Spoilers ahead…
Dear Karthik Subbaraj,
Congratulations on yet another interesting movie, and for resisting the impulse to name this one, too, after a food item. Iraivi is an unusual feminist film, in the sense that it’s seen entirely through the prism of sympathetic male characters. Your men aren’t monsters who drink or cheat on their wives or subject them to torture. They do these things, yes, but… differently. Arul (SJ Surya) drinks, but only to drown out his sense of failure – he’s a director and his film is in the cans, being held hostage by a sadistic producer. Michael (Vijay Sethupathi) has sex with Malarvizhi (Pooja Devariya), and he continues to lust after her after his marriage to Ponni (Anjali) – I love that all your women have names that suggest classical heroines, including Arul’s wife Yazhini (Kamalini Mukherjee) – but it’s a marriage he committed to in a hurry and he still hasn’t reconciled himself to it. He’s being a bastard, certainly, but he’s not a one-note villain. And the torture they inflict isn’t the stubbing-a-cigarette-into-the-wife’s-bare-arm variety. It’s more mental than physical.
So we get women who are collateral damage – and I include Arul’s comatose mother (Vadivukkarasi), and the nurse who’s not allowed to do her duty – of men being men. They’re being babies, really. Yazhini tells Arul that he should get on with his life, write another story, make another movie. He says it’s like her trying to have another child while still pregnant with their daughter. (Yes, all these men end up with girl children.) He’s a wallower – but maybe all artists are. You like to do that, don’t you Karthik? Even in a film like this, you deliver a commentary about filmmaking and the artist. Why, even Arul’s father is a sculptor, and though we never see him ill-treating his wife (thank you for sparing us the clichés of raised hands and raised voices), we’re informed that he’s responsible for her state. His son’s following the father’s footsteps. Maybe you’re trying to say that the wives of obsessed artists are doomed to become collateral damage. Your films make us think, Karthik, so thank you for that.
All your stories have at their centre a filmmaker, or at least (in the case of your first film, Pizza) a storyteller. And through them, we seem to hear your voice. “Works of art should not be in places where they are not respected.” “Namma padam pesanum, naama pesa koodadhu.” You compare masala movies to a massage with a happy ending. (I laughed, but please don’t judge me when I say I rather like massages with happy endings – I refer to masala movies, of course.) We even get a line of dialogue about Dolby Atmos. (What will the B/C-centre audience make of this, Karthik? But then you don’t really give a shit, do you? More power to you.) And you like your insider jokes. That crass, egoistic producer who does not care about art – he reminded me of the crass producer from your earlier film, Jigarthanda. You like Rajinikanth too. You referenced Thillu Mullu in Pizza, Thalapathi in Jigarthanda, and now you have Arul singing Malayala karayoram, Michael singing Oorai therinjikitten.
Or is that more of an Ilayaraja homage? You like to keep the audience guessing, right? When the Bobby Simha character in Jigarthanda said he was a Shankar-Ganesh fan, it appeared that you were mocking the endless Ilayaraja nods in Tamil cinema, but here you are, doffing your hat to the maestro. “Raja Raja dhaan.” Arul says this… twice. (By the way, which is that nightclub which plays Maanguyile poonguyile? Do let us know.) And the reuse of Unnai thaane – first in a scene between Michael and Malarvizhi; later in a scene between Michael and Ponni – is the kind of Easter egg we come to your films for. Let me list some others, though I’ll probably need to watch the film a second (or third) time to get them all. The name of the bachelors’ quarters is Ambal Mansion – it goes with your theme and title. I didn’t get the bit about the windmills (something connected to the gust of wind that makes the row of cycles fall over in the first scene?), or why you showcased the book of Shanta Shishunala Sharif’s poems. (I confess. I Googled up that name. I can’t remember the last time a Tamil film made me Google something up. Madras, maybe.) And despite your note at the beginning that Iraivi is inspired by the works of K Balachander (he made female-centric films, but I don’t know if I’d call them feminist films), this is really more of an ode to Mani Ratnam, isn’t it? Specifically, Aayidha Ezhuthu. The three men, one of them – the impulsive one – named Michael. The film starting out as Arul’s story, then becoming Michael’s story, and finally Jagan’s (Bobby Simha) story. The finale with the woman on the train. Plus, the arc of the Madhavan-Meera Jasmine plot was essentially about being easily misled (in the case of the man) and becoming collateral damage (in the case of the woman.) And yes, the rain. All that rain. As though the skies were weeping for these women.
Am I digressing, Karthik? If I am, I’m just following your style, which is the opposite of simple and linear. As a result, I find your films longer than they need to be. (You may feel the same about my reviews.) For instance, I did not care for the scene in the nightclub where a director is felicitated. I realise it was there as a last straw for Yazhini, but it felt redundant. But I suppose they couldn’t be any other way, because you like these shaggy-dog stories that you then embellish with novelistic detail. I love the way you introduce your characters, the time you take with them. Our films lay out characters and their relationship to each other the minute we set eyes on them, but you make us wait to know how Arul is related to Jagan and where Michael fits in and so on. And when it appeared that a semblance of a plot was kicking in (something about Arul needing money to buy back his film), I dug out my phone and checked: it was a whole hour into the movie. Borrowing an image from Malarvizhi’s profession (oh wait, she’s an artist too; she’s literally an artist), it’s like daubs of paint slowly forming a bigger picture.
And you really like an expansive canvas. Not only does the crass producer have a brother, you also bring in his wife later on, to conclude a deal he began making. These segments practically form a mini-movie, with another woman left reeling by the actions of her man. Your films have this… density. They’re packed – with characters, with complications, with information doled out in bits and pieces. (A character says, “Un kitta onnu sollanum.” And instead of hearing what he has to say, we cut to someone else.) Take the scene where Michael asks Arul for money he is owed. You just need to get Michael to Arul’s antiques shop, so the next part of the plot can be staged. Arul could have told Michael to collect the money at the shop. Instead, this is what we get. Arul tells Michael to wait for a week, when he can get the 50 lakhs he is owed. Michael says he wants only 10 lakhs. Arul says he has only 8 lakhs, he’ll give the remainder later. Michael goes to Arul’s father, in the hospital. He has only 5 lakhs. And he directs Michael to the shop, to get the remaining 3 lakhs. Your signature intercutting adds to this texture, Karthik. Shots of Michael and Arul’s father in the hospital are intercut with shots of Arul hunting for booze. Shots of Michael and Jagan outside a courtroom are intercut with shots of Arul being consoled by his father. Happenings are stretched and meshed the way they would be in real life, and not compacted according to the page-per-minute requirement of screenplay-writing textbooks.
I could never predict where the film was going (win!), what these people were going to do (again, win!) –though I must admit I found this to be the weakest of your “twists.” The subplot about stealing sculptures, too, I found rather conceit-y, something half-heartedly cooked up to fit with the title and the theme, rather than something plausible, something these people would do. When Michael, here, commits murder, with a hammer, I went, “This mild-mannered chap? Really?” But then, even in Jigarthanda, I wasn’t quite convinced that the characters would do the things they did. They seemed to be puppets of a screenplay rather than credible human beings, whose actions evolve organically from who they are (or at least, who they seem to be).
But even if I am not convinced by the overall trajectory of your characters, I love how fleshed-out they are on a moment-to-moment basis. I loved the scene where Arul barges into Yazhini’s house, after their separation, on the day of her engagement to someone else. In a lesser film, she would have asked him to get out, and he’d have dug his heels in, and she’d have cooled down and… But here, she rushes straight into his arms. And you make us see why. She was frustrated, fed up with him. But she’s also confused. Was she hasty in abandoning this man? Should she move on with another man? Does she even need a man? With just this one scene, you’ve compensated for the underwritten heroine of Jigarthanda. The story arc may be Arul’s, but Yazhini registers as a fully formed character. Similarly, Michael’s arc allows for the delineation of Ponni and Malarvizhi, and through Jagan, we get glimpses of his mother, and possibly of all womanhood as viewed by a compassionate man. And then you say that women don’t need even this compassionate man (poor chap!), that they have to emancipate themselves instead of looking for a penis-wielding emancipator. What delicious irony, given that you begin the film with women talking about marriage, tying themselves to a man!
Or not, in the case of Malarvizhi, who is easily the film’s most interesting character. Her husband is dead, and she doesn’t want love anymore – only sex. When Michael buys her a diamond necklace, she gives it back to him – she can buy her own trinkets, thank you very much. But the character feels shoe-horned into the film, Karthik. I felt betrayed – and I bet she did too – that after a point, she was used simply as a plot device to get Michael and Ponni together, and also to illustrate Michael’s (who is now standing in for all of mankind) hypocrisy. I felt she deserved more. And yet, I appreciated your generosity in fleshing her out like all the others, without judging her. She gets to be the rare woman in Tamil cinema who dumps the man, and the way she lets go of Michael is echoed in the way Arul lets go of Yazhini, with a heavy heart and some playacting. A side effect of the Malarvizhi subplot is the reassurance that Vijay Sethupathi is still interested in making cinema, rather than just massy entertainers targeted at the box office.
Ponni gets a better deal (and Anjali is terrific, raw and expressive in a way she has never been). In a great scene – rather, a set of book-ending scenes – Michael tells Ponni that he was forced to marry her, and she’s going to have to “adjust” to this if she wants to be with him. Much later, she throws the “adjust” word back on his bearded face when he asks her if she slept with someone else. In a different kind of movie, we’d be invited to see this symmetry, stand up and applaud. But you’re too subtle for that, Karthik. Iraivi is your subtlest film. Which is why I winced at the melodramatic lines about men and women, most of which came towards the end. Aan, using the long-sounding vowel, versus penn, with the shorter one – for such a visual filmmaker (this is another outstandingly shot film, less showy than Jigarthanda and probably richer for that), do you really need the crutch of linguistic special effects from another era of filmmaking? Also, when the rest of your film is so allusive, isn’t there another way you can explain the twist without having a character resort to such an inelegant information dump?
And why is it that your films come together more in the head than in the heart? Why are they easier to admire than love wholeheartedly? I used to think it was because your characters are essentially deceitful, self-serving and unsympathetic, so though we were invested in what they did, we didn’t really warm up to them. But here, you have Ponni and Yazhini and Malarvizhi – and they’re still remote. But perhaps this is bound to happen when there are so many people, so many strands, when we don’t follow one person’s simplistic “you go, girl” journey like we do in, say, 36 Vayadhinile? But when the parts are so well-crafted, we don’t complain as much about their sum not adding up to a satisfying whole. I am sure that you will, one day, make that wholly satisfying film, but for now, thank you for these parts. Thank you for the ambition. I felt there were too many songs (some good work by Santhosh Narayanan), but thank you for ensuring that they don’t break character, the way songs usually do when a character speaking in his or her voice suddenly segues into the playback singer’s voice. Thank you for giving us SJ Surya, the actor – I never dreamed he had such a capacity to hold a scene, to hold the screen. Thank you for continuing not to sell out. Thank you for trying to do so much, even if not all of it needed to have been tried. And thank you for making me fight with myself, for not making it easy to decide if you’ve made a “good” film or a merely “okay” film. For now, Iraivi is a fascinating film, and that’s enough.
Sincerely, etc.

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10,000 Stolen Days

May 10, 2024 marked exactly 10,000 days since Sophie’s life was taken. 10,000 days which had they not been stolen from her in December 1996, must have seemed to be filled with possibility .1996 had been a banner year, she had achieved so much in the previous 6 months, setting up her production company "Les Champs Blancs", and producing three different productions, with more on the way. But it had been exhausting few months with all this work and travel, and although Christmas is a holiday, it is not always a relaxing one.
Christmas had often been a difficult time for Sophie. She walked out her first husband Pierre Jean at Christmas 1981, so suddenly, she left her infant son behind and had to steal him back with a ruse involving a relative. She broke up with Bruno Carbonnet over Christmas in 1993. leaving him a puzzling note;
“Je suis partie là où tu n'a jamais été, là où tu n'iras jamais".
“I have left there where you have never been, there where you will never go”. This didn’t make much sense to Bruno. He waited alone for two weeks in the apartment hoping she would return, he a had bought a bicycle for Pierre Louis for Christmas. In January he left to teach in Le Harve and when he returned the locks had been changed and all his stuff was on the landing. Sophie was deliberate about change in her life she didn't just let things happen to her. Her agenda year planners reflect this. She was meticulous in recording meetings, calls, contact details and travel plans. She brought 1995, 1996 & 1997 year planners with her. There are notes and reminders stretching into February 1997. She even tore off the little perforated corners as each week passed. It's a poignant reminder of how abruptly her life was cut off in full flow - the week beginning 23/12/1996 still has its corner intact.
Sophie’s style was austere, almost minimalist. Her cottage was painted white inside and out, with a except for the ground floor, which was black slate with a shiny varnish. The only decorations were a few sprigs of holly placed by the housekeeper to welcome her. A traditional Christmas week filled with loud music, tinsel and overconsumption was the diametric opposite of her character.
Worse there is the prospect having to trade pleasantries with tiresome relatives.
That Christmas Daniel had decided for the first time to have a big family Christmas inviting his extended aristocratic family to his chateau in Ambax in the South of France. For Sophie, who even after six years of marriage barely knew Daniel’s relatives, this was an easy choice and a hard no.
She bought her ticket on the morning of her travel planning to spend nearly a week in Ireland including Christmas Day and return on the 26^th. It may be that this was the only return flight she could get at the time. Or it may be, as she told her aunt Madame Opalka “she was going to go to Ireland to spend Christmas there, because the house in Ambax was full of people”. From what Daniel has said, and from what others have said, it may be he tried to persuade her to come to Ambax for Christmas and convinced her. Sometime during the weekend she got an itinerary by fax at the cottage confirming her flight back on the 24^th. But even on Sunday afternoon she told friends she had not made up her mind which flight she would take.
It is difficult to say how well their marriage was going at that time because the reports vary. Daniel said it was "harmonius and peaceful" which was far from accurate. There are several biographies of Daniel Toscan du Plantier, and they paint a vivid picture of a man who though incomparably charming, lived his life his own way without much concern for his family. He married four times and in three cases his wives were already pregnant before they got married. When he married Sophie, his eldest son and daughter were not even told about it, they only found out later in the summer when Sophie turned up at events.
Some witnesses including Daniel said was it was the happiest period, others say she was basically “an official wife” and that “their open marriage was an open secret”. The truth was probably somewhere in between. She had visited Ambax in November and collaborated closely on the documentary Europa 101 with Daniel. Whatever their personal arrangement, Daniel was deeply affected by her death, even though he refused to come to Ireland. His daughter Ariane wrote how she spent months taking care of him, feeding him sedatives and sleeping pills. He was clearly overwhelmed, so Sophie must have been more than an "official wife" to him. Was their marriage "open"? They clearly had a high degree of independence from each and had affairs in the past.
Nevertheless, Sophie may have balked at spending Christmas in Ambax. For one thing, it was far away from Paris, where her friends and family lived. For another, Daniel’s family and entourage knew very little about her. Apart from his second son Carlo, who was friends with her son Pierre Louis and some servants, she would have been on her own. Christmas in Paris would have been tolerable, she could escape and visit her parents and friends whenever she wanted, but in Ambax, she would be cooped up with nowhere else to go.
There is a question of whether Daniel was having an affair at the time. According to a Garda memo, French journalist Caroline Mangez said that Daniel was with a female film producer. However the files are full of unsubstantiated rumours and lies. Even if he wasn’t having an affair Sophie may have suspected he was. If Daniel had invited a mistress, or even a former mistress, or a former wife to Ambax, it would be unbearably awkward for Sophie. Daniel had uncountable affairs, and many of his mistresses knew each other, some remained on good terms.
Daniel may have been faithful at that time, perhaps he was telling the truth when he said their marriage was harmonius, but in any case Sophie had other reasons to skip Christmas. She had wanted to come to Dunmanus for months, but work got in the way. The heating had just been fixed and she needed to pay the plumber and her housekeeper. They preferred cash.
And if Daniel was unhappy that she wasn’t going to be there for Christmas, they were going on holiday together in the New Year to Dakar, Senegal. It would be much easier for Sophie to be with Daniel by himself than his whole family. This trip to Ireland would be a breather for her. She didn’t want to be alone, she asked at least 8 different people to accompany her, including 2 former intimate partners, though there is no evidence that she was having an affair or intended to have an affair.
There is a post-it note with a message in Sophie's hand seemingly inviting someone to spend Christmas: "Je vous laisse le choix : venir ou de refuser histoire que vous passiez un bon noel"
"I leave you the choice: come or refuse just so you have a good Christmas"
Whoever that note was written to, it was to someone she addressed as "vous" so not one of her closest friends or family.

