasha, and that’s purely due to Sofia Mattson leaving the show and it being convenient for the plot.