Be a Free Happy Soul

“It’s the only way you’ll ever be a free happy soul.

I know. I had to go through the same thing.

Sure it’s tough to break away from your family,

your background and be yourself.

They had it all fixed for me to settle down in Papa’s footsteps,

to be a banker and a statesman, but I wanted to paint.

It was the battle of the century, but I won.”

Michael (Melvyn Douglas), Theodora Goes Wild

The story behind the 1936 film Theodora Goes Wild revolves around two young adults who are at the mercy of their families. Michael and Theodora are from two different worlds: Big New York, New York and small-town Lynnfield, Connecticut, respectively. Michael’s father is a wealthy businessman and the Lt. Governor of New York. Theodora lives with her two elderly and highly Puritan aunts in the small town that was founded by her ancestors. So both Michael and Theodora have the eyes of their respective worlds upon them—and their behavior.

Unbeknownst to the citizens of Lynnfield, Theodora (under the pseudonym Caroline Adams) has written a best selling sex novel called The Sinner. It’s the Number One best selling book in America and it’s caught the eye of the publisher of the Lynnfield weekly newspaper. He purchases the rights to print excerpts from the book and the whole puritanical town is scandalized.

Theodora wrote the book to unleash all of the natural desires that any emotionally and sexually stifled young lady would feel. It’s her way of reclaiming her life back from her overly codependent and obtrusive family and townspeople. Now, because of the backlash, she finds herself feeling forced to trash her own work and to demand that it be banned in order to save face by continuing to hide her identity as Caroline Adams.

Theodora is extremely paranoid about being “found out” and disgraced for having written The Sinner. Up to this point, she has held top secret meetings with her publisher in New York. She is so fearful of anyone finding out that she is Caroline Adams. On her next trip to see the publisher, her fears are realized when her true identity is accidentally revealed to Michael, who did the artwork for her book.

Over the course of an evening, as Michael gets to know more about Theodora, he sees the parallels between his life and hers. So Michael follows Theodora back to Lynnfield determined to help her free her soul from Puritan hell. And free her soul she does! Eventually, she finds the courage to tell her family and every old biddy across Lynnfield where to get off.

She then travels back to New York only to find that Michael’s personal life isn’t quite as free and happy as he pretends. Oh, yes, Michael’s family has allowed him to be a painter. But it turns out Michael is trapped in a bad marriage. Neither he nor his wife want to remain married, but they’re being held hostage by Michael’s codependent parents. Dad is all concerned that a divorce would taint his position in both the business and political worlds. So he’s coerced Michael into staying unhappily married for as long as Dad wants to be involved in politics—which could be forever.

Now it’s Theodora’s turn to set about encouraging Michael to take his life back from his family. She works her magic through some wild scandalous behavior that helps to remind Michael that breaking fully free from his family’s apron strings is the only way he’ll ever be a truly free happy soul.

Most codependents I know grew-up like Theodora and Michael: Under the thumb of a very domineering mom or dad or other family member. We can be 50 years old and still find that we are being held hostage by a family that demands we live our lives as THEY see fit.

Once we’re in recovery, however, we need to tell these family members where to get off. We don’t have to be nasty about it. We can set proper boundaries in firm but gentle ways. We can tell them that we have our own lives to live and that we need to make our own choices about who we are, what we wear, what we like, who we want to associate with and what we believe. If they don’t like it, that’s fine, but we need to make it clear that we aren’t going to be blackmailed into being someone we aren’t. They need to know that we refuse to be a soul in bondage to them any longer.

If they aren’t willing to accept our newly claimed independence, we can always empathize with their brokenness and detach with love. We can pity them and pray that they will grow into being more understanding people. But we don’t have to give our personal freedoms or power back to them in a lame attempt to please them. If they only love us when we please them, then they don’t truly love us at all and we’re better off without them in our daily lives.