Work

If she had another relationship, it is not obvious from her diary and it was unknown to her friends. What her diary does show though is that she had thrown herself into work.
Apart from her agenda she kept a working notebook, a red hardback book which is filled with a tantalizing mash of different references to famous works of art, music, and contacts details of artists and philosophers. She had recently completed work on three different films. The first work was a documentary on African Art. The next was Europa 101, a documentary written by Daniel showcasing the wealth of European cinema. This was Daniel’s pet project, he loathed US cinema and the dominance of Hollywood. He once likened his wife’s death to a “bad movie”. His life’s work was a “struggle against cheap portrayals of violence, which is what leads to deaths like this” (Irish Independent 12/07/1998). This project involved gathering interviews and footage from dozens of famous directors and actors, including John Malkovich, Ingmar Berman, Pedro Almodovar, Werner Herzog, Nanni Moretti, Jean Luc Godard and many others. It was broadcast on December 8, 1996.
The third was an art house movie called “He sees folds everywhere”, a concept movie exploring the idea of folds and creases in everyday life, in hanging clothes, paper, wrinkles on skin, folds of a human brain. This was a project of the director Guy Girard, and it was the work to complete this that delayed her trip to Ireland. But she had other projects in train in her notebook. She was researching Greek folk music, Rebetiko. She had a project or projects in mind which were somewhat dark in nature.
She was in contact with George Didi-Huberman who had written a book called “The Invention of Hysteria”. This is a photographic history of how Jean Marie Charcot – one of the giants of 19c French science – locked up thousands of women for the imagined maladies of hysteria, lethargy, catalepsie and experimented on them, deliberately photographing them in contrived and frightening poses. It is a very weird and frightening history.
Her next project seems to have been based around human fluids. Her final notes are filled with references to human flesh, death and the four medieval humours of blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile. There are extensive notes to what seems to be a lecture given by linguist Jean Claude Milner on the subject of melancholia. Note that “melancholia” is a synonym for “black bile”, one of the four humours.
She was researching the avant garde Irish/British painter Francis Bacon, who was known for producing uniquely disturbing images. She references “Three Studies for the Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion”. There was a Bacon exhibition in Centre Pompidou in 1996 and Sophie must have attended it. Her notebook contains her jottings from a lecture on Bacon by writer Philippe Sollers which seemed focused on blood.
"Why does painting touch the central nervous system?" "We are carcasses of meat, meat above all" "The canvas bleeds, blood spurts red" "Dostoyevsky had a crisis in front of the 16^th century Hans Holbein’s painting “The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb She jotted down a quote from the play Libation Bearers from Aeschylus:
Orestes sees the Furies coming and exclaims "O Lord Apollon look! Now they come in troops, and from their eyes they drip loathsome blood!"
The last entry reads "research the Furies"

Friday

Having failed to convince anyone to join her in Ireland for Christmas, she went alone. She telephoned Josephine on Tuesday 17^th, told her she would be arriving alone on Friday. She called her again on Thursday to ask her to make sure the house would be warm.
She went to the airport on Friday morning, bought a ticket with the return date on the 26^th, carrying with her a rather hefty bag filled with clothes, including some eveningwear. Perhaps she envisaged visiting people at Christmas time. She expected to stay nearly a week. Later, possibly on Sunday she changed her ticket, she called the Aer Lingus ticket desk in Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris and got a return flight for the 24^th. She received the itinerary details by fax, as she had a machine in the cottage.
She was not in a good mood when she arrived. She had some words with the woman at the Avis counter who passed her to her colleague. The photos on CCTV show a woman looking tired and drawn, something which was remarked upon by the Avis rep, who estimated she was in her forties, a little older than her 38 years. But nobody looks their best walking off an aircraft. She had also attended the Unifrance Christmas party the night before. This was a lavish party held in “Les Bains Douche”, a unique Paris nightclub combined with a swimming pool. Apart from the late night, the social effort must have been tiring. There was a rumour that Sophie had a row that night at Les Bains, a row with one of Daniel’s mistresses, but I have never heard that confirmed. But other reports say that those who met her there found her "radiant", "in good form", "playful". "She went arm in arm to see friends," one guest at the party told Paris Match, "but she always came back to the table where Daniel was sitting." (Paris Match 09/01/1997) Daniel was quoted years later by Michael Sheridan - “She spent some hours having an intense, passionate conversation with a film-maker” - Alain Terzian, producer of Les Visiteurs, one of the most successful French comedies of the 1990s.
Strangely though, Daniel’s first statement said she left on Wednesday. So perhaps it didn’t register with him that she was at the Unifrance party with him on Thursday 19^th, or perhaps he had forgotten the party altogether.
Sophie was captured on Cork Airport CCTV at 14:41 pushing a trolley through the arrivals gate. The scheduled arrival time was 13:20, but because of almost an hour’s delay in departure it didn’t touch down until after 2. It would have taken about 15 minutes to pick up baggage from the carousel.
Cork is a small airport and it is quick to get through the arrival hall to the car hire desks, only a matter of a few meters away.
Sophie hired a silver Ford Fiesta and would have been on the road by 14:50.
The quickest route to West Cork would have been via Bandon and Dunmanway but it is more likely she went via Clonakilty and Skibbereen. She stopped in Ballydehob to buy kindling. She may have stopped in Skibbereen to buy petrol. A pump attendant reported seeing a woman matching her description driving a silver Ford buying petrol. He also noted a tall male companion in the passenger seat. The Gardai discounted this sighting because they accounted for the petrol in the car when it was hired and the mileage thereafter. There were also some discrepancies in the vehicle’s appearance and its description in the statement. Also the Ballydehob sighting is more reliable as the woman got a chance to talk to her. It would seem odd to stop in both Skibbereen and Ballydehob, both petrol stations.
But she seems to have stopped again in Schull because she bought bread and cheese in the Courtyard Deli, and this was most likely on Friday. She talked with the proprietor, Denis Quinlan to ask if there would be live music. At this stage it would have been around 4:30pm and after this she went to the cottage. She called her caretaker Josephine at 5:15, so she must have been at home by then. We don’t know if she went out after that point. She may have stayed in. At 10:15 she called her friend Agnès Thomas and spoke to her for half an hour.

Saturday

Sophie’s whereabouts on Saturday morning are unknown. Perhaps she stayed in, perhaps she went out. Finbarr Hellen was working on his land nearby and saw her car outside the house 12 to 1pm. He didn’t see her and thought it was unusual for her not to come out and say hello. He also remarked her car was parked in an unusual place. He did not elaborate more than this.
The next event we know is that she bought some groceries in Brosnans supermarket on the main street in Schull and took £200 out of the ATM.
For the curious, her shopping list is listed below:

Item	Price
Firelighters	0.85
Independent Newspaper	0.85
EP Televised "Chopped" & Her	0.52
Parsley	0.40
Low Fat Yoghurt	1.90
Ballygowan Natural Spring Water	0.85
Napolina Penne	0.75
Rashers	1.26
Courgettes	1.23
Chicory	1.79
Onions	0.09
Fox's Classic Biscuits	0.83
Flat Mushrooms	0.65
Pepper Coated Salami	0.85
Cooked Turkey	1.89
Mushrooms	0.34
Avonmore Leek & Potato Soup	0.99
Monini Olive Oil	3.45
Ballygowan Natural Spring Water	0.85
Avonmore Carrot & Coriander Soup	0.99
Ballygowan Natural Spring Water	0.85
	22.18

This list does suggest she was buying just for herself, but also that she planned to cook moderately elaborate meals with parsley, courgettes and chicory. Together with the cheese, bread and fruit already in the house she had enough food on there to last a few days. This quantity of food suggests she had not decided to travel home on the 24^th at this stage.
The till recorded a time of 2:49pm.
Sometime after this or perhaps before Sophie entered Tara Fashions, the clothes shop run by Marie Farrell. What Marie Farrell saw that day and subsequent days has been subject to revision, retraction and details seemed to be added with each telling. But I think the most reliable report is the first and all the subsequent revisions cannot be trusted. Farrell called the Gardai on the 25^th but they didn’t get around to taking a statement from her until 27^th. Even so we can assume her memory was fresh. Here is her statement, verbatim.,
On Saturday the 21st December 1996 I was working in my shop at Main Street, Schull, Co. Cork. Between 2p.m. and 3p.m. I noticed a weird looking character across the road from my shop. He was approx 5’10” in height, late 30’s, scruffy looking, long black coat, flat black beret, thin build, sallow skin, short hair. He was there for about 10 minutes. On Sunday morning at 7.15a.m. approximately I noticed the same man on the road at Airhill. When I saw him he was walking towards Goleen on the right hand side of the road and I was travelling in the opposite direction. When he saw me he stopped and put up his hand to thumb a lift. I did not see this man before or since. On Saturday the 21.12.1996 at approx 3p.m. there was a woman in my shop. She did not buy anything. I now know that this woman was the deceased woman from Goleen. I recognised her from the photograph on the television.
There is also a record of her questionnaire which may have been taken earlier than this statement.
In reply to question no 8 When/where did you last see him/her alive? She replied "saw her in shop. She bought a "Carrig Donn" aran sweater aran nap coloured, rolled neck late Sat aftemoon. Paid £39.00. Questions No. 9, 10, 11 & 12 were left blank. In reply to question No. 13 "any other help?" Marie Farrell replied "saw a man on Sat afternoon hanging around street. Desc late 30's, 5'10" very short hair wearing black beret. Saw him again Sun morning @ 7.20am walking towards Airhill but thumbed her.
In a later questionnaire, Farrell said the sweater was too big and she didn’t buy it.
What is interesting her is that Farrell does not draw any explicit linkage between the weird character in the long black coat and the woman in the shop. They were just there at approximately the same time. Farrell did say in later statements that the man followed her up Ardnamanagh road, but this was many years later. Her statements that she saw the same man at Kealfadda bridge at 3am on Monday are untrustworthy, but we won't go into this here.
A farmer, Frank Lannin, saw Sophie driving towards Schull from Goleen around 3pm. She saluted him as she passed him in his tractor. The time or the direction of travel must be wrong here.
The final sighting on Saturday she was seen in the Courtyard pub, eating a crab sandwich and left at 3:30pm. Sally Bolger went to feed her horses on Alfie Lyons land at 4:15pm and says she saw Sophie’s car at her house.
Saturday evening is a complete blank. Nobody saw her, she may have called people on the phone but we don’t have precise details. Her husband said she called him twice on Saturday, but we don’t have any confirmation of this.
At some point Sophie changed her ticket home. Her diary has a number listed as “O’Mahony” and the number was the line to the Aer Lingus ticket desk in Charles-de-Gaulle Roissy airport. The new itinerary was faxed to her in her cottage. The reason why she decided to come home early is not known. Her friend Jean Senet said her husband Daniel persuaded her. For his part Daniel said there was no particular plan and he was to pick her up from the airport at Toulouse at 8pm. Another report tells that she came home early to meet her father, so she could help him with his taxes.

