Would You Forgive? (oh Crosby)

The blog on my MoMA mishap has been bumped to a Friday posting. I had to do it. I mean, did you see Parenthood?


From now on, Wednesday's blog posts will now be follow-ups to Parenthood Tuesdays. I mean, they have to be. Every week, so much happens on the show that I want to discuss. But before we go any further, can I please be a Braverman?


Tonight's show was an explosion of emotion, as always. Amber showing raw emotion after her deadbeat dad comes back, stealing her brother away from her, crow barring his way back into the family, trying to get into her life. He's let her down time and again, for years. I cannot imagine the hurt that she must feel, but I know that getting burned over and over again will cause you to keep away from the flames. (And when he said his goodbyes, I forgave him, and prayed that his character would return permanently.)


I have to discuss, though, the most heart-pounding story line for me this week, which was the one that occurred between Crosby, Gaby, and Jasmine. At the start of the series, Crosby was a somewhat irresponsible, fly by the seat of his pants kind of guy . His doorbell rings and before him stands a woman with whom he had a short-lived sexual relationship five years prior. And their son. WHAM! Like that, he finds out that he has a five year old son named Jabbar.


In the following months, he learned what it meant to be a father, to be responsible, and in the process started dating his baby mama, Jasmine, and they fell in love. Keeping up with me? (Watch the show!) Okay, so things progress, he proposes (unplanned), doubts his own proposal and his readiness to get married, but with intense assurance from his family, he keeps moving on. While planning the wedding and raising their son, Jasmine takes the reins. She comes off as controlling. Crosby struggles with her overbearing behavior and the way that she sort of ignores the fact that he has a say in things. Finally he explodes. They have a huge fight, he splits for the night, and after they've both cooled down, they decide to take a break.


After a day or two (?), Crosby begs Jasmine to talk things through with him, to patch things up. She is adamantly against this, and tells him that they should take some time to figure out if getting married is really the best thing for everyone. He tells her he's scared. She says she's scared too.


Hurt and feeling lost, Crosby finds solace in his nephew's behaviorist, Gaby. He sees her kindness and her soft side, the things that he's been missing in his relationship with Jasmine. One thing leads to another and ultimately he sleeps with Gaby (which is pretty hot, by the way).


Was he wrong? Jasmine suddenly comes to her senses and realizes that she wants to work on the relationship, but now Crosby has to fess up about his sleeping with someone else. And when he does, she is shocked. She swears that she will never forgive him. 


I don't know if I would forgive him. I don't know if he should want her to, either. I mean, why pursue a relationship that hasn't worked anyhow (or has it)? I think that if I pushed and pushed my boyfriend away, and we took some time to figure things out, well, I'd be miserable if I found out he'd slept with someone else. But if he apologized, as Crosby did, and wanted to make things work, I think I'd be thankful. When you make a choice to take time apart and figure things out, its like walking a tightrope without a net. To know that the processing part involved sex outside the relationship is horrible, but the fact that he realized what he was losing and wanted to fix it seemed like a good thing. I mean at least that's what I think.


I have never been one to forgive infidelity. Never. But in this case I felt that they were broken up, and that his infidelity helped him to realize what he was throwing away. Am I wrong here, really wrong? I don't know, but I am dying to hear what you think. Please comment.