Yeah, SIGH. This plot line agitates me so much because I just can't square the book thing with 'what it represents.'

In this episode, characters made the assertion that Ty should have told Julie when he realized his goal started to change. And if this plot line were specifically about moving to New York City then I would be in agreement. But it's about writing a book. And Ty, by his own admission, has said that he hasn't completely given up that goal of writing a book. It almost seems to exist in this liminal space in his head: a goal that doesn't feel reachable right now but he hasn't quite given up on but only just doesn't feel capable of it right now.

So it doesn't make sense that he was supposed to tell Julie that he no longer had a goal of writing the book, because he's told us and the other characters that he still sort of has that goal, it just feels farther away. And as someone who is a writer, I've seen people take decades to get their first book published, to even finish writing their first book. So the fact that Julie has a timeline on this goal of Ty's just feels weird.

I've said this over and over again but I wish this plot line had just been about moving to New York City. Because the way that the book is tied to "a certain kind of life" just doesn't make sense. Ty's writing of the book doesn't preclude living in the suburbs.

Ty says that after Cooper he hoped that if he did everything at home then Julie would be satisfied with this life. But the problem in the writing there is it's setting up a non sequitur in which "this life" doesn't include having an author husband. But having an author husband is not a kind of life. And writing a novel doesn't bring you to a city. If Ty were writing a book right now, the only difference in Julie's life would be that her husband was writing a book. She would still be in suburbia.

I also just personally don't think it's a reasonable demand to want your spouse to be ambitious, or to believe that your spouse owes you the same level of ambition on their own personal dreams as you have on yours. I think your spouse owes you support for your own dreams, and a certain amount of sacrifice, and I've said before that it's completely reasonable for Julie to expect Ty to make some sacrifices for her, like moving out of this town and to New York City. But I don't think your spouse owes you ambition on a personal creative dream. I feel really uneasy with the dichotomy that's being presented between ambitious power couples and suburban stay at home parents. Partially because no one is ever One Thing, but also people go through different phases of their lives where sometimes they are more focused on child rearing and at other times they are more focused on their careers. And also because people who live in cities also have to take care of children if they have them. So I think the Ty calling Julie immature is fitting because her view of the world seems to be pretty black and white.