Sunday

For Sunday morning we don’t have any reports.
She called to Dunlough at in the early afternoon, perhaps around 1pm. Sophie had walked here several times before. It is a spectacular headland featuring a lake and three crumbling castles. It was cold and dry at the time, good weather for a walk, if bracing. It is necessary to pass the farm to walk the headland and when Sophie did so she met Tomi Ungerer. This was the second time they had met. Sophie had called here in April but it seemed Tomi and his wife were having a row at the time and Tomi had not paid much attention. Daniel said that Sophie feigned a puncture as an excused to call to the farm. In June Sophie had sent Tomi a fax about the death of a mutual colleague, Gilbert Estève. She may have been seeking information or just making contact. Sophie made a habit out of making contacts with important artists and thinkers. It was one of the things that a colleague said of her, she knew all the right people. It is possible that Tomi was one of the people Sophie wanted to meet for a while. Tomi invited her in for a drink after she had finished her walk. She returned an hour later and they had a conversation over two glasses of wine.
Tomi was a renowned visual artist, with a keen eye and a professional interest in culture. Born in Alsace he was marked by World War II and had seen the ravages of the Nazis and the backlash from the French afterwards. He worked for as a cultural ambassador to improve Franco German relations.
The statement that Tomi gave is remarkable in the insight it gives to Sophie’s character her interests and state of mind.
“She was saying how great Ireland was for literature and education compared to France, how France had thousands of books published every year but that there was no good Authors there, how Ireland was vibrant as a centre of literature for a small Country. She discussed her family, moreover her children and their education in France. She indicated that the reason she was here in Ireland was she wanted to be alone for Christmas. I considered this strange but I sometimes like to be alone too. We talked about books and culture and how the language here was more meaningful and truthful compared to the superficial nature of the French.”
“She seemed a very genuine person, a fine person, not pretentious or snobby. I thought she was deep and intelligent, so much so that I made notes of some things she said, “In a language there should be no need of the use of cuteness” “The problem of France is her lack of modesty”. I wrote those saying they might be useful for my work in the futre. I wrote the quotes on a card in which we exchanged addresses before she left. On hindsight now I would go as far as saying she was not beaming, that she had something on her mind. It’s hard when you do not know someone well to say. I offered her a third glass of wine but she did not take any. We gave her some eggs to take with her, half dozen for her supper. We have hens.”
The word “genuine” is telling. Tomi was struck by Irish people, how the highest compliment an Irish person can give about another, is to say that person is “genuine”.
Tomi described her appearance:
“She was wearing some type of black leather expensive looking pants, brown suede hiking boots, a white/cream ribbed polo necked sweater and a beige wool blazer and a navy blue wool jacket with belt and a navy wool cap and red suede gloves, wine/red gloves. She was dressed very well. She had her hair tied back.”
As to her demeanor, this seems to have grown with the telling. The documentaries made much of the legend of the lady of the lake, whose appearance is reputed to be a harbinger of death. This lurid tale does not feature in the early Garda statements. Tomi remarked that “she was not beaming”, that she may have had something on her mind. His wife Yvonne turned up while they were chatting.
“While we were chatting, Sophie told me that while she was up at the castles she felt this great anxiety almost fear. This is not an uncommon feeling for people who visit the castles. She wasn’t in a cheerful mood but she wasn’t really glum either. She talked about her plans for the future and we spoke about meeting up in Paris in the Spring. She seemed happy to be here and she wanted to be here. She said she liked it here but her husband didn’t. She said she would be back at Easter. We made vague arrangements to meet over the next three days. I gave Sophie some eggs and she left here at about 5.45 p.m.” Yvonne’s estimate of the time she left must be an error. It is more likely she left at around 3:45.
After leaving Dunlough Sophie went to Crookhaven to Sullivans pub, a legendary stop. Here she spoke with the proprietor Billy O’Sullivan and his son Dermot, both of whom speak good French and knew Sophie from prior visits. They also knew her friend Alexandra Lewy. One time Alexandra had arranged to buy a cast iron church gate for Sophie’s birthday, Sophie was fond of antiques and bric-a-brac. Dermot had carried this gate up to the cottage. Sophie asked about getting logs for her fire. Dermot recommended she go to a filling station. She said there was only kindling at the filling stations.
It is interesting that so much of Sophie’s alleged stops and conversations were about fire, kindling, logs etc. Despite this, the photos from her house show she had a lot of fuel. There is a stack of logs, several bales of peat briquettes, what looks to be a 40kg bag of coal and one, perhaps two baskets full of kindling. She had enough for days of fires, unless she lit both hearths, which would be unlikely considering the second hearth did not draft properly, and she was arranging to have it fixed. The kindling may have been bought from Camiers Garage when Kitty Kingston reported meeting her on Friday.
She told her friend Alexandra before she left that she was going to sleep in the guest room because it was the warmest room, being directly above the oil range. There was also a brass bedwarmer found next to her bed. All these details point to Sophie being acutely aware of the cold.
A witness heard her discussing the old Coastguard houses with the Sullivans. These are a prominent landmark visible from O’Sullivan’s pub across the water. The witness left before Sophie did at 4:30pm so she must have returned to the cottage no earlier than 5pm.
The witness noted she was wearing “black leather pants and brown suede desert boots and a long chunky jumper”. This matches well with Tomi Ungerer’s account.
Note the "desert boots" seen by this witness and the "suede hiking boots" mentioned by Tomi Ungerer are probably not the hiking boots she was wearing when she died. The hiking boots she was wearing were very worn, the laces had snapped and had been tied halfway down the lace holes. It looks to me she shoved them on without untying/tying the laces. Sophie would not have visited Schull wearing old worn-out shoes. A pair of dark brown suede "desert boots" are visible at the bottom of the stairs in the garda photos. These match better with the shoes seen by the witness.
It’s 25 minutes drive from Crookhaven back to the cottage so if Sophie left at 4:30 she would have been back home before 5pm.
We know she most likely went home, because at 5:32pm she called her friend Agnès Thomas to wish her a happy birthday. Agnès was out so Sophie left a message.
The postman called at 6pm and noted the lights were on. Presumably he was doing a Sunday shift to cope with the Christmas rush. He didn’t see Sophie’s car, but as he only went as far as the lower gate, it is quite possible he missed it.
At 7:30pm she called her housekeeper Josephine but she was out. She tried her again at 9:10pm but again she was out. Josephine returned and called her back at 10pm. Sophie told her she would be leaving on the 24^th, not the 26^th as she originally intended. They arranged to meet the following day at noon.
Sophie’s phone records were not available, as the exchange she was on was a traditional analogue exchange, with no recording facility. Schull was one of the last places in the country to have such an old system. Days later Garda technicians tried to retrieve call details from her cordless phone but its batteries were flat and nothing was found.
At around 10:30pm she called her husband Daniel, who said he couldn’t take her call. He said he was in a meeting with Unifrance associates. As it was nearly midnight in France, this an unusual time to have a work meeting. Daniel called her back “about twelve minutes later”. He said she was sleepy and probably in bed. Given that the cordless phone was found next to her bed, this seems plausible. He also said that she told him about her visit to the Ungerers and had formed a work project with him. He said she told him she returned home at 9:30pm, but he could be wrong about this. The phone calls to her friend and housekeeper strongly suggest she was at home from 5:30pm.
This was the last anyone heard from Sophie until her body was discovered at 10am the following morning.
From this point all we have is are the police photos and the story they tell is ambiguous, there are multiple possible interpretations.
The fire was lit that evening and there was an empty wine glass on the mantlepiece with dregs of wine in it. There was a loaf of bread, a white crusty “basket loaf” which had been sliced and left open. This is odd as there are no crumbs visible on the table and no plate. Would Sophie have gone to bed leaving the bread out? It’s possible. Another possibility is that the bread was sliced in the morning. But if so where is the plate that she used?
Conceivably Sophie may have left these items from another evening, but it is more likely she consumed the wine that evening, possibly with some cheese she had in her pantry, and the bread she had cut. There was a book open on the table, propped open by a jar of honey next to an empty teacup. However as the cordless phone was found by her bedside, it seems likely this was all left from the previous evening.
It seems the most likely Sophie spent her last night reading, went to bed and then took the call from Daniel.
The book propped open was not a Yeat’s anthology. There is a tale repeated by many true crime authors that Sophie was reading a Yeats poem called “A Dream Death”. It contains the lines
I DREAMED that one had died in a strange place Near no accustomed hand,
Ralph Riegel titled his book after this poem. But this is not the poem she was reading, if any. Yes there was a Yeats anthology found on her bed, but not the bed she slept in, it was on the bed in her personal room which she didn’t use that weekend. The anthology is “Quarente-cinq poèmes suivi de La Résurrection”, a collection of later Yeats poems translated by Yves Bonnefoy. It does not contain the poem “A Dream of Death” but it does contain a poem called “Death”, a meditation on how animals die versus men.
Nor dread nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all;
But the Yeats anthology is not open on the bed, it is closed in the police photos. Unless the Gardai picked it up before photographing the room, then we cannot be sure what poem or poems she read. As regards the book propped open on the kitchen table, it’s prose and it is French. Journalist Lara Marlowe wrote that the book open on the table was a book about lighthouses.
Among the exhibits the Gardai took are three books

1. Le Coeur Battant – “The beating heart” – this is the title of a 1960 French movie.
2. Le Tenes Vert – Unknown – looks like a transcription error by the Gardai, could be “Les Terres Vertes”
3. Le Cine Monde – World Cinema

Other books in the house seem to correspond well with what we know of her character. On the landing there is another book from an Irish writer, Sean O’Casey, “Les Tambours de Dublin” in French.
On the shelf in her box bedroom we can see a book by Virginia Woolf, the title itself is illegible in the photo but Woolf’s distinctive profile photo is visible on the spine. I wonder if the book might be “A Room of one’s Own”. This essay advocated that a woman writer could never accomplish anything unless she had financial independence and her own space to work in. Even if it was some other book by Woolf, this essay would have been known to Sophie. It hints at what the white cottage meant to her. Her tiny box room tucked under the gable and raised single bed was a quasi-monastic cell - a creative space, a room of her own in West Cork.

development beyond
our termination
this world of dreams
we cannot enter
the landscape of trial and error
we wander over
eventually getting
where we want to be
putting the pieces in place
to get a useful picture
life’s prestos, staccatos, andantes and adagios
“ During the Cold War when there was no hot war in Eastern Europe the proportion of defence spending was 4% of GDP I think
ed. the uk is increasing its defence spending to 2.5% by 2030
It seems to me that the 1930s taught us a clear lesson that an aggressor is only deterred if he thinks the risk is not worth taking
In these days of hi-tech industrial warfare it would seem that there is a strong case for increased deterrence
I am sure no one needs reminding that the first duty of any government is the defence of the Realm ”
what makes a poem "zen" ?
interior reflection ?
insight ?
religiosity ?
natural beauty ?
calm ?
you
tell
me ?
the faces of those we love
are different
how ?
they take us further
into themselves
title : the merchant bankers lament
i
want
to
write
a
poem
but
only
dollars
come to
mind
my favourite short stories are
"an occurrence at owl creek bridge " by ambrose bierce
an article on farquhars "hallucination" occurring in the fifteen minutes between his neck being broken and death
the old folks in the short story collection of "letters from my windmill" by alphonse daudet, all the stories are superb
the hunter gracchus by franz kafka in audio
a vision of
endless rows of graves
and a voice said to me
the infinity of death
goes nowhere
just this
other roads
other perspectives
obviate
the past
and break
the monotony
you can hear erik satie everywhere used as background music for whatever on the web, but he’s not known as a name to the general public at all
a question posted on rzen
I read zen poems, like the masters of old I find peace in nature and in the simple things of life. Lately I’ve been missing work, walking along the beach spending time on the things I enjoy doing. But I have bills due, and I have debts to pay, but genuinely I don’t care anymore. I have a good job by all means. But I can’t show up. I don’t know why. Part of me wants to give up on the city life and live in harmony with nature. But part of me thinks I’m being foolish. Part of me can’t differentiate if I’m being lazy or if I’m being whom I’ve always been deep down. This brings me anxiety
My boss is calling me, soon the bank will be too. I don’t know what I’m doing.
I guess I’m searching for advice.
my reply :
health costs mean money is essential these days
they died very young back in the tang dynasty
i went through a phase like you and quit work because i got a small inheritance enabling me to travel for several years, visited a lot of zen centers etc which opened my eyes to the normality of nonsense taken as real
but in actual fact the most important thing was to improve my diet which i could with the info on the net
you made a good OP btw
"lucy" plays debussy’s arabesque
other times
other spaces
music
transcends
normality
seeking but not finding the master
this is a slightly modified transcription from
under the pines i asked the boy
who says his master’s gone to pick herbs
he’s up in those hills
covered in cloud
where, i don’t know
if you are interested in poetry you want to start writing your own, what is the point of only reading others ?
a solipsist extract from "morning song" written by sylvia plath
i’m no more your mother
than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
effacement at the wind’s hand
poems are a web of meaning and good poems will move subtly in sense everytime you read them and are able to take up your changed experience filling them in differently
one of the things i find hilarious about "trans" is if a man had to go through the trauma of actually being pregnant, he would never become pregnant again !
i notice in terms of "trans" that the question of "sexual identity" is restricted to bodily sexual characteristics, but to me what distinguishes men from women is the degree of interest in children and men "identifying as women" do not have this nor do women "identifying as men" lose this
thinking along these lines makes me wonder if in fact, paedophilia is a true form of gender blurring or "trans" combining a predatory male sexual instinct with the female interest in children
the degree of interest in the whole area of sexual identity, must imo be due to population wide endocrine disruption in the developing foetus as a subtle side effect of the many known endocrine disruptors in circulation
in sorting out whether an email is a scam or not, i read its source code and relay history, 95% are so inept its laughable and i have puzzled as to what is really going on, why are these people so ignorant (of course there may be more ignorant victims)
it turns out there are places on the web that teach "how to be a scammer" and what we see are mostly the results of students using templates provided by these teaching websites
in all my years on the web i have only ever come across one scam email that nearly fooled me and that was because a financial website i use had some hard to differentiate from scam web addresses or at least did have
love knows no truth
how could it ?
deception and decoy
are essential elements
of
beauty
.
love knows no truth
how could it ?
deception and decoy
essential elements
of
beauty
stories educate us
stories blind us
this world
of a graduated blurring of good and bad
yanxi palace
more trauma per viewing than any other series i know, now banned in china because i think of the political/ societal overtones, subtle as they are
roads
worn by countless others
not my road
which
begins and ends
with
me
patterns
that emerge after a while
are the true seeing
of
reality
denied
before
a short story by my mother, its a really good bit of writing

