"Abused Wife fakes death" movie- name?

[Lumpy]

NOT “Sleeping with the Enemy” starring Julia Roberts. It might be the 2005 Lifetime movie “Stranger in my Bed” starring Jamie Luner (not to be confused with the 1987 movie with the same title starring Lindsey Wagner); but I can’t find a detailed enough synopsis online to be sure. In the movie I’m thinking of, she took advantage of an earthquake to become missing presumed dead, and in her new identity married a former Catholic priest.

[Drain_Bead]

The Thorn Birds?

[No_Me_Ayudes_Compadre]

Nightmare in the Daylight, with Christopher Reeve and Jaclyn Smith?

[magellan01]

Sleeping with the Enemy fits the bill, depending on how you define “abused”.

[Frylock]

@magellan01

Sleeping with the Enemy fits the bill, depending on how you define “abused”.

Wow! Read the very first words of the OP!

[Patty_O_Furniture]

There must be some way to respond to threads without opening them.

[medstar]

Enough, with Bill Campbell and Jennifer Lopez?

[Lumpy]

@No_Me_Ayudes_Compadre

Nightmare in the Daylight, with Christopher Reeve and Jaclyn Smith?

Winner!!

Nightmare in the Daylight is a star vehicle for Jaclyn Smith. She portrays a woman with a secret. She has kept the secret from her husband, and a chance encounter with her former husband, who believes her dead in an earthquake, triggers a crisis. Christopher Reeve is the brutal ex-husband, playing against type rather effectively. Tom Mason is the husband, sympathetic and, interestingly, portraying a former priest (as Brian Dennehy did in the Jack Reed series). There is some discussion in the screenplay about priests who leave and get married – and a visit to a priest friend to ask for advice.

[Frylock]

@magellan01

Sleeping with the Enemy fits the bill, depending on how you define “abused”.

Also, dude, didn’t she have bruises all over her body? How do you define abuse?!

[randwill]

Isn’t that every movie on the Lifetime channel?

[Lumpy]

@randwill

Isn’t that every movie on the Lifetime channel?

You can see why I had so much trouble finding one particular one.

[Lumpy]

Just rewatched this and was struck by how the premise is obsolete. Nowadays Christopher Reeve’s character (a lawyer) could easily have gone to a judge and said “my wife faked her death in order to deprive me of my parental rights; please sign a court order for DNA testing of the child in question”.

[RivkahChaya]

@Lumpy

Just rewatched this and was struck by how the premise is obsolete. Nowadays Christopher Reeve’s character (a lawyer) could easily have gone to a judge and said “my wife faked her death in order to deprive me of my parental rights; please sign a court order for DNA testing of the child in question”.

Oh, man-- now that you mention that part, I’ve seen that movie! Geez, that was a long time ago.

[congodwarf]

So, was he nuts or was she really his wife?

[Lumpy]

@congodwarf

So, was he nuts or was she really his wife?

If you haven’t already read the spoilers upthread, the full movie is on YouTube.

[congodwarf]

@Lumpy

If you haven’t already read the spoilers upthread, the full movie is on YouTube.

Ya know, I did read that but my brain didn’t make the connection between the comment and my question.

[Lumpy]

@Patty_O_Furniture

There must be some way to respond to threads without opening them.

I actually spent a few minutes seeing if some joker could do this. Apparently not: the board generates a unique post number for each reply and I don’t think there’s any way to spoof that.

[TheBoltEater]

@medstar

Enough, with Bill Campbell and Jennifer Lopez?

This movie has always stuck with me as having the most hilarious… I won’t say plot hole, more like a glaring character flaw. J-Lo is an abused wife. Her friends tell her to get a divorce, but she says she can’t; both cause he’ll get everything, but also because she’s so deeply religious that it’s unthinkable. So she runs away, learns self defense via montage, then sets a trap for him where she can do him in and no court in America would ever convict her.

So she’s too Catholic to divorce him… but cold-blooded first degree murder is just fine!

[Lumpy]

@TheBoltEater

This movie has always stuck with me as having the most hilarious… I won’t say plot hole, more like a glaring character flaw. J-Lo is an abused wife. Her friends tell her to get a divorce, but she says she can’t; both cause he’ll get everything, but also because she’s so deeply religious that it’s unthinkable. So she runs away, learns self defense via montage, then sets a trap for him where she can do him in and no court in America would ever convict her.

So she’s too Catholic to divorce him… but cold-blooded first degree murder is just fine!

Well the vows did say “Till death do us part”.

[Hilarity_N.Suze]

@TheBoltEater

This movie has always stuck with me as having the most hilarious… I won’t say plot hole, more like a glaring character flaw. J-Lo is an abused wife. Her friends tell her to get a divorce, but she says she can’t; both cause he’ll get everything, but also because she’s so deeply religious that it’s unthinkable. So she runs away, learns self defense via montage, then sets a trap for him where she can do him in and no court in America would ever convict her.

So she’s too Catholic to divorce him… but cold-blooded first degree murder is just fine!

I once had a discussion with a bunch of mystery authors, male and female, where we all kind of agreed that almost anyone who’s ever been married will sort of understand this mentality of divorce: never; murder: maybe. No doubt why these plots come up year after year. They resonate.