Hemingway, Picasso and beyond: Why powerful men fail in personal relationships

Currently, I am watching the American serial The Affair. While it offers a very interesting exposure to broken relationships in the United States, in the middle of the tenth episode of the second season its main character, Noah Solloway — divorced from his wife after falling in love with a waitress — has a therapy session with a psychiatrist. Here, Noah, who happens to be a celebrated novelist with two published novels and a third in progress, makes an interesting observation: all great men are not good men.

From whatever I know of relationships among NRIs in the United States, such therapy sessions are quite common. Many strongly appear to believe that speaking to a psychiatrist or therapist when marital problems arise can help resolve issues. They often undergo several sessions. I do not know how effective this really is, but I am sure it creates a psychological space that gives people hope of leading a more normal life.

Noah offers the example of several “great men”, of whom I remember two names as I write this: Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. He says both were bad men in their personal lives. While refusing to compare himself with such towering figures, Noah admits that he too is a “very bad man”. Though he had not betrayed his wife during twenty years of marriage before falling in love with the waitress, after separating from his wife he became involved with several other women as well — among them a “very bright” student writing a novel and the publicist of his second novel, Descent.

I knew about Hemingway, whom I had studied during my postgraduate years as part of my syllabus, but I was largely ignorant about Picasso’s personal life. So I looked up the troubled relationships of both men.

Indeed, both Hemingway and Picasso were among the most influential cultural figures of the twentieth century, yet both had deeply troubled personal relationships that continue to attract criticism.

Hemingway married four times — to Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gellhorn, and Mary Welsh — and many of these relationships ended amid infidelity, emotional instability, alcoholism, possessiveness, and his inability to sustain emotional balance. His relationship with Martha Gellhorn was especially strained because she insisted on maintaining her own independent career as a war correspondent, something Hemingway reportedly found difficult to accept. His personal life reflected the same themes of insecurity, wounded masculinity, loneliness, and emotional turmoil that often appeared in his fiction.

Picasso’s relationships appear even more controversial. Throughout his life, he was involved with several women, including Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, and Jacqueline Roque. Many accounts describe him as emotionally manipulative, domineering, and deeply misogynistic. Several women associated with him reportedly suffered severe emotional distress, depression, or psychological trauma. Françoise Gilot, one of the few partners who eventually left him, later wrote Life with Picasso, portraying him as a charismatic yet controlling figure. Picasso often treated women as muses and extensions of his artistic world rather than as equals.

When I searched online for how one might describe both men, I came across an observation worth quoting: “Both Hemingway and Picasso cultivated larger-than-life masculine identities and linked artistic creativity with emotional intensity and personal excess. Modern critics increasingly question the romantic image of the ‘tortured genius’, arguing that extraordinary artistic achievement should not obscure the emotional damage both men inflicted in their personal lives. While Hemingway’s broken relationships are often associated with self-destruction, depression, and alcoholism, Picasso’s are more commonly discussed in terms of narcissism, power, and control.”

While the therapist tells Noah in the serial that broken relationships are not uncommon even among "average guys" like accountants and dentists, what interested me was whether this is equally true of India. Great actors in India are known to have had troubled relationships, but here matters are often more complex. Family “acceptability”, especially from the husband’s parents, frequently becomes a major source of psychological stress. I know one actress — now happily married to one of my closest friends — who personally spoke to me about this.

Currently, I live in Ahmedabad, where I know of one case involving an elite woman who sought therapy after separating from her husband. In contrast, a very middle-class woman whose husband had tragically passed away completely rejected the idea of consultation. She had strained relations with her in-laws after her husband’s death and would suffer traumatic emotional episodes. Yet whenever anyone suggested therapy, she would respond sharply: “I am not mad. Why should I talk to a psychiatrist?”

Be that as it may, powerful men too — from whatever I know as a political reporter in Gujarat — often turned out to be what Noah called “bad men” in their personal relationships. I have nothing concrete to say about nationally celebrated political figures, but in Gujarat it is common knowledge among journalists that several chief ministers, though certainly not all, had troubled personal lives.

I do not wish to name anyone. Instead, in place of a conclusion, I would like to quote a former personal secretary to one of the chief ministers. Now associated with a major corporate house, he once told me: “When you are powerful, it becomes so easy to have extra-marital affairs. As an outsider you may not realise it, but as an insider I can tell you — it is extremely easy.”