Hey, first of all english isnt my main language so excuse me for any mistake, So i really need some help trying to figure things out in what happened in my failed marriage. We have a son, 5 years old, and life was pretty good, we got along really well,good intimacy, overall a really happy relationship. I was always the most caring in the relation, wrote poems, sent flowers, all i could to make her happy, she is more of a cold type but she also made me feel loved in her own way. I knew her from work, so we got together and in the first 3 months i moved into her house and a year after we decided to have a baby. We were together for 7 years, and from the moment she got pregnant her mood got really bad but i didnt really mind, just normal in pregnancy,but then after my son was born she little by little started being more cold towards me, more self centered, and i have always talked to her about everything im feeling in the relationship, so we could improve and be better partners, i repeat, every thing that made me feel bad like her making me feel bad about playing a game, making me feel bad about having lunch with my best friend etc , she was really possessive, but i really didnt mind , my son and her were my world. Sometime ago my mother in law got dementia, and i did my best for my wife, doing everything i can to make her feel loved and taken care for, she was in a really bad place and eventually i helped her understand the situation. After that she was more mean at home, at work she was always smiling and doing her best, but as soon as she enters the house, she would find anything just so she could be upset, for example, oh you folded that shirt wrong, you dont do anything good etc. So i just spoke to her about my feelings and like always she says i am right and she will try to be better. December near Christmas my dad died at work from a fall, i was working and the world just froze.. i thought she would have my back, but as soon as i got home, first thing she says is, oh you dont need me to take days off to help you right? .. i know that if i said yes she would agree but would be highly resentful because she values her job a lot, so i said i would like her near me but i understand if she wants to go, so she did. Since that day i felt like i was empty, and all she could say to me was, oh man up its life.. if you want go to therapy because im not good at conforting people, that left me even sadder because all i asked of her was to be nicer to me. Then one day i was feeling really down and she wanted to have sex, i tried to but it just couldnt get "up", and she snapped, shouted that she always knew i was gay? Never happened with other men, and that i didnt love her anymore. We talked, talked,talked and got "over" it, since that day i decided to be more selfish, if i dont message, she wouldnt aswell, so i stopped, i always call during lunch, she never calls, so i made shorter calls, meanwhile i talked to her and explained that the relation is in a bad place and i cant carry the torch alone,she needs to try aswell,so she did until yesterday. She got home from work and we always greet each other at the door, i went to open the door, then i said hey, she was talking on the phone, so i thought, after shes done talking ill kiss her,so i sat on the ground to play with my son, and she got mad i dont even kiss her anymore, i got up, explained my thought process and tried to kiss her while apologizing, but she said no and gave me the silent treatment until this morning. We woke up and she starts by saying if what i did was correct and again i explained to her i tried to make things right and she ignored me. Then she got mad i didnt ask her if she wants me to make her breakfast and that if im going to stay quiet we might aswell breakup because im a huge baby, im a changed man since my dad died , and we might aswell break up. I asked if she really meant it and yes she did, she didnt let me talk at all, just shouting and accusing me of being different lately, and in the end she asked if i still love her and i said yes i did, my feelings havent changed, she was the one who broke up so its done, the she was mad again because i said when she decided we were over it was over. Now here i am thinking about life, my son,her, and if anything at all is worth it.

this is the first time I’ve opened up about this , I apologize for the long post, I just feel so alone in this. My Husband of 3 years (dating for 6) has been a porn addict since before we met, among many other vices. I found out very early on, about 4 months in, sitting on our front porch. He opened Reddit to show me something and his search history was all porn searches. He immediately got embarrassed and pulled his phone away and the first thing out of his mouth was that he ‘only watches it at work’…?! Huge red flag. I should have left him right then. I told him I was not okay with him watching porn, especially at work, and especially because even though our relationship was extremely new, we had only been together for about four months, he was never interested in sex and would always deny me whenever I came onto him , but he was already talking about getting married, and we already moved in together. … I brought up that he was horny or in the mood to have sex, he would always blame it on stress or being too tired. I made it clear that now I knew why he wasn’t interested in having sex, because he was satisfying his own needs by himself, and if we were going to continue this relationship , I requested that he would put more effort into our sex life and to please stop watching porn, or at least come to me first. he said he would stop watching porn all together. WELL, surprise !! he didn’t, he’s been caught hundreds of times, literally red-handed, along with denying my sexual advances, accidentally leaving porn searches on our TV, on his YouTube account search history, on his web browser on his computer, etc, along with not coming onto me for weeks at a time, claiming that he hasn’t been watching porn or jerking off- “he’s just not a sexual person//he’s just low libido//he may have low T”//pick an excuse… We eventually broke up because I couldn’t take his alcohol abuse, video game obsession, compulsive gambling, porn addiction, and every time I tried to talk about any of it, it led to physical abuse. so we broke up and I moved out.. but for three months he nonstop messaged me and called me, begging for me to come back claiming that he would change, he cried, wrote me poems, admitted that he had an unhealthy relationship to alcohol, promised to stop playing video games, that he would work on his temper, he apologized for every time he had laid a hand on me, and said he would do the 12 step program for his porn addiction,…and I was stupid, and I believed him and came back, then he proposed and we got married, but it took only two days after our honeymoon for him to start watching porn again. I WAS CRUSHED. thankfully he stopped playing video games- but I think that just made the porn and alcohol abuse much worse tbh. Fast-forward to now, we have three children, and another one on the way. He regularly watches porn and whatever he can get his hands on- on YouTube, Facebook, and every so often he’ll make a new throwaway Reddit account, until I confront him, then he’ll delete it and claim that it never existed and then a few days later, he’ll just make a new one. So i’ve stopped confronting him. it’s pointless. he’s left his cum tissues and socks and underwear laying around, and he still denies it. When I tell him I don’t believe him, because I literally have evidence that he is lying, and until he gets help I don’t want to have sex with him- He just claims that i’m psycho, I need help or drugs, I should see a doctor, I need to move on, It’s my fault for not trusting him, and that I need to forgive him, that porn isn’t even bad, that the past is in the past, but that’s kind of hard to do when it’s not the past.. it’s still happening, how am I supposed to heal at all when he keeps digging the knife in deeper. I don’t think he has gone a whole week without porn since he was a kid. I’ve done so much research on addictions and childhood trauma, and he definitely fits the cookie cutter definition of everything that’s talked about. But again, according to him, he has nothing to heal from, and he “doesn’t have any addictions, there are just things that he enjoys doing regularly that I don’t approve of.”
We go to church almost every sunday, because I am a Christian, but when we met I was in a darker place with my beliefs which is why I gave him a chance in the first place. he was an atheist when we met, but He goes because it makes him look good to my parents and his parents. This past year, he said that he ‘became a Christian last year’, but none of his behaviors had changed, he didn’t bother telling me the day he made that huge life changing decision, he claimed he wanted to get baptized too, but since he’s claimed he became a Christian- He became more violent than he had ever been, giving me a blackeye the day after Christmas while I was pregnant with our daughter. Pushing me down when he’s mad, grabbing my arms and twisting them, taking my phone out of my hands whenever he wants, deleting the photo evidence I had of his physical abuse, pouring ice water on me when he is upset, even if i’m holding the kids, ignoring me and the kids for days at a time. waking up our kids in the middle of the night just so I don’t get any sleep. locking me out of the house, etc… textbook narcissistic behaviors. I know I should leave. I should have left a long time ago. I know this is a toxic marriage. and while he is trying to find new ways to be unfaithful, new ways to be sneaky, I’m still praying for him , all day every day, praying that God would work a miracle in his heart. I don’t want a broken family, I want him to wake up and realize how much he’s ruining our marriage and forgot to give him the strength to change and get help. He’s been listening to some Christian podcasts and every so often he’ll tell me that he knows he needs to be a better husband and a better father, but it only lasts for a few days and then he’s back to his vices. about every six months, he says that he’s going to take a break from alcohol, and then after a few weeks he starts drinking again, he says it will only be on special occasions then he says it will only be on weekends, and soon after he’s back to drinking a makers mark by himself alone on our couch every three days. The hold these vices have on him is so strong. I don’t get it. The devil is working over time on him. He’s very comfortable gaslighting me, lying and denying, even with evidence presented. I think that’s what hurts the most, it’s not the porn, because realistically, I know that it started because a friend introduced him to porn when he was at such a young age, and the addiction was an escape from reality from a traumatic childhood. What hurts the most is that he loves this addiction more than he loves me. which causes him to be willing to give up our marriage then give up porn. and he’s too prideful to admit that this has a negative impact on himself and our marriage, to get help and seek accountability. I’ve gone through his phone a couple of times in the past years, but haven’t for quite a while because every single time I do, I just find more and more evidence of him talking to other women online, watching more and more porn, and even communicating with girls he used to hook up with in the past. and it breaks my heart all over again, because I really do want to trust him, and believe him when he says that he’s not engaging in this behavior anymore. and when I confront him, he will just lie about it anyway. I can’t win. he doesn’t respect me or love me at all. It’s so much more frustrating because I’m doing the work to heal from the pain he’s caused, and he just doesn’t care, and he continues. i’m reading the books, seeking help from our church, listening to podcasts, praying, researching everything about being a supportive partner and how to heal from betrayal trauma. and He just has no interest in changing, it doesn’t phase him at all , and there’s no such thing as a conversation about it, because instead of acknowledging how this behavior is disgusting and not only negatively impacts our marriage, but it impacts him as a person, he would rather just lie and deny that he’s doing it at all. I don’t think he’s ashamed, and I don’t think he feels guilt. I think it’s anger that stems from pride and control. i’ve been a member of this subReddit for some time now, and I envy the women whose husbands feel so much shame and guilt around their behavior that they admit to their wives that they need help with this addiction, I even envy when they get caught and then immediately want to change and be better. at least the shame of being exposed is enough for them to admit they have a problem. at least those men love their wives more than they love their addiction. another thing that hurts so bad , is that my husband knows exactly how much his infidelity has affected me. Even to the point where I’ve told him multiple times that I want a divorce, he just tells me to leave then and he will see me in court. I’ve told him that he’s warned me down and ruined my self esteem to the point where I just want to die because I don’t see a way out, and he doesn’t seem to want to be a better or faithful husband, and he just laughs at me, and has even made a joke about how I should just kill myself if I am so insecure and I can’t deal with him watching a little porn. I don’t think I’m ugly, and i’m not an insecure person, but since all of this has happened, I feel like I’m a completely different person now. when we first met, he sent my picture to all of his friends, saying how hot I was, and I still look exactly the same as I did then .. He tells me pretty frequently that I’m beautiful and hot, and it just makes my skin crawl. cause if he truly think so, then why is he looking up other naked women online? Why doesn’t he ever turned on when I’m naked or when we’re in the shower? why doesn’t he come on to me for weeks? I went through a phase of taking seductive pictures of myself, basing them off of what I saw He was looking at online, and he literally would just text me back ‘lol’ or ‘nice’ and then go about his day, and then deny me in person and watch porn later that night. He never even saved anything that I’ve sent him. It turned out to be extremely embarrassing for me, so I stopped. he ruined my self esteem and confidence even more, but then in future arguments, he claimed that his porn consumption is my fault because I don’t make a sexual effort, I don’t dress up for him etc (insert excuse here)… I have to remind him that he was a porn addict long before we even met. and for the first five years of being together, I was the only one making an effort, while he was busy, making excuses. He claims that he’s no longer watching porn, but we both know he’s lying, because there’s still tissues, socks, and underwear that prove otherwise , and he’s always changing his computer and phone passwords, he even recently made a new NSFW reddit account last month right after church, and a few months ago, he told me straight up “ I would rather get a divorce, then stop watching porn” and he refuses to get any kind of accountability software on his phone because “ I could just get around it” that Response in itself just proves to me that he has no intention of stopping. I used to have pretty high self-esteem and self-confidence before we met, and this has just completely ruined me . I’m trying to stay fit and healthy through each pregnancy and postpartum, and he wouldn’t even bother to look at me if I walked around the house naked, because he’s trained his brain to just get turned on and hard for the perfect bodies in porn. again, I don’t think he is sexually attracted to me at all, it’s not that I think I don’t compare to the women he’s looking at online, i’m pretty skinny, I have a nice body, it’s the fact that he likes the instant gratification, and that he can look at multiple new bodies every day, and the fact that he promises over and over to stop watching it, and it all turns out to be lies. it’s the fact that even though I’m pretty good looking, he would rather search elsewhere then use my body or look at my body to get off. and even when we do have sex, he’s not focused on my pleasure, he’s focused on getting off as quickly as possible, and he just stares at my midsection, boobs to thigh area, to do it. it never feels like intimacy or lovemaking. it feels like I’m the substitute for his hand and his mind is completely elsewhere. I’m a stay at home mom, all of our money comes from him, I wouldn’t even have money to talk to a lawyer. and I don’t want to leave, I do love my husband, I just don’t believe that he loves me. and every time he says, I love you, it physically makes me feel sick and I want to respond with “ Then why can’t you be faithful?” I don’t know how you can look someone in the eyes and tell them that you love them and then your contacting exes while you’re at work and completely ignoring your wife sexually because you’re getting off multiple times a day watching porn while you’re pretending to use the bathroom, or purposely staying up late to search for barely legal naked girls on Reddit to jerk off on the couch. I’ll add- his dad is a full-blown narcissist, no one in the family likes him except for my husband, who thinks he is amazing… which explains partially why he behaves this way. His mom has made numerous comments about how his dad hasn’t touched her in over 30 years, and he often locks himself in his office at night… like father like son I guess. on a sidenote, his father also has many other narcissistic qualities that has led his mother to abuse alcohol regularly, so my husband grew up in an environment, where his dad would shut down, refuse to help at all at home, would lock himself in his office the second he got home from work, and his mom would get drunk to cope with abusive behaviors of his dad. I don’t want to turn into his mother, I don’t really enjoy drinking to begin with, I’ve been searching for healthy ways to cope with all of this pain, working out, praying, spending time with our kids, trying new recipes, gardening, etc, so I can be a loving and caring mother, and not allow myself to go down any type of dark path. I don’t know what else to do, I didn’t sign up for this when we got married. part of me wishes I could go back and never meet him, but I also wish he would wake up one day and decide that our marriage is worth it, that he could fully understand and apologize for all the pain he has put me through, and truly appreciate how many times I have forgiven him, and how many second chances he’s received when I had every right to walk away. I don’t know when to give up, what if he can change? what if his miracle is right around the corner? he has the potential to be such a good man, and he just doesnt seem to care.

Need to vent and get this off my chest. I’ve always had an ok relationship with my MIL, well before I got pregnant. Before I even get started, I lost my mom to breast cancer when I was a teenager and I think this may have something to do with a lot of her overbearingness, maybe like her being the only grandmother?? But anyway, for some odd reason, I’ve always felt like the vessel for “her baby”.
Back when I was about 12 weeks, she threw my husband and I a party to share the news. Red flag number one was that she sent invitations to everyone on her side, except my dad, and sisters never received one. I even had to ask if they can even come? It didn’t feel they were even invited initially. I was very annoyed at this. At the party there were a ton of people I didn’t even know, her neighbors, friends etc. it just felt like an odd party that wasn’t even about us, and more about her becoming a grandma.
Anyways, she paid for my bridal shower, which I was very thankful for, however again, I felt like it was about her a lot, she even made me read this weird poem in front of everyone and presented my husbands hospital take home outfit, that she was clearly hinting I should make my child wear too. I actually denied reading the poem at first then she tried making one my sisters read it out loud. It was very weird…??? It felt very show-offy, rather than sentimental.
Fast forward, and I delivered my baby 6 weeks early due to severe preeclampsia and hellp syndrome. It was a very scary and traumatizing birth experience, however my MIL calls everyone once she found out the news saying “the baby is here the baby is here” posts it on social media 45 minutes after my c-section celebrating rather than being more sensitive about what actually went down, and how I was feeling. My aunt and her are now neighbors and my aunt told me she called her at 7am that morning saying how the baby is here. First thing my aunt says is “hello it’s very early for her to give birth, is my niece ok??” Apparently her response was “she’s fine”. Hm. lol I was in the hospital for a week with extreme high blood pressure and on heavy magnesium IV, totally out of it while my baby was in the nicu. Yes, sure I was “fine”.
She constantly is trying to get alone time with the baby which I keep saying no not necessary, maybe when the baby is older. She calls the baby “my baby”, all that typical annoying MIL shit. She goes to my husband for everything and demands daily pictures so she can post on Facebook. I barely hear from her. Don’t even get me started on my husband. I can’t even vent to him or rely on him about this stuff and setting boundaries. It’s always just “she’s just excited”. I’m always the bad guy, and everytime I set a boundary the room gets silent lol oh well. At this point I see a divorce on the horizon.

