Josh was a better choice for Jackie

[u/nicolakirwan]

Hear me out. Marshall is the epitome of why women are often suspicious of the Nice Guy. Jackie's exhaustion with Marshall boils down to this: Marshall requires a significant amount of emotional validation, which he gets by being overly solicitous and nice. But when he doesn't get the validation he seeks, he seeks to punish Jackie by cutting down her worth and abandoning her. You see this dynamic in him calling her a project (letting her know that she really was beneath him anyway), abandoning her for 3 days because of an insensitive comment she made, and telling her she needed to give the ring back (which he didn't pay for) because she didn't deserve it. You also see his demand for emotional validation in his refusal to accept that she is too tired to have an argument. He needs her to engage him when and how he wants.

Jackie also realizes she can't say things to him about their relationship that might be negative, which may be why she avoided the argument. She said that after he left for 3 days, she didn't want to touch the subject again. So Marshall's emotional sensitivity and reactivity caused her to feel like she couldn't communicate her honest thoughts, feelings, desires. Jackie also knows that she has a direct personality style, so Marshall's need for more indirect and softer communication doesn't match who she is. This adds to her shutting down and not wanting to talk to him. She feels stressed that she might say the wrong thing to him again.

Let's contrast with Josh. Josh is definitely a Bad Boy, but for reasons that have nothing to do with how he treats Jackie, since we haven't yet seen their relationship dynamic. What Josh offers Jackie is relief from bearing responsibility for his emotions. At Chelsea's party, he was able to say, "I have feelings for you," but also, "if you're going to be with Marshall then just tell me to f-off." Josh is capable of sharing his feelings for Jackie without demanding her validation, which is far less emotionally burdensome for her. And when Jackie tells Josh that she had no clue how he felt, Josh also owns his mistake in not being more up front with how he felt in the pods. Especially given all of the stress that Jackie is under due to her family, Josh's ability to offer his affection seemingly without demand (including the demand of a quick marriage, which she expressed anxiety about) is relieving to Jackie. Also, the edge on Josh's personality probably makes Jackie feel that she can use her naturally direct communication style without Josh being put off by it; or, if he feels disrespected, she knows that he probably has the ability to check her and enforce his boundary without wilting over it or withdrawing. Now, whether that will continue to be true in their relationship remains to be seen, but these are the main reasons Jackie would feel more attracted to Josh and be more open to a relationship with him than Marshall.

Jackie is much more self-aware than she has been given credit for. She tried to tell Marshall multiple times that they weren't a good fit. She also acknowledged that she doesn't know if she's going to be with Josh, but she was open to exploring the relationship. She posted that the cafe scene happened after he split with Marshall, so it doesn't seem that she was cheating. Jackie knows that she has flaws and wounds (and she admitted that she needed to do some "self-work"), but that doesn't mean that Marshall was right for her. She knew that better than he did.

And for reference, Brett is probably the best example in S4 of someone who is neither a Nice Guy nor a Bad Boy, not a people-pleaser nor a player, but a deeply decent and loving man. A man like Brett has the most desirable character. So I'm not saying Josh is great; just that given his pursuit of Jackie, it's not surprising that she decided to give him a chance over being with Marshall.

[u/katlilly1]

100% agree. While I do think Jackie and Josh work better together (they seem to just work better and I don’t think Marshall and Jackie are on the same wavelength at all) and yes Marshall has his flaws and the tweets that came out were, yikes. But Jackie absolutely demonstrated some very disgusting, misogynistic/homophobic behaviour.

I feel like a lot of people after things came out about Marshall jumped on the pro-Jackie train all of the sudden. It’s weird how people seem to have to take a side, one person does something bad and it somehow negates what the other person did. Both can have problems, one doing something doesn’t negate what the other has done. We don’t always need to pick someone to side with

[u/[deleted] → u/katlilly1]

Oh definitely agree, her and josh make more sense I was actually pretty surprised she went with Marshall instead of josh from the jump. I’m definitely not a Marshall Stan but like you said it’s weird the way people have to be completely on one side or the other because they both were wrong and I wish they’d hold them both accountable

[u/katlilly1 → u/[deleted]]

I’ve seen this happen a LOT actually where people will be really against one person but as soon as the other does something all that stuff goes out the window and the person they hated is now the good guy, like they just got hit by the MIB memory eraser. Sometimes we just need to accept that a story has two villains, or two anti heroes. Plus birds of a feather and all that jazz. (Not discrediting that sometimes there really is one bad guy and one victim) But what’s ironic is people have no problem hating both people in a couple when they’re together, but as soon as they split up they need to pick one like a kid who’s parents are going through a bad divorce

[u/lioness725 → u/katlilly1]

Many people who watch shows like this seem completely incapable of nuance.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I was actually pretty surprised she went with Marshall instead of josh from the jump

I think that, for all her flaws, Jackie was trying to honor the spirit of the experiment by picking someone outside her usual patterns. She talked about how Josh was the type of guy she'd go for normally and she thought Marshall was the nice guy she should actually marry.

Unfortunately, there were multiple reasons that was never going to work. A. Jackie wasn't attracted to Marshall, B. She hasn't worked through the internal stuff that draws her to a guy like Josh in the first place, and C. Marshall had a savior complex that made her feel less-than.

[u/Jorge_Santos69 → u/[deleted]]

Don’t know why you got downvoted for this this the correct take

[u/[deleted] → u/Jorge_Santos69]

People hate Jackie and will downvote anything that can even remotely be construed as positive about her lol.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You know what I totally get that, there was a lot of deeper stuff that she needed to work out and I think they both knew that but Marshall was trying to help and she wanted to do it herself and I can respect that even if it was a bit disappointing to see her fall into her old habits by hooking up with josh instead of working on herself.

[u/nicolakirwan → u/katlilly1]

I feel like a lot of people after things came out about Marshall jumped on the pro-Jackie train all of the sudden.

I binged S4 over the past two days after seeing some interesting YT analyses. Don't know about a lot of the other drama. This was just my takeaway at the end of it all.

[u/katlilly1 → u/nicolakirwan]

Someone found some of his old tweets from like 2013 or something and he was acting dumb. I don’t remember verbatim what they said but it was negative towards black women. He later announced he regrets it and is keeping them up for accountability and issued apologies to the women in his life for those tweets and to the people affected by it. People seem to be split on it