Monica Geller is the mother-hen of the group. Her love for hosting a good time for her friends is as big as her need for cleaning and organizing, and we can't help but love her uptightness and competitiveness.
But many of Monica's flaws that create a good laugh can actually be traced back to traumas in her life. From her family to her friends, Monica is underappreciated and clearly suffers from mental conditions that interfere with her well-being. Here are 10 facts about Monica Geller's life that are actually very sad.
She's Not Her Parents' Favorite
While most parents try to love their kids equally, or at least hide who their favorite is, Judy and Jack Geller are pretty blunt about their preference. Ross is the golden son, over-praised for his achievements to the point there's not a lot of room left for Monica to shine.
The Gellers make their preference known publicly throughout the 10 seasons of the show, and Ross is clearly very comfortable in this number one position, as his efforts to lie about smoking marijuana in college make evident. Even though Monica confronts her parents a couple of times, and Judy and Jack apologize, they never really change their behavior. Anyone wonder where Monica's need to please comes from?
She Loses Her Box Of Memories
In the thirteenth episode of season 7, "The One Where Rosita Dies," Ross and Monica find out their parents are selling their childhood home and go there to retrieve childhood memories they'd like to keep.
That's when Monica finds out the box containing her memorabilia was used as a barrier to stop rainwater from flooding the garage, and all of her things were destroyed. Guilty, Jack Geller even tries to repair the damage by giving Monica his Porsche, but even with the bribe, this is yet another reminder of her parents' neglect towards her.
Her Wedding Fund Becomes A Beach House
Like many girls back in the day, Monica had envisioned and planned the wedding of her dreams. Organized as only Monica can be, she even kept a reference folder with pictures and service providers to facilitate her life when the special moment came.
But, it's only when she gets engaged to Chandler that she finds out the wedding fund her parents had put aside for her was used to buy a beach house, as Jack and Judy thought Monica would never get married. The news comes as a double threat because Monica realizes she won't be able to afford her dream wedding and that her parents didn't believe she could find someone who loved her enough to marry her.
She's Always In The Shadow
It wasn't only at home that Monica lived in the shadow of someone else more accomplished in the eyes of others. While in High School, Monica was overweight and dorky, and she spent her school years looking up to her best friend Rachel's perfect life as a popular and beautiful cheerleader.
In a few episodes, Monica reveals how hard it was to watch Rachel have everything and only dream about dating the hot popular guys and being invited to the cool parties.
No Future With Richard
Monica and Richard were the perfect couple. As an older man, Richard already is many of the things that Monica admires, like organized, clean, and financially stable, and when the two are deeply in love, Monica's happiness is noticeable. Which only makes their break-up sadder.
The relationship comes to an end after Monica discovers that Richard, already a father of two, doesn't want to have more kids which means their future together would require Monica to give up her dream of becoming a mom. The sad end to this love story left the audience weeping, and Monica herself confesses that getting over Richard was one of the hardest things she's ever had to do.
First Kiss Fail
In a time when teenage Monica didn't have much going on in her life, one night became very special to her. Until she found out her fantasy was actually a nightmare. In season 10, episode "The One Where The Stripper Cries," Chandler tells Ross he kissed Rachel in 1987, at a college party.
This upsets Ross, whose first kiss with Rachel was on the same night, and he decides to tell Monica about it. However, as the trio retells the story, the siblings realize they have actually kissed each other. Monica, who until that day had a fond memory of a certain midnight mystery kisser, realizes her first kiss was with her brother.
Fertility Troubles
Throughout the show, Monica constantly expresses her wish to get married and become a mom one day. Having a family is so important to her, it becomes the reason she ends one of her happiest relationships, with Richard Burke. After she gets together with Chandler and celebrates their dream wedding, Monica begins her journey to conceive.
When things don't go as expected, the couple decides to investigate why they can't get pregnant. In one of the shows' saddest episodes, Monica and Chandler find out they can't have kids of their own. The couple eventually adopts twins, but it's truly heartbreaking to see Monica's dream of getting pregnant shattered.
Her OCD Is Pathological
Monica suffers from a severe case of OCD. Through 10 seasons, the audience sees her obsessive need for cleanness and organization worsen with time, interfere with her well-being, and often lead her to extreme situations, like when she compulsively cleans random cars on the street, can't dream thinking about a misplaced pair of shoes, or cleans until exhaustion.
Even though the gang is aware of her condition, not one of them addresses the problem as a disorder that significantly affects her quality of life. Annoying or not, Monica's obsessive-compulsive disorder needs to be seen as a mental condition that needs to be treated.
The Best At Having Low Self-Esteem
Maybe it comes from her parents' negligence, maybe it's due to her own personality, but Monica Geller is a competitive person.
Always needing to prove she's the best, be it in playing sports or giving massages, Monica is constantly pushing herself to the edge to be better than everyone else. And this need to prove her superiority is a mask for an underlying case of very low self-esteem. It's often sad to see Monica's struggle to beat her friends, and when contradicted in her compulsion to win, she even resorts to violence.
Everyone Underappreciates Her
Monica's need to please everyone might come from her relationship with her parents, but the truth is her perfectionism makes her a very competent person, so when she's out to please, she does an excellent job. But hardly ever, those around her appreciate it. When she lives with Rachel and later Chandler, she's the one who cleans, cooks, and organizes their apartment, but they never thank her for the dedication and often make fun of her methods.
Monica constantly goes out of her way to help others, like when she cooks a special Thanksgiving dish for each person, builds a complete file folder for Chandler to find a new career, or even makes homemade candy for the neighbors. But it always ends with people demanding more and giving her zero credit for all her work.