This is my 3rd divorce. I'm stuck with 2 children, a boy and a girl, from my 1st and 3rd marriages. I'm 37F. Everytime I got married, I thought this would be it. I guess there is no happy ending in my love life.
I was 24 in my first marriage. A guy of around the same age (lets name him Ed), we were in the same class in middle school and found each other at the same restaurant. Handsome and cool. Wore sunglasses and loose hoodies. We had fun together all the time. He was cheeky. I was kinda serious. I remember sitting in bed watching titanic with wine and some lasagna, and then making out for a while. A few weeks later my friend messaged me with pics of him hanging out with his ex at the cinema with an arm around her neck and a rose in her hand. I didn't believe it at first. Thought i was a school reunion. Didn't tell him anything. A few days later I walk into him sobbing hysterically talking on the phone, confessing how much he still loved his ex. I took my 2 year old son to my friend's house and divorced him.
I thanks my job, or I wouldn't have been able to feed my son. I had an apartment I bought myself earlier and decided to work on myself. Ed messaged me with a sorry GIF and said I was nothing next to his ex. ON TEXT VIA MESSENGER. For some reason it was funny. I ignored it. It was young love and past mistakes. My friend was my support. My family checked on me only a few times.
3 years later. A guy (lets name him Sin) I met through my mutual friends on a friend's birthday party. We got to know each other and 2 years later we got married. I loved him. I showed him the poem and songs I wrote for him. I took him on dates and gifted him flowers too. He only returned the favour twice after we had a fight, and on the saying of my friend who he was close to as well. My son loved him. He loved my son. But a good father does not equal a good relationship does it. He was 32. He lied to me about being an alcoholic. He never helped in the household work. He went out at 8 and came back at 10 at night. He would come home, plonk his bag and shoes in the corridor and sleep next to my son on the bed without changing. I was losing feelings for him. He wasn't like this in our years of dating. Even when we used to live together before marriage, he would be well maintained. He smacked on the face and pushed me against the TV trolley when I denied sex with him during fever. My son slept with me that night and said he is scared. Told me dad removed your clothes when you were asleep mom.
I asked my friend for help again. She's a doctor. Got some support, put up an act and I left. Divorced the next week. It was hard. He victimized himself. I got myself a good lawyer.
I was 32 when i met another guy. He was 40. Met him at a coffee shop. He asked me out. I was cautious. But he became grown on me. I couldn't help but be vulnerable. My defences broke. I told him my fears and delights. It was a slow burn. We went out on simple and exciting dates. And even on a trip to Spain. He took care of me when i was sick. Brought me roses when i was sick. Sex was mindblowing. His family welcomed me well. Romantic right?
Got married 3 years later. It was going well. We always had mature conversations during fights and understood each other's love languages. He never got mad angry, and always eased me when i relaxed. I made his favourite meals whenever he would be upset. Never forced me into doing anything. I got pregnant a year later. Morning sickness, half an hour in the bathrooms, bloating and swelling, dizziness and insecurity. By the 6th month, he told me he had lost attraction. That I was too fat and smelly for him. I had weird line up my torso, and my breast looked like pitiful sacks of sand. That my butt wiggled too much and lost their shape. My hair was frizzy. I had lost fashion sense and that I looked like melted plastic with the glow. That he is sick of taking care of me in the mornings, and that I am abnormal because of how lazy I am in the afternoons.
I tried my best. I tried cleaning the house. I kept myself cleans. Showered daily, tried to fix my hair, wear makeup maybe, go on walks. It the hardest ever. The baby wasn't helping. Clothes made me look like a sac. My swollen feet killed me. It's his kid too isn't it. But when I told him that, he said that just because i got a big belly doesn't excuse me from my lady duties. The fight was a long one. I sent my son to my friend. He was growing up and started to realize how shitty life is. I didn't want to destroy him.
The next week, he apologised with a sorry over breakfast, but never showed a change. I couldn't handle divorce then. On the day of her birth, he was absent. My son and friend were present, along with my cousin brother. When we drove home, i found him with 2 naked women in the living room sofa.
I divorced him. My son is affectionate with my daughter. My friend has helped me. Moved my stuff in her guest room. I'm better now, physically though. I'm not falling in love again. I have my children to look after. A friend to return the favours. Men are some of the most horrible creatures. I now believe that they hold no feelings, no fear of consequences. They dread of living with only one women, cause eww, who likes wrinkles and stretch marks and cellulite, when you can have bitches and models. Playboy sounds cool till the age of 80, and then find a young teen who'll take care of you and indulge in your fantasies.
Love and relationships are traps tangled with chemicals and hormones lacking genuinity and humanity.

I wrote this poem at 3am for comfort because i dont know what will happen at 4am, 5am, 6pm, 10pm, 11 years from now, 12 years, 13 decades.
Im five, mom and dad are arguing again. Did i do something wrong? Was i not good enough? I dont understand. Im eight, mom and dad are divorcing. They tell me to chose and i dont really understand. Im eleven, my dad told me that my aunt is brain dead. I understand more than i should. Im twelve, i just got bullied for the first time. I told mom, she doesnt get it. Nobody understands. Im fourteen, im stubborn. Dad says that i either apologize or he disowns me and i understand. I'm sixteen, i was told that my car will be ugly, its because dads gone and thats my fault, i understand. Im eighteen, graduating high school and moving to college. Im excited to become a vet, i understand. Im twenty, ive been in college for two years. Is this all ive done in two decades? I dont understand. Im twenty-five, becoming a veterinarian. My dreams are coming true, i understand. Im thirty, ive married the love of my life and im pregnant. I understand more than i ever have. Im thirty-five, my husband cheated on me. Did i do something wrong? Was i not good enough? I dont understand. Im forty, my husband and i are getting a divorce. Its not her fault. My child has to make a difficult choice, i can tell she doesnt understand. I don't either. Im fifty, i refused to remarry. My child is getting bullied, i understand more than she knows. Im sixty, im exploring the world as my kid goes off to college. I want to understand, but i cant. Im seventy, i just got diagnosed with cancer. Is this my karma for causing my parents misery? I will never understand.

Let me say right away that I love Mick, he is probably my favorite member of the band.
Mick's biggest character flaw imho is his poor relationship with women. This exerpt found here is a pretty good overview of some of his early relationships:

