If you watched ‘Sex and the City‘ as a young adult, Mr. Big would’ve easily looked like the guy who wasted years of Carrie Bradshaw‘s life. But watching it years later makes the story way messier. Big was emotionally unavailable, selfish, and wildly inconsistent, especially whenever Carrie wanted commitment.
Still, Carrie was not simply a victim caught in his games. She snooped, tested him, crossed boundaries, cheated on Aidan, and repeatedly went back to a man after learning exactly who he was. Carrie and Big were not a good person-versus-bad person romance. They were two deeply flawed people who kept feeding the same toxic cycle.
Big Was Toxic, But He Wasn’t Always Lying About Who He Was
Big deserves a lot of the criticism he gets. Carrie wanted emotional security, while Big seemed determined to keep one foot outside the relationship. He struggled to communicate, resisted commitment, and often gave Carrie just enough affection to keep her hoping for more. Their expectations were so different that fights became almost inevitable. Critics have since described their dynamic as one in which Big routinely downplayed the seriousness of their relationship, while Carrie wanted something much deeper.
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Carrie, however, often heard Big’s boundaries and decided they were challenges. Remember the church disaster? Big was not ready to introduce Carrie to his mother, so Carrie turned up anyway and watched them from a distance before the situation became painfully awkward. Instead of accepting that Big moved slowly, Carrie needed proof that their relationship meant as much to him as it did to her.
Then came one of their biggest clashes. Before Big left for Paris, Carrie wanted to know whether she should go too. Big did not ask her to follow him and did not promise some grand Paris future. Carrie understandably hated hearing it, but he was also being pretty clear. She wanted commitment before Big was willing to give it.
Carrie’s first major breakup with him follows the same pattern. She desperately wants Big to tell her she is “the one.” When he cannot give her the answer she needs, Carrie finally leaves. Big absolutely failed to meet her emotionally, but Carrie was not tricked into believing he was ready. At several points, he showed her that he wasn’t. The painful part was Carrie’s belief that enough love could eventually change the answer. Their early romance works partly because both characters keep amplifying each other’s worst tendencies.
Big Made Everything Worse With Natasha’s ‘Sex and the City’ Entry
Big’s marriage to Natasha is where defending him becomes much harder. After all those commitment problems with Carrie, he returns from Paris engaged to a younger woman he barely seems to have known for long. Carrie had spent ages trying to get him to commit, only to watch him apparently do it almost instantly for somebody else.
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The situation understandably wrecked Carrie’s confidence. She became obsessed with Natasha and constantly compared herself to her. Yet Carrie’s heartbreak also turned Natasha into a rival, even though the latter had done virtually nothing to her. Carrie’s real issue was Big, but Natasha became the symbol of everything Carrie thought Big had refused to give her.
Things reached maximum chaos when Big re-entered Carrie’s life while she was dating Aidan. Big was now married; Carrie finally had a boyfriend who openly wanted her, and somehow the two still ended up having an affair. Big pursued Carrie aggressively, so he deserves major blame. He told her he was unhappy with Natasha and wanted out of the marriage.
Carrie still made her own choices. The affair spanned multiple encounters rather than a single impulsive mistake. She lied to Aidan while sleeping with somebody else’s husband. Big even discussed leaving Natasha, while Carrie resisted dealing with the reality of what they had started. Fan discussions still point out the uncomfortable contradiction: Carrie wanted Big desperately, but once he talked about actually ending his marriage, she became far less certain about dealing with the consequences.
Then Natasha caught Carrie inside her own apartment and fell while chasing her and injured herself, bringing the fantasy crashing straight into reality. Carrie eventually told Aidan about the affair, and their relationship collapsed. None of this means Big suddenly becomes innocent. It means Carrie was no longer simply responding to his toxicity. She had become an active participant in it.
