What do you think about Skyler's and Walt's relationship dynamic when they first got together? It is so fascinating to me how much their dynamic must have changed over the years. Skyler got together with a significantly older man with a so far very promising career in chemistry. When they bought their house Walt is clearly still ambitious, driven and confident. Being the one in charge, leading and managing everything while her husband is checked out and going through life on autopilot is something I don't see a young Skyler wanting or expecting from her relationship with Walt.

Okay so!! I read a post awhile back that I cannot find now (pls somebody comment w the link if you find it) ab how the reason we all hate Walter’s gnarled old raisin guts even as we still find ourselves perfectly capable of and even eager to empathize with Gus and Mike, who have committed similarly heinous crimes, is bc Walter is a hypocrite who consistently screws over the people he claims to love and prioritize above all else, whereas Gus and Mike at least do right by the few people they allow into their inner circles. I think this is absolutely correct, but at least for me, this is only half of the reason I hate Walter. The other reason is that Walter doesn’t operate like a drug lord or a hitman in terms of evildoing, by which I mean; he operates like a domestic abuser or a sexual predator. Both Gus and Mike at points attribute their distaste for Walter to his “unprofessionalism” because while both of them attempt to at least maintain the facade of detachment largely preferred by the criminal underworld, Mike by (trying to) keep his personal life and the people in it completely removed from his criminal dealings, and Gus by channeling all of his capacity for emotion into a person who has already passed, Walter has no such reservations. The emotionality that supposedly divides him from the rest of the criminal underworld is ironically what makes him more evil than his mercenary counterparts, because it’s entirely a front and is in reality just him leeching off the emotions of others. Walter will not hesitate to get personal, Walter will not hesitate to bring up the existence of his family to a dangerous kingpin if it means he gets to play Manly Provider, Walter will not hesitate to groom a former student to be his personalized emotional punching bag. More so than any unfeeling pragmatist criminal, Walter has no scruples.

(Hasn’t even mentioned Skyler yet)

I don’t really have a problem with age gaps as a rule if it’s between two consenting adults over the age of 21 (my parents have an age gap similar to Skyler and Walt’s, they met when my mom was in her mid-twenties and my dad his mid-thirties) but if someone makes a habit of courting people younger than them, it’s typically indicative of a predatory nature, regardless of whether the younger parties are of age. Their partners don’t just happen to be younger than them; they are deliberately surrounding themselves with people they can exert power over more easily, people who are less established and will rely on them more financially and emotionally. And while I don’t think Skyler was ever as naïve as Jesse, I do think she took Walter’s persona of choice at face value much as Jesse did. Walter presented himself to her as an ambitious if mild-mannered chemistry genius (he was definitely more sure of himself as a young adult, but is implied to have always been something of a square), and if anything I think his nerdiness appealed to her because she equated academic intelligence with emotional intelligence, and in those early years, he gave her no reason not to. She thought he was a genius, but more importantly, she thought he was kind. She didn’t sign up for a complacent, preoccupied husband working on a teacher’s salary, just as she didn’t sign up for a son with cerebral palsy or being pregnant well into her late thirties. But at the beginning of the series, she’s stressed, yeah, but she’s also happy. And all the Reddit incels took that as her either relishing being the head of house or being indifferent to her husband’s unhappiness, but I think she attributed his passivity to contentment. Because her family was enough for her, Walt as he was was enough for her. And I think the real heartbreak stemmed not from realizing Walter wasn’t the man that she married; she knew that already. But from realizing that she and the life that they had built together weren’t enough for him.