The Edith Grove hellhole having at last been abandoned during the summer of 1963, Mick and Keith relocated to a Kilburn flatshare with Andrew Oldham. Brian moved in with yet another new girlfriend’s family in Windsor. Charlie was desperate to marry his fiancée Shirley, but Mick and Andrew denied him permission. Who did they think they were?! They must have taken their lead from Brian Epstein, who forced John Lennon to conceal both his marriage to pregnant girlfriend Cynthia Powell and the birth of their baby Julian, because news of both would ‘damage the reputation’ of the Beatles. Likewise, a married Stone was an oxymoron, and something that could only be disastrous for their image. There wasn’t much that they could do about Bill, already a husband when he came on board. But he was only an auxiliary member, so blind eyes were turned.
Keith seemed to be take-it-or-leave-it about women most of the time, except when they were on the road with irresistible females such as Phil Spector’s Ronettes. Mick, on the other hand, was shameless, having his cake and eating it wherever he could. While projecting as footloose and fancy-free to the band’s hoards of hopeful, hysterical fans, and getting his end away with as many of them as possible, he had for some time been embroiled in a semi-covert, tempestuous affair with his first love. She may only have been a trainee secretary, but his pretty wannabe model and actress Chrissie came with an impressive pedigree. Her sister was Jean Shrimpton, ‘the Shrimp’, famous model and partner of celebrity photographer David Bailey. Mick had met his posh-totty builder’s daughter at John Mansfield’s Windsor Ricky Tick club, on 11 January 1963.
‘Chrissie had been a fan of Mick’s for several months, having seen them play at Ealing,’ said John. ‘Not happy to be at the back (the venue being packed by the time she made it there, through arctic conditions), she climbed on to a table and clambered into the fish nets dangling from the ceiling. Over the heads of the fans, she proceeded to crawl towards the band, helped onwards by those underneath paddling her towards the stage with their hands. This was “crowd surfing” before it had been invented. As she reached her goal, the net finally gave way and Brian had to catch her. She had literally fallen for Mick!’
The couple moved in together. But home life was not harmonious, thanks to Mick’s relentless womanising. She’d find out about the latest, he’d weep and wail at her feet, she would take him back and he would do it again. He wrote ‘Under My Thumb’ about her. What drove him to be unfaithful? We know what: biology, novelty, ego, immaturity, commitment phobia, curiosity, opportunity, you name it. Because he was who he was, and therefore could.1 If girls just wanna have fun, dirty dogs just wanna have sex, willy-nilly, with as many partners as possible. Because fame and fortune are nothing if not aphrodisiacs. Because what kind of man could Mick call himself if he didn’t rise to the occasion and take advantage of all who were dropping in his lap and falling at his feet? Don’t go there. Poor Chrissie, who only wanted happily-ever-after. With a rock star. I mean. But she was young, innocent and starry-eyed. She couldn’t have known better. They got engaged, Mick’s proposal undoubtedly prompted by yet another humiliating infidelity.
Chrissie got a job at the Stones’ label Decca, going on to work for Andrew in the band’s own management office. So that she could keep an eye on her wayward fiancé? As their popularity increased, and as female fans continued to invade their privacy and even their apartment, the relationship started to crumble. It would be destroyed, ultimately, by a girl Mick had first set eyes on at a party, when she was still a Reading convent schoolgirl on the verge of sitting her A levels. Brian, Keith and Andrew Oldham were all at the same party. Andrew waded in, visions of self-reinvention as the new Phil Spector with his own impressive stable of artists dancing in his head, and declared that he was going to make a star of the innocent seventeen-year-old. ‘I saw an angel with big tits,’ he famously said, ‘and signed her.’
Marianne Faithfull was taken at the time, by Cambridge undergraduate John Dunbar. She had a post-exam plan to follow Dunbar to university, to read English Literature, Philosophy and Comparative Religion, and then to pursue a career in the theatre. Floored by her fragile beauty, her eye-popping architecture, her raspy voice and insouciant elegance, daringly eye-shadowed Oldham proffered his calling card, which bore the words ‘Andrew Loog Oldham, darling’. He enquired, ‘Can she sing?’, didn’t bother to wait for an answer and offered her a recording contract.
Marianne’s debut was one of Mick’s and Keith’s first toddles into songwriting, the Elizabethan-flavoured ballad ‘As Tears Go By’. It was inspired by ‘As Time Goes By’, the famous song from the 1942 Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman picture Casablanca. Andrew changed ‘time’ to ‘tears’, of course he did. The twelve-string acoustic guitar on her rendition was played by future Led Zeppelin star Jimmy Page. Recorded at Olympic Studios under the watchful eyes of Mick and Keith, and released on 24 August 1964, it shot to No. 9 and proved several of Oldham’s points. Marianne would later claim that Mick and Keith wrote the song for her. She would eventually admit that they probably didn’t. The Stones recorded it themselves a year later. Marianne re-recorded it when she was forty, twenty-three years after her first attempt: ‘ … and at that moment I was exactly the right age and in the right frame of mind to sing it,’ she wrote in her memoir Faithfull. ‘It was then that I truly experienced the lyrical melancholy of the song for the first time.’ The newly minted pop singer quit school, deserted her mother, and abandoned herself to relentless, gruelling, sexually abusive pop tours masquerading as stardom.
Two things about Marianne, apart from the obvious, made her irresistible to Mick. One, she had exotic and aristocratic roots, which impressed him, as he was already hobnobbing with gentry and royalty, and hoicking himself up in the world. Two, she was somebody else’s, therefore a prize to be pilfered and won.
She was descended on her mother’s side from Leopold Baron von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs who lent his name to the syndrome masochism.2 Her mother Eva, whose name matched that of Mick’s mother, was Austro-Hungarian Baroness Erisso. Eva had danced in Berlin during the 1920s Weimar Republic era, returned to Vienna during Adolf Hitler’s climb to power, was active during the resistance, and like her Jewish mother had been raped by occupying Russian Red Army troops. She met and married British army major Glynn Faithfull, a closet eccentric of Welsh descent, and returned with him to live in England, where they welcomed their only child. But Marian Evelyn’s mismatched parents separated when she was six. Her father joined a commune, leaving mother and child to fend for themselves. A bitter divorce and greatly reduced circumstances led to her mother, who maintained delusions of grandeur, becoming a boarding school dance teacher, and subsequently scraping a living as a shoe shop assistant, a bus conductress and a café waitress.
Her first face-to-face with Mick occurred at a Ready Steady Go! party, when the inebriated rocker approached her and emptied his champagne flute down her low-cut dress. If that was all he could think of to gain her attention, he failed to impress. Marianne was on the road with Roy Orbison when Dunbar travelled to see her, and proposed to her ‘on Wigan Pier’.4 Weighed down with guilt as a result of tour affairs with Gene Pitney, Allan Clarke of the Hollies and others, Marianne seized the opportunity to redeem herself. She was desperate to draw a line under her promiscuous lifestyle. ‘The sixties and the to-hell-with-what-they-think attitude hadn’t happened yet,’ she reflected. ‘Feminism wouldn’t affect me for another fifteen years. There was John who I loved and wanted to marry … He knew me very well, and he knew that if he asked me to marry him I would just say yes … I had a child with the right man, and it was the best thing I ever did.’ Does she still think that now?
Having aborted Gene Pitney’s child, at a time when abortion was still illegal, Marianne was desperate for a baby to cleanse herself of both the sin and the crime.5 Her wish was granted in April 1965, when she discovered that she was pregnant again. But while Dunbar was back at Cambridge sitting his finals, Bob Dylan landed in London. ‘I wasn’t simply a fan,’ she admitted. ‘I worshipped him … I was quite aware that the tribute traditionally laid at the feet of pop stars by their female fans was sex. I was incredibly ambivalent. I was pregnant, I was about to be married … and what [John] didn’t know might not hurt him …’ The fantasy lingered for a bit. Bob was writing a poem about her, he told her. That old chestnut. She informed him she was with child and immediately regretted it. He threw her out, perhaps fearful that she might be planning to pin the deed on him. She married John in Cambridge the following month. His best man was Peter Asher. They honeymooned, predictably, in Paris. Just before the bride’s nineteenth birthday, she gave birth to their baby Nicholas. How fucked up was all this, how drugged, how detached, how dismally sixties?
And, wait, this is where it gets complicated. Brian Jones is by now with Anita Pallenberg, a consuming, exotic, alien creature who lures Marianne under her wing. Marianne, bored and trapped by young motherhood, who is still recording and performing though her heart is hardly in it, who resents having to be the family breadwinner, who is fed up with tripping over the bodies of John’s junkie pals all over the floors of their flat, spends less and less time at home with her husband and baby, and more and more time with Brian and Anita at their place. Keith Richards comes too. Anita is away one time, they are doing a ton of drugs, and Brian finds his way into Marianne. He is so high on Mandrax that he cannot perform. Marianne crushes on ‘beautiful, gorgeous’ Keith, with whom she is falling in love, if she’s not there already. Poor baby Nicholas is forgotten at home with his nanny, surrounded by drug addicts. Then Mick, who is still co-habiting with Chrissie, starts finding his way round to Brian’s.
‘There were lots of things I could have done at the age of nineteen that would have been more healthy than becoming Mick Jagger’s inamorata,’ wrote Marianne. ‘In the end it doesn’t matter that hearts got broken and that we sweated blood. Maybe the most you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.’
The last two standing in Mick’s hotel room in Bristol one night after a Stones gig and an impromptu after-show, they wondered about getting it together and went for a walk to decide. Inevitably, they made love. She returned to London, then took off with Nicholas and nanny to a rented villa in Positano, Italy. She arrived to find a pile of messages from Jagger. When she decided to wend her way home, motherhood was clearly not her priority. She left the nanny to drive Nicholas back. That’s a long drive for a young girl, from Positano to London. More than a thousand miles. With a baby in the back. In an unreliable car, which broke down, no one could get parts, there were no mobile phones, they didn’t speak English, the child’s wellbeing was endangered and all. But, hey.
On 15 December, when Chrissie and Mick were due to depart on holiday, she discovered that her boyfriend had disappeared. Chrissie phoned the Stones office, only to be told that their flights had been cancelled. Not even then did she twig that he must be with Marianne. But all alone in their palatial Harley House, Regent’s Park apartment with her menagerie of pets – half a dozen cats, a dog and a cageful of birds – the devastated twenty-one year-old knew that he had deserted her. She gulped back a bottle of sleeping pills, not as a cry for help, she would later protest. Without Mick, her life was over, she said. She really wanted to die. This was the first attempt at suicide that would dog Mick’s footsteps. It was by no means the last. When Mick wrote ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’, was he oblivious?
Chrissie would never get to the bottom of what happened next. Maybe it was Mick who found her, and saved her life by getting her to St George’s Hospital. She came to, only to find nursing sisters addressing her by a pseudonym. Whoever got her to hospital had taken the precaution of furnishing her with an alias, to throw the press off the scent. Perhaps the realisation that Mick’s public image was more prized than her life was Chrissie’s first step on the road to recovery.
She had little say in the way things unravelled. Wheelchaired into a truck, she was conveyed to a private clinic in North London, drugged to the false eyelashes and subjected to sleep therapy. She eventually managed to contact her parents, who came to the rescue and carried her home. Only then did she read in the papers about Marianne Faithfull. When she composed herself sufficiently to return to Harley House to collect her things, she found that the locks had been changed.
But what was the old slut Mick on? Nothing more potent or more disastrous than testosterone. It controlled him, that much is obvious. Behind Marianne’s back, he tracked Chrissie down to her new address and started turning up at all hours, demanding sex. Perhaps convincing herself that he loved her after all, and not recognising that she was being used – women crave romance, men just want breasts – she put up no fight. But whenever their paths crossed at parties, he simply ignored her. Drained of pride and confidence, she said nothing. When he stopped coming round after a year or so, the blessing was mixed.
Did Chrissie find her happily-ever-after? Kinda sorta. After falling for another rocker, Steve Marriott of the Small Faces – once bitten, forever smitten, if only by the lifestyle – she withdrew from the swinging London scene that was growing a bit threadbare and boring anyway. She married a normal guy, and had a couple of normal kids. She studied sociology, perhaps in an attempt to make sense of the everywhere and nowhere years. Did she follow Mick’s phenomenal career down the decades, watch the fantasy unravel and lament to herself, ‘All that and more could have been mine’? Or did she thank her lucky stars that she’d had a lucky escape? I want to say the latter.
Marianne, too, would be discarded. Not just yet. When someone told her that Mick had actually wanted to get with the actress Julie Christie, and set his cap at Miss Faithfull only when he found out he couldn’t have Julie, she was neither surprised nor miffed. She put it down to his ‘Dolly Fixation’. It suggests the strong possibility, more or less proven since, that ordinary-mortal females would never satisfy him. Only the most exaggerated specimens of beauty and femininity were good enough for Jagger. It speaks volumes about his personal insecurity. He would thenceforth wear his women the way a woman flaunts a designer handbag: rare, gorgeous, impossibly stylish, outrageously expensive, the best that money can buy. Only a real man loves a woman for qualities other than her reflection. Only a confident, carefree woman settles for (and admits to) the thirty-quid fake.
Life with Mick had its compensations. He was a ‘genuine haven’, Marianne said. He was ‘affectionate, interesting, funny and very attentive. He called me constantly. He wasn’t fucked up like Brian, and he didn’t do drugs (those came later). You could actually lead a life with Mick.’ She acknowledged that his money helped: she no longer had to work, not for the dosh, anyway. She dared to reconsider her theatrical aspirations. In quiet, contemplative moments, she had her misgivings. Certain things she had found disturbing about Andrew, she was beginning to recognise in Mick.
‘[They] were birds of a feather. [Mick] was camp and he wore make-up, at a time when this was still very unusual. I had an inkling that there was a sexual undercurrent between them. I think I knew in some part of my mind that Mick was bisexual … but what I somehow thought that meant was that he would be nicer to me. “Real men” scared me, but Andrew didn’t, and Mick felt safe and easy to be around.’
You see where she was going with this. She actually wanted a ‘real man’. The one that she wanted was Keith. She turned to the Stones’ new business manager Allen Klein for advice, inexplicably, and confessed that her heart lay elsewhere. Rottweiler Klein warned her that Mick would be destroyed by such betrayal. Klein was unlikely to have been prioritising Mick’s personal wellbeing as he articulated those words. If she dumped Mick for his boyhood pal, bandmate and crucially his songwriting partner, she would kill the Rolling Stones. Persuading Marianne to stick with Mick and leave Keith well alone was in Klein’s best interests, not hers.
Marianne, oblivious of financial implications, heeded Klein’s words. Still, one for the road, baby, shall we? Why not? She wound up at Brian and Anita’s. The cat was away. She dropped acid with Brian, Keith and Tara Browne, their friend the Guinness heir, fully aware that they all wanted to have sex with her. She fumbled with Brian, but something made her get the hell out. She found her way back to the marital abode. And then the phone rang. It was Keith. He picked her up in a cab, and they went back to the May Fair Hotel, where Marianne had been staying prior to the acid trip.
And that, she said, ‘was the night I ended up with Keith. It was a wonderful night of sex. As a matter of fact, that night with Keith was the best night I’ve ever had in my life … It was sublime. I was in heaven. I had always been in love with Keith, but very shyly. Now I was totally bowled over.’
But the over-endowed cherub’s ecstasy was short-lived. As he was dressing to leave the next morning, the guitarist uttered unforgettably crushing words: ‘You know who really has it bad for you, don’t you? … Go on, love, give him a jingle, he’ll fall off his chair. He’s not that bad when you get to know him, you know.’
And she simply accepted it. Passed like a box of Turkish Delight from Brian to Mick to Keith, then back to Mick, Marianne became the first unofficial Stones broad. Had she been a little older, a lot wiser, she would have told Keith in no uncertain terms that she loved him. Perhaps she was wiser than she knew. Something stopped her. She must have known already that Keith was in love with Brian’s girlfriend Anita. He would screw whoever he liked, but he had eyes only for her.
Marianne and Mick moved from Harley House into a place on Chester Square, and eventually into an impressive mansion on Cheyne Walk, beside the River Thames. She furnished it lavishly, on money her parsimonious partner was loath to spend. They did a lot of drugs – she worked her way from cannabis to cocaine before she got to heroin – had a lot of sex, and did a lot of talking – though not so much about meaningful, personal things; and only when Mick was not otherwise engaged with his endless stream of sycophantic visitors. She told him almost everything. Her lesbian affairs she mostly kept to herself. Mick’s homoerotic fantasies about Keith, he shared with her openly, to her astonishment. It disturbed her because she was still in love with the guitarist. In 1968, when Mick decided to become a movie star and got involved with directors Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg on the notorious film Performance, Marianne’s gut told her that she needed to distance herself from the ‘seething cauldron’ that the production rapidly became. She relocated to Ireland with her mother and three-year-old Nicholas. Now pregnant with Mick’s baby, a daughter they named Corrina, she was determined that the child would have the best start possible, away from the madness that was consuming her partner in London. But she failed to carry the baby to term, and miscarried at seven months. Both she and Mick were devastated.
Any miscarriage is a terrible experience. But to lose a baby at such a late stage is a trauma from which it can be impossible to recover. Marianne would have been approximately twenty-eight weeks along, if she had calculated her dates correctly. Given that a full-term pregnancy lasts around forty weeks, and that a loss can only be termed a miscarriage up to twenty-four completed weeks of pregnancy, she technically suffered a stillbirth. When a baby dies before she is born, it is usual today for an obstetrician or midwife to induce labour. Marianne did not say whether she gave birth to Corrina naturally. Nor did she describe what happened afterwards. Was Mick with her? Did they get to see, even hold, their dead baby? Did they take photographs, keep the blanket that she was wrapped in, register her birth and give her a funeral (all of which are recognised aids to recovery)? Did her parents receive bereavement support? It seems unlikely. Marianne has indicated that she and Mick never discussed it. His way of dealing with it was to immerse himself in work, and in his affair with American actress Marsha Hunt. To add insult to injury, it was Marsha who would bear Mick his first child, in November 1970, their daughter Karis.
Mick and Marianne stayed together for four years. She knew that it was only a matter of time before her life, emotions and habits would become fodder for Stones’ songs, just as Chrissie’s had. Not only for songs, but for newspaper column inches and full-scale media speculation. Where Chrissie had seemed to lap up the attention, Marianne hated it. But she acknowledged that Mick’s affairs inspired some classic hits.
They were the most beautiful couple of the 1960s. Marianne was Mick’s muse. She beefed up his basic knowledge of dance, classical music and literature. She sophisticated him, and raised his game. It was she who gifted him a copy of Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita: a controversial work of philosophy that dissects the concepts of good and evil and their impact on human life, concluding that the two are inter-dependent. It inspired the song that many regard as the Stones’ finest and most defining hour, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. She stood by Mick throughout his 1967 drugs trial and brief imprisonment. But she was deeply disturbed by a double betrayal, by both her partner and her best friend Anita Pallenberg … who had left Brian and was by then Keith’s girlfriend. What happened? Anita, Mick’s co-star in Performance, had slept with Mick for real (as opposed to ‘just acting’). With three Stones notched on her bedpost, she had by default superseded Marianne as the band’s unofficial broad. More of which, coming.
Marianne’s depression was compounded by the mental frailty of Brian Jones, who never got over the betrayal by his bandmate. Brian’s death by drowning in July 1969 seemed to tip Marianne over the edge. Like Anita and Keith, she and Mick stayed away from his funeral. Guilt? Fear? Couldn’t be bothered? All three? The Jaggers set off for Sydney, Australia, where Mick was about to begin filming the doomed biopic Ned Kelly.6 A hallucination of Brian drove Marianne to attempt suicide. She would have hurled herself from the window of their fourteenth-floor suite, but couldn’t get it open because the wooden frame was sealed with paint. So she swallowed 150 Tuinal barbiturates, a highly addictive depressant, washed down with hot chocolate. Mick found her just in time, and rushed her to hospital. He had been here before, hadn’t he. Marianne’s mother flew down to assist. The last rites were administered at Marianne’s bedside by a Roman Catholic priest. Mick wasn’t there for that bit. He was back on set, going on with the show. He was also writing passionate letters to Marsha Hunt, while his suicidal girlfriend was recuperating.
Back in London, against steep odds, Marianne won the role of Ophelia in a Roundhouse production of Hamlet, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Claudius. Her understudy was Anjelica Huston. The leading lady took smack before she went on. She couldn’t stand that Mick was still seeing Marsha, and was tormented by the gossip about him and Anita. So she started an affair of her own, with Italian artist Mario Schifano. Jagger was incensed. He turned up at the Berkshire cottage he had purchased for Marianne’s mother Eva to find the lovers ensconced. A scrap ensued, which Jagger won. It was Mick who slept in the bed with Maid Marianne that night. Mario left at dawn. Era finito.
She left Mick in 1970. Helplessly addicted to heroin, she lost custody of Nicholas. She slept rough for two years in St Anne’s Court, Soho, in those days the location of one of the world’s most famous recording studios.7 The Chinese restaurant in that cut-through, which we journalists used to frequent, served lethal cocktails in plastic washing-up bowls with a straw for each person. They kindly allowed her to wash her clothes on their premises. A stallholder nearby used to bring her cups of tea. She was on an NHS drugs programme at the time, and had to present in person daily at a local chemist’s to get her twenty-five jacks of heroin. According to Catherine James, the American model whom Mick moved into Cheyne Walk soon after Marianne moved out, she tried desperately to get Mick to take her back. What baffles me is his callousness and meanness. How was he able to wash his hands of her and walk away?
Whatever. Their love affair was over. The woman who had inspired ‘Wild Horses’, ‘Dear Doctor’ and ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ was left penniless.
Marianne married punk rocker Ben Brierly in 1979, but they divorced seven years later. She submitted to treatment for her drug addiction in 1985, at Minnesota’s Hazelden Clinic, where Eric Clapton had been a patient, and fell into a relationship with fellow inmate Howard Tose. When she told him it was over, he jumped to his death from the window of their Boston apartment. Her three-year third marriage, to American writer Giorgio Della Terza, also ended in divorce. In 2009, she separated from her lover of fifteen years, French record and film producer François Ravard, who had helped nurse her through her 2005 bout of breast cancer. He continued to act as her manager. She would recall a night when she lay recovering from cancer surgery in a Paris hospital room, when the phone rang at around two in the morning. ‘This voice came on,’ she said. ‘ “Hello, Marian, how are you?” I’d know that voice anywhere, he’s the only one who ever called me “Marian”. We had a chat. It was lovely.’ It was the first time in thirty-five years that Jagger had called her.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/ThrowRA_wifekiss. He posted in relationship_advice
Thanks to u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for finding this!
Trigger Warnings: abuse; infidelity; abandonment
Original Post: March 19, 2024
Sorry if the title doesn’t make much sense I didn’t know how to word it. Also on throwaway as I don’t want this on my main.
Bit of context. We’ve been together since we were 18. Never had a great sex lift after the first year. Maybe once or twice a year at most since then but at the minute it’s going on three years and although it bothers me I love her and I love our kids so I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. I know plenty of friends in the same situation.
Another bit of context is that I’ve always been mildly overweight but always fit as I played a lot of sports until about ten years ago when I got really ill and a mixtures of meds and comfort eating made me balloon up to nearly 300 pounds. Well two years ago I decided to do something about, I’m now around 200 which at 6’2 is the lightest I’ve been as an adult and I’ve actually enjoyed using weights and for the first time in my life have a bit of abs and some muscle. My wife having always been far hotter is pretty obvious insecure about the fact that for the first time we’ve been together women are starting to look at me and message me on my baking pages on social media. For the record I’ve never even looked at another woman in that way.
On to the night in question. My wife went out with some friends, a mix of single and in a relationship. She looked stunning and I told her so, I even updated my phone homescreen to that picture of her lol. One of the friends she was out with messaged me about three months and the gist was she knows I get no sex, my wife doesn’t realise how lucky she is and basically do I want to hook up. I obviously instantly take a screenshot and send it to my wife.
Around 4am my wife gets home and she wakes me up as she gets in to bed. I’m half awake but can tell something is wrong and ask what the matter is. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds and as I go to grab her hand she pulls away. I ask if she wants me to get her a drink and she says no. Then she just blurts it out and says “I met a guy tonight he kissed me. I didn’t kiss back at first then I did. Then for the next half hour we were dancing and constantly kissing”. She kept saying sorry and begging me not to leave her. My honest first reaction was “so what it’s only kissing and dancing” I didn’t say that I just hugged her and tried to calm her down.
An hour or so later once I got the right words in my head I said “I know you feel really guilty but please don’t I’m not going to leave you and break up our family over some kissing and dancing and I don’t love you any less than I did yesterday and this isn’t something that’s going to grow and cause and resentment”. More or less right on cue my phone goes off and it’s that friend of hers with a picture and a video of what my wife was doing. This set my wife off again but my feelings still haven’t changed and a month later that remains the case.
In that month since then my wife has accused me of not loving her because I didn’t care, she’s accused me of kissing other people and more which is why I didn’t care as I was covering up my own indiscretions and she’s accused me of being gay multiple times which doesn’t make sense. She keeps asking me why I haven’t initiated anything with her even though in the past she’s told me she hates being touched and not to ever try it on with her which I have respected. She’s basically projecting and it’s annoying me as it’s putting a strain on us which she is 100% causing.
How do I get through to her that she needs to stop feeling guilty and just move on because I have as it’s not a big deal? I was genuinely more annoyed when she broke my baking bowl and tried to blame it on the cat lol.
Tldr: wife kissed another man. I don’t care and now she’s causing problems because she’s guilty and projecting. How do I stop this?
Edit: hi all just wanted to say thank you all so much for taking the time to respond to me I really do appreciate it and I’m overwhelmed you all took the time. I keep getting asked a few questions so thought I’d address them here.
Over the years we have been to a few different couples counsellors and sex therapist the latest being last September for both. My wife always feels like she’s being victimised by them and we stop going. Nearly all have said though they think she is asexual and two even saying she is displaying a lot of signs of being a closeted lesbian which I have brought up to her before and she is adamant she’s not.
On that note I’ve had a lot of messages saying she wants to feel wanted and for me to be more forward with her. This is not true. In all our sessions she said she doesn’t want me trying it on with her she doesn’t even want me to initiate hugs and just bringing up sex makes her feel under pressure. She let me, and our therapists, know that if she ever sex without her initiating it will be no more than pity sex.
As for people saying I don’t love her. I buy her flowers every Friday on the way home from work, I bake her her favourite cookies or cupcakes every weekend, i send her voice notes of songs I’m listening to that remind me of her, I tell her I love her everyday, I run her a bath every night. This isn’t me showing off this is how I was brought up to show love for those saying I must’ve been brought up in an unloving home.
People have said that I’d I don’t get jealous I don’t love her. If she told me she was having an emotional affair, she spent hours on the phone with someone else laughing and joking, she snuggled on a sofa eating chocolates and watching tv with someone, etc I’d be devastated. A dance and a kiss isn’t a big deal to me and not even close to divorce.
Thank you all again for reading xx
Second edit: sorry for these. It’s 7am in the morning here now the day after I posted this. Been talking to my wife since 6 and said she’s got a week to agree to go back to couples counselling and she’s got to stick it out this time and not just accuse them of taking sides and refuse to go back. She said no. She said they all bully her and make her out to be the bad guy. She said I went back on my word that I forgive her and won’t resent her. I said this isn’t about the kiss it’s about her reaction since the kiss and that it feels like she’s purposely trying to drive me away and make me leave her. She just got up and stormed out the room. She then got dressed and said she’s going out until I go to work.
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: She's trying to sabotage the relationship and she's getting mad that you won't let her

