I'd like to hear people's viewpoints and/or feelings about the following.<p>A woman is married for some years to a guy who is abusive. Among other things, I believe he expects perfection out of her, so he blames her and rages at her for every perceived fault, real or otherwise. She on her side buys this stuff to begin with, partly because she expects perfection out of herself and is very hard on herself also. He seems pretty much incapable of empathizing with her or giving her any real support. No matter how hard she tries, she can never get him to "feel her pain" or apologize for anything he did to her. He "doesn't get it," and probably never will. Eventually she gets fed up with this, and angry. Love dies. Although she's naturally hurt and grieving at the failure of their marriage, she finally decides to split, so they do.<p>There's still the divorce to be settled. On Valentine's Day, shortly after the separation, she gets a box of chocolates from him. Along with it is a "friendship" valentine. It reads: "Our friendship has been such a special part of my life. I'll always be grateful for that--and for you." He writes at the end: "Thanks for the good memories!"<p>What I'd like to know is how people would see this gesture or react to it. Could it be, for instance:<p>A slyly calculated way to trivialize the importance of their marriage, with the intention of insulting her once again?<p>A clumsy act that might hurt her out of sheer thoughtlessness for her feelings?<p>An attempt to hook her back into the relationship by reminding her of whatever was good in the past?<p>A mere ritual?<p>A gesture of conciliation, goodwill and kindness in difficult circumstances?<p>An attempt to put a perennially conflicted relationship on a different but more mature footing?<p>A romantic message with all the poignancy of a great understatement?<p>Something else?<p>Any and all comments are welcome, and I'd like to know especially whether people see this gesture positively or negatively. Thanks for your views!

eddy,<p> I am a believer in people. I know that sometimes it takes a mountian falling on some peoples heads in order for them to really take a look at how they have acted. How they have abused others. How small they really are without the one that completes them. This is a possibility in this case. <p> Perhaps this person just could not fathom the other side of the marriage or significant other.
Maybe now that he is losing the person he did love, albeit a crazy one sided love, he is attempting to show his regrets. <p> I may be mistaken of course. I hope this fellow has learned something valuable. Something he can take into his next relationship, whether with x-wife or a new person. <p> I would advise the wife in this little story to take it slow, be wary, and take care of herself before worrying about what this might mean. There is no rush for anything. That doesn't mean to be cold or mean to the H.<p> Can you elaborate further?<p> jd

I agree with JDMAC1. This could be interpreted in any of the ways you suggest. The point is the act wil not be in isolation. Other interactions will have to occur to make the meaning clear.<p>Good luck.

My cousin was in a marriage much like the one you described here. Susan was the cheerleader, the Homecoming Queen, voted most popular, best eyes, best hair, etc I'm sure you get the picture. She married Bob straight out of high school and promptly gave birth to a daughter 15 months later. Soon she found herself bored with this man who didn't respect her beauty and what not. They divorced and she met Ken.<p>Ken told her how beautiful she was, how special she was and within a year she was married. She and her daughter moved into Ken's house. I saw Susan often, but not at her home. She was now 25 and still quite beautiful. After 2 years of marriage she was looking a little worn around the edges. And then one day she disappeared. <p>No one understood until finally her mother, my Aunt, told us she was living in a safe house for abused women. Everyone was shocked at this turn of events. Susan got her divorce along with a restraining order that kept Ken away from her. It didn't matter, he had already moved on.<p>Susan told me about her marriage. She was required to wake 1 hour before Ken and prepare herself for his viewing her upon waking. She had to remove the makeup he "made" her sleep in and reapply fresh makeup for the morning. She also had to be dressed in something pretty when Ken woke up. He would wake and literally inspect her makeup and attire. If she passed he would kiss and hug her and tell her how much he loved her. If something didn't meet his approval he would tell her how ugly she was and beat her. For more than 2 years she stayed and played this game of being his own Barbie doll to dress and fix up the way he wanted. She told me, her exact words were "I tried so hard to be perfect but I was never pretty enough". I was stunned. This woman is gorgeous and vivacious and her self esteem was now gone because this controlling, vicious, abusive man took it from her.<p>The morning of their divorce hearing Ken sent her a dozen white roses along with a card that read "I hope we can remain friends. Your friendship was always important to me. Thanks for the memories". That card and those flowers were meant to rein his Barbie doll back into line by shaming her one last time. <p>He wanted her to feel unpretty. He needed her to feel unwanted because that was the only way this pathetic little man could hold on to her, by stealing her self worth. Thank god her counselor helped her through it and helped her to heal all the wounds Ken had caused. Not physical wounds but the emotional ones. The kind that leave scars that can't be seen and don't eassily heal.<p>Susan is now 50 and happily married to a real man who appreciates her inner beauty. Her 31 year old daughter is happily single and swears she will never marry. There's a moral in there I hope you see it.<p>[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: TinyDancer ]</p>

