Choice and Consequence

07.05.07

Choices are what define us - or rather how we make them and what we do with the consequences of our choices.

You made one bad choice John, and from that created this chain of decisions that became harder and harder to justify to yourself - in the end, instead of being able to make rational informed decisions, you were just flailing in a sea of self-doubt and confusion - so your final choice was misinformed in every way.

We often talked about your decision to marry the person you did. I could not understand after having left home and spent four years at college, how you wold return to this person who had effectively stood still in the meantime, done nothing with her life apart from continue in the same old drudge, waiting for somebody to rescue her from herself and when that failed, she formulated a plan to get you back.

During our discussions, you came to the same conclusion many times - that you were very flattered by the declarations of love and longing - which I found odd to say the least, as in the time we had been best friends at college, you had always been popular with the ladies and had plenty of admirers. Nor, in all that time do I ever remember her calling or visiting you, despite the fact that you were apparently the person she could not live without. The pattern of inertia started here. A's real tour de force was her ability to blackmail emotionally - to create a sense of guilt and owing rather than a positive sense of energy and giving.

When you expanded on your theory, it became clear that to some extent you had been duped - you were, as you pointed out to me, dealing with unfinished business after having been caught in fraganti by your prospective in-laws in an embrace with your then-girlfriend during the first round of your courtship.

The fallout was unbelievable, and when you recounted it to me, I was aghast to say the least that you even considered continuing any contact with these people. It was made clear to you, that in your youthful fumblings, you had sullied your girlfriend, defiled her and thus rendered her unfit for pairing with another. In other words, you were held to account by your father-in-law-to-be regarding the supposed damaging of his daughter. I always remember that you found this shocking and amusing in equal measure as A had always been reluctant to have any physical contact with you - majorly catholic apparently - but on that particular day, she insisted that you return to the family house and join her as her parents were absent for the day. Shortly after you engaged in what you described as heavy petting (always makes me laugh that one), initiated by her with some ardour. A short time later, her parents walked in "unexpectedly". I wonder John. I wonder!

I could not believe that after being caught in fumbling and fully clothed embrace with your girlfriend that you could bow to such ridiculous pressure and more importantly, that your adult girlfriend would even tolerate this from her father - the diatribe was laden with imagery of the virgin / Madonna / whore details and peppered with references to the abstinence of your in-laws before marriage: too much information!

And so, instead of dealing with this, it was left in the air, only to be resumed as a matter pending when you were due to return to Liverpool after finishing your college degree.

What I found strange is that your by now ex-girlfriend re-initiated contact with you about 6 months before you were due to return home, after effectively three years of silence.

The choice you made to leave Liverpool was fuelled by many factors, one of them being that you had asked A to make yours a proper courtship, that you were not prepared to skulk around or hide in her car when out on dates - her parents, although they held you accountable, disapproved of your friendship and supposedly banned her from seeing you. After consideration, I imagine this in part, to be a lie, as they approved wholeheartedly of your marriage several years later, and I am inclined to believe that people don't really change, conversely, they revert to type when under pressure.

Which is what she did; your life together was infected with the invented conflicts that A brought to the home - work colleagues, neighbours, extended family; her raison d'etre was to engage in conflict with others and then put you to the test by demanding that you resolve it as she was too shy, too weak, too worried to deal with it herself - and let's not forget, your role was to look after her in every sense of the word, regardless of your needs or wishes. When pushed, she used her physical appearance as the basis of her theory that others were bullying her. In reality, what you both failed to see, is that she wasn't that important to anyone else but herself to feature as the focus of another's emotional outpouring. Her vindication came from issuing the edicts and getting you to follow them.

The rapprochement was initiated with declarations of love and want: you were the "thing that she most wanted in the world". Our interpretations of that were different - after three years of no success in sourcing another she turned her attentions to you, as she indicated to you thereafter, you had a pending debt to be resolved and you owed her. You, in your naivety believed this to be a declaration of true love and bought in to it.

Interestingly, her all-consuming love for you was not so great that she didn't find time to apportion her 10 stone weight gain during the interim years to you - caused apparently by her missing you so much that she turned to eating. I always wondered why, if this was true, how she didn't lose the weight once you had returned to her loving, if somewhat chubby, arms...and how when 200 miles away, you were able to force feed her.

Predictable discussions and subsequent decisions ensued for you - you didn't introduce her to your family until you were engaged, at her request - she wanted to have the deal sealed before she met your folks - it isn't hard to guess why! She pursued you with vigour, witnessed by work colleagues who remember it well and recall the lengths she would go to to get you - declaring her need of you at every turn, withholding any further favours until you promised to marry. You always found it amazing that I knew she didn't put out until you had announced the engagement to the family and there was, effectively, no going back. I always told you that I knew this because her behaviour was entirely predictable of somebody of her ilk: an underachieving emotional manipulator.

The home making and building was left to you, while she spent her savings on a new car and continued to live with her moral guardians and emotional suppressors- your job to provide for the new wife John, even though you had been a student for nearly four years! Unbelievable.

What I never understood is that you didn't really have an inkling then of just how seriously nuts she was, nor that you ever picked up the copious lies and stories she fed you.

It is strange then to understand that you were susceptible to such flattery and deception, as you were always, sweet John, a lucid and intelligent man with the ability to cut through the bullshit. But not when it came to A. Still, in part, you were aware throughout your marriage, that things were not right, as we now know that you went to great lengths to cover aspects of it, which you intuitively knew would shock or appear strange, to say the least.

You told me shortly before you died, that you realised what you mistook for love was actually a sense of duty coupled with high doses of flattery. When I asked you how you knew this, your answer was simple; that you had since leaving your marriage discovered love and come to understand that what you had before was entirely different.

Too bad you couldn't have made an entirely different choice and saved yourself so much pain and suffering.

You might still be here.