What is my fascination with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives?

I’ve always found reality TV to be somewhat trashy, or extremely trashy. But for some reason The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is an absolute trainwreck I cannot look away from.

I think it’s because of the fact that the show is filmed in my city. There’s the Swig a few miles from my house, there’s the bakery on State Street, there’s the event center where I went to a wedding reception.

I find it fascinating that people genuinely act this way. During every single episode of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, I always end up literally screaming at the TV. At one point I threw the remote at the screen and the batteries came flying out the back.

I think some of my frustration with the show is that the way these women portray the culture and religion of my family and my friends is so infuriating. It is in no way representative of the lives we actually live.

But even though I find it maddening, I always find myself coming back to it.

On March 19, Season 22 of The Bachelorette starring Taylor Frankie Paul, was cancelled. This occurred just days before the set release date March 22. The season was cancelled due to a video of Paul assaulting her ex-boyfriend being leaked and published by TMZ.

Before this I always felt a bit of sympathy for Taylor when I watched her on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Watching her mental health fall apart and reach rock bottom, was hard. I empathized with her. For the first time I saw her as a person rather than just a frivolous character. I admired her more than any of the other women on the show.

As I started to see the humanity in Taylor Frankie Paul, I realized that all of the women on the show had real struggles. While reality TV embellishes and provokes drama and emotions, it doesn’t mean that they couldn’t feel pain.

But after hearing about the leaked video, I started to lose sight of the humanity I had found in Taylor. I felt so much anger towards her for being able to treat somebody like that. I began to villainize her again. Why should I try to empathize with someone like that?

Of course with Taylor Frankie Paul and the women on Secret Lives I want to be able to see humanity in them. Because of course Taylor has experienced a lot of pain, but that doesn’t justify her actions.

Through all of this, I have begun to wonder, how do you find humanity in people that hurt others?