Thanks for your responses, everybody!<p>jdmac1, yes, I agree, it does take a mountain falling on some people's heads to get them to see how they've acted. Or rather, it takes a mountain falling on some people's heads to get them to see how their partner feels about their actions, especially about their neglect. To some that seems to be an alien concept--until they're forced to seek an explanation for their partner's leaving. And yes, that might be what happened in this marriage. Nobody can be sure. I think though that this lady tried very persistently, even effectively, to get the message through, and only got cursed for her pains. If she's dealing with an abusive marriage, that means the guy has anger to dump on her no matter what she does, and as for her leaving, he's already got an explanation for that. In his mind it's not because of his behavior, but because "all women treat him that way." There's not much she can do about that but give up. It takes a whole chain of mountains falling on an abuser's head to wake them up.<p>Paul, thanks for your comment as well. It's a key point: the message of that Valentine could indeed be interpreted in any of the ways I suggested, and others as well. If we try hard enough, or have a certain bent, we can read almost anything into whatever anybody else says.<p>I think though that the typical person would be likely to see the message as an attempt at positive communication, saying something like "Although I'm bound to be upset at your leaving, I'm trying to be nice, I still have feelings for you, and I'm expressing as much of them as I dare without risking rejection." That was why I posted this, to check out my perception that most people would see it that way.<p>I think I got validation for that. But I'm not completely sure. TinyDancer, thanks, that was a heck of a story. I've never heard such a blatant example of being treated as an object. Was this guy's name really Ken, or was that an apt choice of pseudonym to go with Barbie? Anyway what I'm still not clear about is whether the message with those flowers was intended to guilt Susan back into the relationship ("See, I'm still trying to be nice to you in spite of everything"), and dangling out a little hook of promise--or whether, by being lukewarm and conspicuously failing to say anything like "You're beautiful," it was literally intended to shame her ("I'm not saying you're beautiful, but I do value your friendship, and that's the best offer you can expect from any man").<p>I was curious about this because the lady in question did read the Valentine message negatively. "How nice that he can be so philosophical about the end of a marriage!" she complained. Well, anyone might take a message any way they felt about it, but significantly, four other women in abusive marriages took it the same way: that she was being "damned with faint praise." One even suggested that she show it to her attorney as "proof" that her H was emotionally abusive. In itself I didn't see it as "proof" of anything of the kind.<p>The reason this puzzled me is that the very opposite--a passionate message with professions of undying adoration--seems to upset some people just as much when they're leaving an abusive relationship, on the grounds that it's a mockery of what happened, or just another manipulative attempt to guilt them back into the relationship. Somehow I would have expected the more "friendly" message to be taken differently, at least as a signal that "I'm not going to be nasty about your leaving." Perhaps we have to twist our brain into a pretzel to grasp the meaning of communication in abusive relationships. Or maybe the simple truth is that in the circumstances, any message at all might be taken negatively.<p>As for a moral in the story, I can't be sure what moral you had in mind, but it seems to me that Susan was particularly vulnerable to exploitation if she based her self esteem chiefly on physical beauty. We ought to value ourselves especially for our inner beauty, expect others to do the same--and teach our children to do likewise. I'm only sorry that Susan's daughter ended up with such a dismal expectation of what marriage should be.