I don’t pop on to this sub often, so I don’t know how much merit what I’m about to say will hold.

I feel like if there’s been anything regarding Gallavich that fans have been mad about with this last season, it’s how Ian and Mickey seemed to argue and bicker a lot. I know the standard defense of that is that newlyweds argue a lot, and while that may be true, I think there’s more to it (besides the writing). Ian and Mickey have never been perfect. They’ve gone back and forth almost every season leading up to the wedding. Ever since I started watching the show, I always knew they would end up together by the end. I was happy to see a same-sex relationship that wasn’t muddled in stereotypes. It was nice to see two people who grew up in a very fucked up environment find some sort of love and safety in each other. Yes, Mickey had it worse than Ian in terms of abuse (physically, emotionally, mentally, and sexually), but they both suffered through their fair share of trauma.

I know it’s mentioned various times in the final season, but neither of them had good role models to base a marriage/family on. Mickey especially had no one to show him what a loving family is, while at least with Ian he had Lip and Fiona to try and care for him whenever her was going through something serious. I think their bickering stems from both of them trying to figure out what things like compromise are like in a relationship. In the scene where they discuss whether or not they want to have a monogamous relationship, I think Mickey doesn’t show his paper (besides possibly not knowing how to spell monogamy bless his heart) because he doesn’t fully understand what it means for someone to want to only be with him romantically and sexually. I don’t think he wanted to hide his answer from Ian, he was just genuinely surprised to see that Ian only wanted him and didn’t want to go off and have relations with other guys.

Both Ian and Mickey still have a lot to learn in their marriage even with the show being over, but I’ll forever be invested in their relationship regardless of that fact. I don’t know if anything I’ve said here is anything new, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on it.