Carrie’s Treatment of Aidan Says A Lot About the Big Problem
Aidan exposes one of the most uncomfortable truths about Carrie. For years, she claimed she wanted someone available, loving, and ready to commit. Then she got exactly that and still could not fully choose him.
Carrie cheats on Aidan with Big, eventually wins Aidan back, and then refuses to fully remove Big from her life. Aidan had very obvious reasons to hate the man who had caused their breakup, yet Carrie continued her friendship with Big. Things got downright absurd when she invited Big to Aidan’s country cabin after Big called her upset about another woman.
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Imagine the reverse. Big cheats on Carrie with an ex; Carrie somehow forgives him, and then Big announces that the ex will still be his friend. Later, he brings her to Carrie’s holiday home because she is sad about a breakup. Carrie would have delivered a voice-over, three columns, and an emotional breakdown before brunch.
Aidan’s proposal reveals another contradiction. Carrie had spent years begging Big for certainty, yet when Aidan gave her certainty, marriage suddenly terrified her. She even had a physical reaction after trying on a wedding dress. Their eventual breakup proves that Carrie’s problem was never simply that men refused to commit to her. Part of Carrie also struggled when commitment arrived in a form she was not emotionally ready to accept. Well, a modern rewatch makes Carrie’s own toxicity in relationships much harder to miss.
That does not mean Aidan was automatically perfect either. Their second relationship contained its own resentment and unhealthy behavior. Still, the contrast matters because it destroys the idea that Big alone prevented Carrie from having the stable love she supposedly wanted.
Carrie Was Addicted to the Chase as Much as She Was to Big
Big seemed most interested whenever Carrie began moving on. Carrie, meanwhile, seemed most invested whenever Big remained slightly out of reach. Put those two personalities together, and you basically get six seasons of emotional Wi-Fi connecting and disconnecting.
Carrie also had a habit of turning anxiety into action before stopping to consider another person’s boundaries. She followed Big, obsessed over his exes, and repeatedly demanded reassurance. Later, after the affair, she became determined to apologize to Natasha even though Natasha had no interest in giving Carrie closure.
Carrie’s approach here is especially revealing. Carrie wants to stop feeling like a terrible person, so she tracks Natasha down. Natasha finally tells her exactly how badly the affair affected her life. The apology may look responsible on the surface, but Carrie is still asking the person she hurt to participate in her emotional healing. Even years later, commentary around the series has singled out Carrie’s tendency to make every situation about her own feelings.
Yet those flaws are exactly why Carrie works as a character. She was never designed to be some perfectly enlightened dating guru simply because she wrote a sex column. Emily Nussbaum famously argued that Carrie belongs in the tradition of the female antihero, while Sarah Jessica Parker has defended the character’s failures as part of what made her human.
Creator Darren Star has also spoken about the Big affair as a major storytelling move precisely because it pushed Carrie somewhere morally difficult. Carrie cheating on Aidan stopped the show from making its lead character merely the woman men hurt. She became someone capable of doing serious damage herself.
Big was toxic. He avoided vulnerability, gave mixed signals, cheated on Natasha, and had a suspicious talent for wanting Carrie most whenever someone else had her. None of that deserves a pass. But Carrie spent years romanticizing a relationship that repeatedly showed her what it was.
Maybe ‘Sex and the City‘ becomes more interesting once we stop asking whether Big deserved Carrie and start asking why Carrie kept choosing Big. She wanted him to become emotionally available, yet part of their chemistry existed because he wasn’t. Big kept running. Carrie kept chasing. Whenever one stopped, the other seemed ready to restart the game.
Calling Carrie nothing more than Big’s victim therefore misses one of the best things about the series. Carrie had agency, and sometimes she used it terribly. Big could hurt her, but Carrie could hurt Big, Aidan, Natasha, and herself too. Their romance was iconic because it was messy, not because it was healthy. Maybe Big was the red flag everyone remembers, but Carrie spent six seasons proving she had a few flags of her own.
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