OOP: That’s the conclusions I’m heartbreakingly coming to. This hurts infinitely more than seeing her kiss someone else.

Commenter: Did it ever occur to you that she wants you to be jealous and to fight for her. Blowing it off and being nonchalant about it makes feel like you don't care about other men hitting on her. All she wants of for you to get jealous about what happened because of you don't it's gong to escalate from kissing to an affair, just to get your attention and reaction.

OOP: Well if she’s playing them sort of games then I will leave her. That’s what teenagers do not adults in their 40s

Commenter: She told you because her friends had the evidence that a great guy was being screwed behind his back. You have a roommate not a wife
OOP: I think that’s the only reason she told me too. She knew she’d been filmed. At the end of the video she looks at the camera and then darts towards it and the video ends.
Commenter: Others have said the same: but you both need to have a grown up conversation to understand what is really going on here.
Is the relationship working, do you both remain committed, and do you see a future together. If so, couples counselling is the only way to go. You can't fix it here.
If not, then divorce - do it as kindly as possible - but do it quickly. No point dragging something out which is destined to fail.

OOP: I’m happy to spend the rest of my life with her. I love her and my kids and the life we have. Would I like more sex? Yes but we’ve been to the doctors, we’ve been to sex counsellors and they’ve found mo problems it’s just who she is and I’m happy to live with that if it means I get to be with her and the kids.

Commenter: First, Her friend who has the hots for you is in her ear.Second, maybe you need to take a look at your relationship and rekindle the romance. Maybe that’s what she needs. I mean why would her ‘friend’ know about it? You guys are maybe acting like old married couples? And you are too young for that

OOP: I try and be romantic. I buy her flowers every Friday on my way home from work, I bake her favourite snacks every weekend, even stupid little things like giving her the dinner that looks most presentable on the plate, on cold mornings I’ll get out of bed early to warm her car up and defrost it before she drives to work. On the physical side I always tell her how beautiful she is, how hot she looks because she fucking is, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and I wouldn’t change anything at all about her, she couldn’t be more perfect to me.
I just don’t know what more I can do and this is what her friend said to me. The message she sent me was so long and it seems like she knows an awful lot and she also sees it herself. There was one bit I keep thinking back to when she said she was round ours and I’d made my wife a homemade card and wrote a poem in it and when I left the room she said my wife made a gagging face to her friend and started laughing. I can remember hearing a noise and then laughter and I thought she’d just choked on her drink. That hurts me infinitely more than a kiss and a dance.

If she's not attracted to men:
I have asked her this numerous times throughout the marriage and even suggested if she wanted to explore that side of herself then she could to try and find herself and be who she really is. She’s always batted it away and said she’s not a lesbian she just has a low sex drive.
This has always been my thought over the years and I have brought it up to her privately, in couples counselling and in sex therapy. The sex therapist also said she’s giving a lot of signs of being a closeted lesbian as well.
How did you have kids if you have sex once a year?
Both times we tried for kids she got pregnant pretty much instantly, first one within a month second one within two months. We’d have sex everyday but no foreplay or anything unfortunately.
One more clarification from OOP:
"If she told me she loved someone else I’d be devastated. If she told me she was talking to another man on the phone for hours a week and laughing and joking I’d be devastated. If she said she went to a flower arranging class with someone else I’d be devastated.
I just don’t think a kiss is a big deal."
Update Post: March 31, 2024 (12 days later)
Bit of an update to my previous post here https://www.reddit.com/relationship_advice/s/jdFCfUhFT4.
It’s been nearly two weeks since I made the post and the short update is that we are getting divorced.
I said in my last post I told her I wanted us to go back to couples counselling and sex therapy. She said no to both as we went before and she felt bullied. She said at sex therapy that unless she initiates touching, not just sex any touching like hugs or hand holding, it will be against her will and will be forced/pity affection from her. The sex therapist said that’s very unreasonable and that’s why she felt bullied there. I tried to ask her a few questions too:
Are you a lesbian or at least bi? Don’t be stupid.
Are you asexual? I’m not a teenager with a stupid label
What did he have I don’t? Nothing I just wanted to do it.
Why don’t you ever want to do that with me? Don’t know
What can I do to make you want to do that to me? Don’t know
Do you want me to take the initiative and try it on with you more? Fuck no I’ll tell you when I want it don’t guess.
So she refused the therapy and gave me no straight answers, she has also said I’ve gone back on my word about not letting the kiss split us up because now it is. I said it’s not the kiss it’s your behaviour since then that has caused me to want to divorce. She said as it’s my decision to divorce and it’s all my fault then I should be the one to tell out kids and she will have no part of it. That was hard. As soon as they were told my wife left for her sisters and in the three days since I haven’t heard anything from her. I’ve tried speaking to her about the kids as they miss her but she reads my messages and ignores me.
A lot of people asked about the friend and why they still talk after she tried it on with me. How I understand it is my wife tried to get the friend group to cut the friend out but they all pretty much refused and so my wife just chose to ignore her in group settings. On the night in question the friend approached my wife and told her if she didn’t tell me she would send me the video. So my wife didn’t tell me because she felt guilty but because she was forced. I’ve also spoke to a couple of other friends in the group and asked what’s been going on I’m not privy too. Apparently my wife was sexting her friends boyfriend a couple of years ago. My wife has also been boasting about how she has me under the thumb and she gets away with giving me nothing and I’m too scared to ask. The friend apparently saw me out shopping one day and decided I was now “more fuckable” and thought she’d try and exact some revenge on my wife. So she didn’t really want me i was just a pawn in this weird friend groups one of many internal beefs with each other which I’ve found out about in the last few days. Basically they all seem to hate each other and mess with each other’s partners.
I’ll be honest now and I feel incredibly guilty about it but when she left my body and soul seemed to take a massive sigh of relief. It was like a black cloud that was dripping eggshells on the floor for me to constantly avoid has gone. I feel terrible for feeling this way but I feel like I’m my 6’2 height now rather a brow beaten 3 foot who was scared to even say anything for fear of being told I’m wrong or insulted or ridiculed. It’s like the blinkers have been taken off. Spent the day today baking with my kids, eating easter eggs and watching cartoons and I haven’t stopped smiling all day. I haven’t winced or broke out in a sweat worrying I’m about to be told off about being too noisy or watching the wrong thing on tv or there’s a wrapper on the floor etc.
Thank you everyone for your support on my last post. I appreciate you all xx
Tldr: we are divorcing.
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: She sounds like a really horrible human being. Onwards and upwards my brother

OOP: She’s always been a bit cold but the last few months she’s really stepped it up. Now there’s a lot of things that have happened over the years that I’m seeing in a different light now.

Commenter: You sound like a good person who just wanted to save your marriage. Glad you now realise no woman is worth being treated like you've been treated. It will be a rough time for a while but you're gonna come out of this stronger. And never date or marry cold, basic women again!

OOP: It is rough and I do feel like a failure for not being enough for her but at the same time I genuinely feel two foot taller and 100 pounds lighter since she left it’s a really weird feeling. I now know I’d rather live alone under a bridge than in a household like that again.

Commenter: You didn't fail her, you failed yourself by believing all this toxic, abusive shit she was feeding you. And that's understandable, abuse creeps up on you until it's under your skin. It sounds like she had you convinced you could do nothing right.
You deserve to be treated with respect, kindness and honesty. These things cost absolutely nothing, they're baseline standards for human interaction... at least if you're dealing with decent people.

OOP: That’s exactly how it was, I was scared to even offer an opinion on something and I still am now, my kids asked yesterday what film I wanted to watch and I found myself scared to give an answer thinking whatever I chose would be rejected and I’d be ridiculed.

Commenter: You didn’t go back on your word friend. Her actions after the fact … and lack thereof is the reason

OOP: Yep I’m still not bothered about the kiss!

Commenter: She doesn’t want to take responsibility and is trying to manipulate you into the bad guy.
You want to improve the situation and improve yourself from outside help. She wants the status quo to remain and is blaming the medical professionals for making her confront the way she treats you. Covert narcissists. Look it up so you don’t fall into that trap again. It may suck now, but your sanity should come back to you. You’ve been living in her mind games for a long time.

OOP: She is 100% making me the bad guy. I’m not on social media but keep hearing about posts saying things like “you give your life to someone only for them to drop you when your halo slips a bit” whatever lol.

Commenter: Dude. Look up covert narcissistic. She caused all the problems, you tried to fix them but it was never enough or correct for her.

