Bad weddings and warning signs

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

I once was in the awkward position of being the person who had to tell someone her new girlfriend was bad news. In fairness, L was trying to get her shit together, and was going to AA and Al-Anon meetings, but she had been sober only a couple of months, and she had abused her last girlfriend, which I got an earful of, because the ex camped on my couch after she ran out of the apartment they shared. She was terrified to go back and get her stuff. I solved that problem for her.

I was still friends with L, who had spent a night crying on my shoulder about how she had fucked everything up, and she was in love with J (the woman on my couch), but she knew she’d lost her for good.

So L seemed to be working hard-- going to meetings, working at a new job, seeing a therapist, taking antidepressants, and working out-- frankly, I don’t know where she had time to date. But she starts going out with S. S was a college friend of a good friend of mine, W, going back to middle school. W has heard rumors about L’s last relationship, and asks me for the straight dope. I tell her what I know from the part I played. Together, we take S out for coffee and tell her the same story.

I related this story on another MB, and got taken to task for “trashing my friend.”

What could I do? I thought L was redeemable, and I was happy to help her, but at the moment she was bad news in a relationship. She was verbally abusive to J and had her in tears almost daily; finally one day she became physically abusive, and that was when J got out. She still fortunately had enough self-esteem to have the courage to do that. But barely.

Can’t you care about someone, and still think that they are bad news in certain situations, kinds like taking the keys away from someone who is drunk? [/hijack]

82

Eh, not quite the same, but I know someone whose recent girlfriend was warned that his then-current situation of working in town was quite unusual, he usually travelled a lot. She said “I know, he remembered I used to serve him breakfast at the airport.” Hey, whatever, many a couple hasn’t survived the weekly sacrifice to the airport gods, many others have.

S could choose to leave or stay, she could make the choice better knowing the situation more fully.

83

Gosh dammit, none of the pictures are still up.

Beeeeeaaaaaaaaaarrr!

84

I used to do a lot of community theater.

Community theater is a good, um, breeding ground for romantic relationships. I have known a number of couples who got together when they were in a show. Some of them were even single when they got together. Several of these couples continued to see each other after the show closed; some married; some of these marriages have lasted quite well.

It’s usually very easy to tell which people are involved. Even if you’re not paying close attention it’s pretty obvious. There was one exception, though: Amy and Dan. When I first got to know them, Amy was in her early twenties, very withdrawn, almost affect-less. Dan was ten years older, officious, set in his ways, and could be a real jerk to people, especially women. The two of them never talked during rehearsals or shows, didn;t hang out together, didn’t hold hands, didn’t talk about each other–I was floored when I discovered that not only were they an item, but they were engaged. They seemed poorly matched in so many ways and as I say they showed no signs of even wanting to spend time together.

But hey, whatever. They got married and went off to Hawaii for a honeymoon. On the second day they were frolicking in the surf when a wave knocked him onto her. He was a heavy guy and she broke her leg.

It was downhill from there. Several years and two small children later Amy got up one morning, dropped off the kids at day care, and drove to the hospital instead of to her job. When they asked what they could do for her, she said–showing initiative and drive for the first time in her life, perhaps–that they could either admit her to the psych ward or she would drive over to the nearest bridge and jump off. They kept her. She was in and out of hospitals and halfway houses for the next eight years.

In the meantime Dan proved completely unable (and largely unwilling) to care for the kids. The kids were noted in the neighborhood for playing in the road at six a.m. The house quickly became filled with fast food detritus and unwashed laundry. Amy’s father and stepmother stepped in and minded the kids half time–they kids’d beg not to go back home after each visit, but Dan wasn;t prepared to give them up altogether and no one pushed.

And that was the situation until Dan was arrested for possession of child pornography.

…

I don;t know whether we’d say that the story has a happy ending or not. On the happy side, Amy eventually managed to start putting her life back together; she reclaimed her kids, divorced Dan, got an apartment, found a job she likes, and is dating a woman who seems very nice. The kids are doing well, one perhaps more so than the other, but certainly better than you might expect under the circumstances. As for Dan, well, he spent time in prison, was released (I don’t know exactly why), was sent back for parole violations, was released again. Somewhere along the line he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. He died about a year ago.

What the warning signs were, well, you can choose. Maybe it’s having your husband fall on you and breeak your leg during the honeymoon. Or maybe it’s having your fellow theater people be completely unaware that you are a couple. Whatever. I was only an observer, thank goodness, but it seems like it must have been just an awful, awful marriage.

85

Maybe Amy and Dan were one of those couples who had little or nothing in common beyond the fact that nobody else wanted either of them?

(of the opposite sex, anyway?)

Seen that a few times too. It doesn’t ever end well.

86

I don’t understand. Why didn’t the woman* marry her boyfriend in the first place instead of making her lesbian(!) friend do it?

*Or man. I might not be wise to assume gender in this case.

87

I guess there are people out there for whom it would be normal playful behaviour - like that couple on YouTube that’s always pranking each other - although I imagine with most couples engaging in that sort of behaviour, one will tire of it before the other does, or one will want to take it further than comfort limit of the other.

88

If best friend was male, then we have the answer–a man couldn’t marry a man at the time, so a woman had to do it to make the marriage legal and allow the boyfriend to stay.

If the best friend was female, then perhaps she was not (yet) a citizen and did not have the right to bring a foreign husband into the US to live?