“I Got Him To Admit He Didn’t Love Me, You Don’t Know the Trouble It Took Me”

Lessons from Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, by Pedro Almodóvar.

Carmen Maura as Pepa, in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Between the spiked gazpacho, the never-ending game of phone tag, and the countless messages left on answering machines, I caught a line of dialog that had slipped unnoticed all the other times I watched Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

In the movie, Pepa, played by Carmen Maura, breaks up with her boyfriend, Ivan, and kicks him out of the house. When Pepa is explaining to Ivan’s son, played by a young Antonio Banderas, what happened, she says:

“He never says anything, never admits to anything. No reproach ever leaves his mouth. What do you think? That I didn’t know he had another? I tried talking to him in a civil manner, and nothing. So I told him not to fool me. That he told me if one day he didn’t love me anymore. Last week, I got him to say that he didn’t love me. You don’t know the trouble it took me.”

If you haven’t seen Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, I can’t recommend it enough. This 1988 Pedro Almodóvar movie has everything. Surreal characters, a surprising plot, and all the colors of the rainbow (especially Almodóvar’s signature red) — not to mention women dramatically losing their minds over men.

But that one line, so cleverly hidden in the middle of an avalanche of words, put the characters and their motivations in a whole new light.

Last week, I got him to say he didn’t love me. You don’t know the trouble it took me.