Philip & Mildred's Relationship in "Of Human Bondage"

By listensAnchor3742

I’m reading *Of Human Bondage* by W. Somerset Maugham and I’m on page 470 right now. I keep getting stuck on Philip’s whole decision-making—like, why did he stay with Mildred and just put up with all that misery when he could’ve been with Norah or even just walked away from Mildred completely? I get the idea that he almost seems to get some twisted satisfaction out of suffering and seeing how awful people really can be, but I can’t really wrap my head around why he was so pulled in by Mildred in the first place. It’s not like she was just a difficult partner—she’s genuinely a bad person too. And he had a real chance at a better life with Norah, but he threw it away for Mildred. Curious what other people think about this.