Carrie & Aidan’s Definitive Romance Twist In And Just Like That Season 3 Was Predicted 21 Years Ago

WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for And Just Like That season 3, episode 9.

Even when it seems inevitable, breakups are always a shock, but Sex and the City fans should have seen the end of Carrie and Aidan’s relationship coming in And Just Like That season 3. All season long, Carrie was pulling out all the stops to make her romance with Aidan work, much to the bamboozlement of her friends, who just wanted our heroine to be happy.

However, in season 3, episode 9, “Present Tense,” things hit a breaking point. After everything Carrie did for Aidan — the new home, the 5-year relationship pause that he broke, and dealing with his tumultuous family life — the last straw was Aidan’s trust issues with her and other men after a 20-year-old affair. And the parallels between this and one of Carrie’s major SATC breakups couldn’t be clearer.

Carrie Proved She Doesn’t Put Up With One-Sided Relationships In The Sex And The City Finale

She Bent Over Backwards For Petrovsky, Just Like With Aidan

Carrie Bradshaw is nothing if not a romantic, and when she’s in love, she will go out of her way to show her commitment. In And Just Like That season 2’s ending, that meant agreeing to Aidan’s incredibly big ask of pausing their relationship for five years.

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In the final season of Sex and the City, it meant uprooting her entire life and moving to Paris with her partner, Aleksandr Petrovsky. These were both leaps she was happy to take, but neither Petrovsky nor Aidan fully recognized that they were also sacrifices on Carrie’s part. If anything, they took advantage of everything she gave to their respective relationships.

In Aidan’s case, that meant arbitrarily altering the terms of his and Carrie’s arrangement whenever it suited him — I’m still cringing at his drunken phone sex call. The only reason he was able to visit Carrie for so long in And Just Like That‘s most recent episode is because Wyatt moved in with Kathy. Yet, when Carrie is in Virginia, she has to ask Aidan’s permission for a sleepover.

21 years ago in Paris, Carrie dutifully went along with everything Petrovsky asked, but he never did anything for her. Here she is, supporting him in a foreign country where she doesn’t speak the language or have any friends, and he treated her as an afterthought. Carrie will put up with a lot for the sake of love, but neither Aidan nor Petrovsky appreciated her devotion.

Both Aidan & Petrovsky Treat Carrie Terribly

This Was Her Breaking Point In Both And Just Like That & Sex And The City

It’s not enough that Aidan and Petrovsky demand so much of Carrie while giving so little — they both blatantly mistreat the woman they claim to love. And in both cases, this results in their undoing.

With Petrovsky, he guilts Carrie into ditching a dinner with the first real friends she’s made in Paris in favor of supporting him at his art opening. Carrie, of course, puts her needs second, but when the show is a success and Petrovsky promptly ditches her to bask in the attention of his hangers-on, she’s had enough.

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When she calls him out on his behavior, Petrovsky very well might have saved their relationship by apologizing, listening, and changing his selfish ways. But instead, he walks away from Carrie, refusing to talk to her until she’s “calmed down.” Then, of course, she tries to stop him, resulting in her getting struck in the face.

Petrovsky’s slap may have been accidental, but his intent to dismiss Carrie couldn’t have been clearer, and it’s a choice he can’t come back from.

If anything, Aidan’s behavior is even worse than Petrovsky’s in And Just Like That season 3, episode 9. Whereas the latter is dismissive, the former is downright cruel. Aidan proves he hasn’t grown at all since he and Carrie last dated, and lets his jealousy get the better of him by interrupting Carrie’s writing session with Duncan.

Again, if the behavior ended there, they perhaps could get past it, but when Carrie returns and gets into bed with Aidan, he rudely tells her to get away from him and take a shower because she smells like smoke. Carrie is understandably hurt and enraged, and confronts him about it in the morning, where he refuses to see the error of his ways. The next time they see each other, they break up.

Carrie’s Breakup Speech To Aidan Is Similar To Her Iconic “Looking For Love” Monologue

“I Was 100% In”

Aidan may not have grown much since Sex and the City, but Carrie certainly has. Her argument with Petrovsky in the SATC finale gives way to her show-stopping “I am someone who is looking for love” speech, where she makes it crystal clear what her romantic needs are, something she hadn’t done in the past.

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And Just Like That‘s “Present Tense” episode sees Carrie deliver a similarly impassioned monologue about how hard she has fought and bent herself out of shape out of love for Aidan, telling him “I was 100% in.” The only difference is that this time, she was clear from the start about what she wanted and what she was willing to give.

If Carrie was “looking for love” in Sex and the City, she is looking for trust from Aidan in And Just Like That. And if he can’t get over a decades-long affair, he never should have gotten back together with Carrie again, let alone put her through the ringer the way he did. She deserves better than that from Aidan, just like she deserved better from Petrovsky. And Carrie let them both know it.