My cultural awakening: Love Actually taught me to leave my cheating partner
Emma Thompson’s quiet suffering in the hit Christmas movie helped me to realise that I didn’t need to stay with someone who had betrayed meI was 12 when Love Actually came out.In the eyes of my younger self it was a great film – vignettes of love I could only imagine one day feeling, all coloured by the fairy lights of Christmas.And there was even a cameo from Mr Bean himself, Rowan Atkinson.The film captured the romance I craved as a preteen, the idea that maybe a kid I fancied in my class would learn the drums for me and run through airport security to ask me out.I was young enough to think it was sweet for Keira Knightley’s husband’s best friend to turn up on her doorstep declaring his quite obviously unrequited love.
I even thought it was adorable that he ruined their wedding video by filming only closeups of her face,Of course, I feel differently now about problematic moments like these – even if I do have the film to thank for introducing me to Joni Mitchell,I’d be happy to never watch it again, but there’s one scene that has always stuck with me and that is when Emma Thompson ’s character finds out her husband (Alan Rickman) is having an affair,She discovers a gift-wrapped necklace in his coat pocket and assumes it will be her Christmas present,Instead, when she opens it, she finds a CD of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now , and the realisation that he has given the jewellery to another woman.
She goes upstairs, puts the album on, and we watch for a few tense minutes as the weight of betrayal and deceit hangs over her.She stands alone in her room only allowing herself a moment to cry silently before she heads back downstairs to her family.It moved me when I first watched it as a 12-year-old, not even really understanding what her husband had done.But there was something in her performance.The silence of it.
How she tries desperately to control her emotions in a way that, even as a preteen, I could somehow understand.As I went back to that film for the next few Christmases, I continued to be struck by Thompson’s performance in this small narrative, how much power you can hold by holding back.But also, just how sad she looked.It was this sadness that made me think to myself: if I ever find myself in that situation, I’ll leave.Watching it one Christmas as a teenager, I made a little promise to myself that I’d choose to end a relationship rather than stay and live with that pain.
Surely it would be better to finish things than be treated this way,Some years later I was in a long-term relationship,Our agreement had been monogamy, and like most relationships it was fun and good from the start, but it soon became quite obvious that things weren’t right,I see now that I was suffocated and sad for most of it, yet I had been manipulated into believing that my unhappiness was my own doing,I was unable to feel that I deserved better, so I stayed.
But one spring morning I found myself sitting in our living room, listening as he admitted to an achingly long series of betrayals.We’d had an argument that had somehow led to this admission that he’d been cheating throughout the relationship.I’d been completely blindsided.I looked around at this small life we’d built together – the messy bookshelves, the guitars hanging on the wall – and only saw the lies that had been its foundations.He wanted me to forgive him and for us to move on, and he genuinely believed I would.
But later that day as I sat alone in the bedroom, that scene from Love Actually popped into my mind.I thought of Thompson standing in the corner of her room wiping back her tears listening to Joni Mitchell.Unlike her, I was able to cry loudly, and I did.But these were more tears of sadness for all the time I felt I had lost, even wasted.It was instantly clear to me that this was my way out.
That little promise I’d made to myself watching the film one Christmas had provided me with a much-needed boundary – something clear and true when everything else felt so confused,That decision to end the relationship was the easiest I’ve ever made in my life, perhaps because I had made it so many years before,For that, I’ll be eternally grateful to Emma … and Joni,You can tell us how a cultural moment has prompted you to make a major life change by filling in the form below or emailing us on cultural,awakening@theguardian.
com.Please include as much detail as possiblePlease note, the maximum file size is 5.7 MB.Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information.They will only be seen by the Guardian.
Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information,They will only be seen by the Guardian,If you include other people's names please ask them first,
US farmers say Trump’s $12bn package not enough to undo damage from tariffs
Donald Trump, having promised to “NEVER LET OUR FARMERS DOWN”, appeared to come through for them this month when he unveiled a $12bn aid package. Industry leaders say thousands of farms will still go bust this year.While the US president has vowed to increase domestic farm production, and even claimed this formed a “big part” of his plan to lower grocery prices for Americans, many US farmers are grappling with mounting financial issues – compounded by Trump’s agenda.Grain farmers, in particular, have been hit by trade disruptions caused by tariff hikes, and $11bn of the US Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance Program will go to row-crop farmers. Trump’s trade war with China has hit soya bean farmers the hardest, as China bought 54% of US soya bean exports last year, according to the American Soybean Association
Bourbon maker Jim Beam stops production at Kentucky site for 2026
The maker of Jim Beam bourbon whiskey will halt production at its main site in Kentucky for all of 2026.The company said in a statement it would close its distillery in Clermont until it took the “opportunity to invest in site enhancements”.“We are always assessing production levels to best meet consumer demand and recently met with our team to discuss our volumes for 2026,” it said.It comes as whiskey distillers in the US face uncertainty around Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, as well as declining rates of alcohol consumption.In October, the Kentucky Distillers’ Association (KDA) trade body said there was a record amount of bourbon in warehouses across the state – more than 16m barrels
Toy touts, random spins and frantic bidding: the murky side of live auction site Whatnot
Christmas is fast approaching, the shopping days are ebbing away, and in one corner of the internet, the rush to grab highly prized Pokémon trading cards is boiling over into a competitive frenzy.“Got any cheap Mew?” asks one buyer, deploying the frantic tone of an addict, albeit one craving a rectangle depicting a creature from the all-conquering Japanese media franchise.Yet more buyers are gathering for a “break” – a session in which they can bid for merchandise such as cards featuring Pokémon or elite footballers, drawn at random from a real or virtual box.This is the little-known but fast-growing empire of Whatnot, a “live auction” website and app startup that might best be described as a cross between eBay and the time-honoured cable TV shopping channel.Its stated mission, aside from profit, is to enable anyone to “turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce”
UK economy entering 2026 amid sharp private sector downturn, says CBI
Business leaders have warned that Britain is entering 2026 amid a sharp economic downturn in the private sector, after companies “put the brakes on” investment and hiring before the autumn budget.In a gloomy snapshot after months of tax speculation, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said private sector output was on track to fall in the fourth quarter of 2025.Suggesting the budget did little to brighten bosses’ moods, the lobby group’s latest growth indicator showed falling activity was reported across all sectors of the economy in the three months to December.Separate figures from the jobs website Adzuna showed the number of UK job vacancies shrank in November for a fifth month running. Reporting a 6
Sir Alec Reed obituary
Sir Alec Reed, who has died aged 91, built a hugely successful employment agency, one of the UK’s largest private businesses. But he will also be remembered as the man who changed the face of British philanthropy. His Big Give organisation – an imaginative way of involving rich donors in supporting charities – now raises more money at Christmas time than the BBC’s Children in Need or Comic Relief. His own foundation draws its funds from its holding of 18% of the Reed group. He used to joke that Reed employees worked one day a week for charity
Top economists call for halt to Sri Lanka debt repayments after Cyclone Ditwah
A group of the world’s top economists – including the Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz – have called for Sri Lanka’s debt payments to be suspended as it tackles the devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah.More than 600 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed across the island, in what Sri Lanka’s president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, called the “largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history”.The country’s $9bn (£6.8bn) national debt was restructured last year, after lengthy negotiations with creditors after the government defaulted on repayments in 2022. But development campaigners warned at the time that the burden on Sri Lankan taxpayers remained unsustainable
Britain’s economy has been damaged by Brexit. But what should ministers do about it?
Streeting urges closer trading ties with Europe to grow UK economy
Starmer will ‘absolutely’ still be prime minister by next Christmas, says Labour chair – as it happened
UK failure to seal EU tax exemption hands industry mountain of paperwork
Reform councillors in Kent condemned for spending thousands on political assistants
UK aid cuts take 40% from funds to counter Russian threat in western Balkans