OOP: That’s what I’ve been thinking about the last few days, that everything wrong in her life has been traced back to me and is my fault. From big things like I don’t earn enough money for her to live in the house she wants to little things like. She knocked her glass over and it’s my fault as I talked to her while she was watching something.

Commenter: Don't ignore this behavior. It never goes well. Clean your name, people listen to gossip more than they'd like to admit.
Keep all of these screenshots. It will help during the divorce. If she sends anything too personal or pushes the line too much, make sure you send her an email telling her you do not want your information to be released publicly. Then she can't play dumb.

OOP: There was one where she implied I cheated. It was a pictures about how cheating ruins relationships and then her status with it was something like “so true but I’m willing to forgive and forget”. My friend commented and said “want to delete this or shall I post the video”.
I really hate this sort of shit it makes me cringe.

If the kids are old enough, tell them she cheated:
They are too young for that. I just told them that mummy and daddy have decided it’s best we don’t live together anymore and it’s something a lot of grown ups do but it’s not the kids faults and they are still loved and cherished by both of us.
Post the video/proof:
I’ve got that video and all the screenshots of her sexting her friends boyfriends and also there some screenshot of a WhatsApp group chat where she has been posting pics for strangers to comment on but it’s blatantly her as she has a tattoo under her boob which is unique to her. There also some other videos and pics of nights out which her friend group have sent me.
Keep records- UK courts probably won't care as much about the cheating so much as the abandonment:
Yeah agreed the courts don’t care it’s more for my own sake if she tries to twist it on me and say I left her for no reason and she did nothing wrong. I’m keeping a record of her not answering the phone to me or my eldest son and also how long it’s been since she left and that she left of her own accord and has chosen to not come back.
Don't take her back:
I’ll never take her back. I know a lot of people called me spineless in my last post but I am one of them people who once I make a decision I stick to it.
Finally:
Commenter: Update us when she realises the grass ain't greener.

OOP: She’s been out nearly every night since she went to her sisters. I genuinely hope she does find some nice green grass and be happy.

Editor's note 12 hours later: seems like this has left the usual BORU sphere and we're getting some pretty misogynistic and rude comments. Please review the rules of the sub!

"...wizard mine..." I snapped awake. How I'd dozed off in the presence of Lara Raith, the most dangerous predator in my life, was beyond me. Bad news when Lara felt the need to emphasize her claim. A claim that had grown teeth and claws since Mab promised her my hand in marriage. Her dreams of a partnership were finally coming true.
I couldn't help but worry we'd be partners in name only. How could anyone carry on the most intimate of relationships with the most enthralling member of the White Court and retain all their agency? Just smelling her was the sexual version of an Outsider attack.
Imagine smelling her pussy then... A traitorous part of my mind whispered.
"I'm not your wizard, Lara. I still have six months." I snapped.
"Until we belong to one another, yes. But you've been my wizard since I set eyes on you." Her eyes glinted with amusement.
I eyed her uneasily. Lara was difficult enough to resist when she wasn't presuming intimacy. When she confessed desire...
"You can't even touch me, Lara. I still love Murphy."
Lara crossed and recrossed her (perfect, sleek, pantherine) legs restlessly.
"But she can't love you back. Your protection is more an inconvenience than a real threat," Lara said.
An inconvenience that could leave her burned to the bone. Not that burns could do much more than slow down an apex predator like the silent Queen of the White Court. Images of Lara slaughtering super ghouls with just knives and dismembering a kraken underwater flashed through my mind... And damn it, if that wasn't just as appealing as Lara seductive! Blame the Winter mantle's respect for predators.
Brutally, I countered "If you call burns in your most sensitive places inconvenient, sure."
A slow, satisfied smile.
"haven't we established that I'm a efficient monster, Dresden? I have a solution. One even you will find acceptable, I believe, since it allows you to retain your love as long as you please."
My stomach did a slow roll. Without Murphy's protection, Lara might well overpower my reservations. She hadn't tried so far. Her come hither was always accidental. She'd never directed its full force at me.
And yet you've struggled with just her natural appeal.
Lara appealed, as a person. She was smart, loyal, relentless, competent to a fault, honest and entirely faithful to her obligations. The best sort of monster. She was a killer, yes. But not of innocents, and not from anything short of necessity. She'd been my staunch ally more than once. She was my only ally when it came to Thomas. Lara loved him. She'd risked it all to save him. I owed her a debt... And debts must be paid, if you were like me. Partly monster yourself.
"I don't want to hear it, Lara. I won't be your thrall. No matter what Mab thinks. I'm useless if I'm all..." I fumbled for a word other than 'cuntstruck.'
Her calm, lovely blue eyes studied me. There was something lonely and hungry in them, something other than the capital H Hunger.
"and if I can guarantee you'll be safe from control? That you'll be able to refuse anything you don't want? For a little while, I won't be White Court at all. Only Lara."
She'd be just a woman. Vulnerable to anything at all. Big risk to take.
But I had to admit, it excited me a lot more than a White Court pleasure apotheosis.
"Do you remember my offer, Harry?"
True relief. Freedom from pain, fear, guilt, regret. From every ache of my increasingly battered body and every ache of my embattled soul. That was Lara wanted to give me.
"I am grieving, Lara. You can't take that away without making me betray her. I'm obligated to suffer."
And before I could blink, faster than I could react, Lara blurred to my side. A sharp pain lanced my ear. And then cold radiated out from it. And I felt... Nice, actually. Languid. Lethargic. I watched, sleepily, as Lara fitted a silver white collar decorated with the emblem of the Winter Court around her neck.
"I'm sorry, Dresden. I'd enjoy this most if you were entirely into it, but I'll take this."
Lara looked contrite, a little smug. She snapped the collar shut. Her eyes flared silver white for an instant, then returned to the blue I'd already fallen for... Fallen for?
Whatever my feelings, I couldn't stop staring into them. A confusing mix of emotions swirled in them, and across her face. Regret, yearning, shame, loneliness, lust.
"I never had the chance Inari did. To choose a human life, with love. I was always meant for rule."
She stepped closer and sunk down to look into my eyes.
"ruling means nobody knows you, Harry. You're so cloaked in authority, the person you are is lost."
She shook her head. And it made her hair do the most wonderful things. For once, she didn't look like a statue at all.
"Enough talking. I want you to understand me."
And so, our soulgaze began. I didn't stop it. I wanted to know. Who was Lara Raith, truly?
Like with Thomas, it transported me to a place inside Lara. Astonishingly, it wasn't beautiful. Too bright, too hot, too much. Garish. Colors clashed riotously. Light reflected and spangled off every surface.
When my vision cleared, I saw ... A human ball? Ball cage? Perfectly shaped people, connected hand and foot into a huge oppressive mass of humanity. It rolled slowly down a runway lit with spotlights of every color. And as it did, something flitted into view inside.
Lara, with a silver demon on her back. She, too, was spreadeagled and connected. Her every muscle strained forward. Her hair was lank with sweat, her face creased with effort.
The ball rolled on. And then I saw it. The runway was a ramp, leading to a pit. Endless darkness. Doom. For all of them.
And then I was back in my chair, tears in my eyes. Such a criminal waste!
"Oh, Harry..."
Lara, radiant, smiled at me.
"You can be proud of yourself, Harry. There is no better you. You are the best of all possible Harries."
My tears came perilously close to returning. How had she known my terror?
She rose, turned, and disappeared from my field of view. I missed her already. Had those been lines around her eyes? I started composing a poem about paths up a mountain to blue diamonds. It was awful. But then she came back! With a tube of something, and a wicked smile.
Oh, I hope she rubs that on my penis. Oh boy. Stars and stones.
"I had a wizard I know make this. It soothes overstressed nerves." She bent at the knee to lift me from the chair.
"Right. Human after all. You're going to have to help me get you to bed. Stand up, that's a good wizard."
"Bed." The mantle approved, even if it felt there was too much respect and affection in the air for its taste. I lurched in the right direction. "Bed," I repeated. I still felt so nice! I sank into bed.
LARA GIVES HIM A BITCHING MASSAGE WHICH SOOTHES HIS OMNIPRESENT PAIN INTO TRUE SILENCE. HE CRIES.
"I didn't even know I had pain!"
"You didn't want to know, Harry. Because you're busy ruining yourself. You're the only check on a world of evil, Molly's in terrible peril, Murphy's gone... And you've been sold. Sold to a monster you believe will own you. You didn't even sell yourself this time."
Lara tucked her hair behind her ear, and without any thought, I kissed her fingers. Then I licked them. And she cackled like a cartoon witch. Then crossed and recrossed her legs, twice, very fast. She grew somber.
"What did you see, Harry?"
I didn't dare tell her the truth. That she was throwing herself away for nothing but self destruction, and her family with her. That even her love was hungry and devouring her. That they were all doomed.
"A woman. Much like any other. More tired, I think."
Her shoulders slumped, and then began to shake. Her hair fell forward and hid her tears.
"Thank you. For the kind lie," she said. "Roll over. No, on your side, not your face. Yes, like that."
And then there was her smell, and the warmth of her. She was warm, now. Human after all. Her nose was in the unkempt hair on the back of my neck. Ticklish. She smelled different, now. Like long nights, spent well. Like a winter morning. She put her arms around me, and I sighed.
"I miss Murphy."
"And you always, always will."
Now she sighed.
"But mayflies are mayflies, Dresden. You can't make them redwoods."
The earring broke. Icy shrapnel flew, and Lara shrieked.
"MUCH LIKE YOU CAN'T MAKE A WHORE A WIFE, I GUESS."
her arms withdrew, and I turned to look her in the face, gathering my will. Pulling down the mantle. I opened a Way, and I shoved her into it, ignoring the shocked and piteous look on her face.
Lara POV
When I exited the Way, I realized a few things. One, Dresden was killing-angry with me. He hadn't forgotten my limitations, or how unpredictably dangerous Ways from unknown places could be. He meant to show me the terror of death. Two, I needed a weapon now. Three, I was about to be deep in icy water, in Winter. Four, my collar was intact, which meant almost 24 hours as a human.
I hit the water. Impressive for Dresden to open a Way above water, even here in the spirit world.
What did he really see?
And came up, spluttering. Cold beyond my worst expectations, everywhere, and already a dizzying amount of weakness in my body. I immediately swam for shore, but even pushing as hard as I could, I couldn't stop shaking when I reached shore. Mild to moderate hypothermia.
Needed a fire, too.
So long story short, I made one. I am an effective monster, and quite old. Bear Grylls never looked so fetching. And I made myself a bo staff while I was at it. It has a splintered, weak end where I broke it off the tree, but it will serve for the lesser class of the Nevernever. Even without my gifts, I am a master.
Warm and armed, I looked around. No roads. No buildings. Lake to one side, forest to the other. Nowhere to go but into the jungle. I needed a sentient, civilized creature of Winter to get Mab's aid. I almost dreaded her finding me this way, bedraggled and casual and helpless, but I do not dread. I simply refuse to. I would face Mab without flinching.
LOL SHE FINDS A GUY WHO BRINGS HER TO MOLLY
The Winter Lady. The executor of Mab's plans. She'd recently spearheaded the campaign to repurpose Chicago children for Winter, marvelously. Apparently respected by her subordinates for work ethic, skill, and the speed of her adaptation. A formidable woman, for her age.
When we were alone...
"What the fuck are you wearing on your neck, Raith? Not your usual style," Molly said.
"It's not part of the aid I'm requesting as Winter's closest ally, so..." I fought the urge to twirl my hair nervously. Goddamn human curiosity had survived becoming the Wicked Witch of the North.
Molly gave me a frown, unamused.
"But it is Winter Court property, by the Emblem. I could take it back if you're finished."
What did she know? No, I wasn't done. Any connection we forged with the demon's help would be counterfeit, ephemeral, a useless foundation for what was to come. I still needed this.
"This is from Mab's hand herself. I'd much rather return it to her," I said, as imperiously as I could manage under the circumstances.
"That collar is meant for two things: one, prisoners with unmanageable powers, and two, for sex play across too large a power differential. You do not seem like the type who accidentally breaks their food. What are you doing with it?"
Molly was coldly furious. She knew the answer was Harry. And she probably wanted me dead for touching him. I turned away from her, inspected her room.
"I wanted Harry to know I wouldn't control him. That I was no threat."
Molly looked at me oddly.
"You wanted him to feel safe with you." Molly paused. "You're not breaking him how I thought you would, Lara Raith of the White Court. Perhaps I can keep this favor between us." She smiled sadly.
"Thank you. I know Harry was once the most precious part of your life. It can't be easy to see me sharpening my claws for marriage."
"It turns out we were more Harry and Hermione than... Well, you know what I mean. It's fine. "I really wouldn't count your chickens, Raith. Harry wiggles out of everything he believes is wrong. You have to show him you and he would be not just good, but necessary to DO good. Show him how you change the world."
Perhaps not the best play, I thought, counting the deaths involved in establishing a political beachhead. But he might like the policy of rewarding pedophiles in power with the youngest of the White Court. No trauma for the girls, no drama for the news.
"And keep being vulnerable for him, every way you can. It's going to be hard to make him feel like you're a woman who he could have emotions about. After what he's seen you do."
"Molly, why help me? You realize, you're not his apprentice anymore. He trusts and ... Appreciates you. I've seen it."
"Lara, I'm Fae now." She turned her back on me. "I want Winter to succeed. We are absolutely required to do so. That is all."
And walked away, leaving me with the gate to Chicago. I hesitated. It was very cold, and I still wore the collar, and there was no need, was there? To rush back and face him? What would I say? I'd been callous and trite. Mayflies.
But this had been truly dangerous. I could've died to predators or just the cold. And he hasn't come looking for me. I waited for a long, long time by the lake.
And now, here, too. I don't know how long I stared at the shimmering Way. But eventually, I went through. Molly had provided me a burner phone to call my people. I did, and Justine came for me.
"You look different today," she said as I got into the car, an all white luxury sedan with all the bells and whistles.
Justine was far more than looks. Her keen perceptions, observational skills, and intelligence have rescued multiple operations and foiled one assassination attempt. I should've realized she'd notice something even with the collar concealed.
She engaged a rearview parking camera and vegan to back out. Sometimes luxury was tiresome, I thought. Sometimes one grew tired of the best of everything. Not that there were better options. Cheap things were invariably inferior, charmless.
"You look like a woman today, not some ideal of woman as seductress. It's nice. You're more attractive this way, I think." She turned around to look at me and grinned.
"Like butter instead of margarine. Yes. Like that."
I ignored that for the moment.
Even with all my preparations, I'd failed to connect with Dresden.
What did he see?!
Yes, what had he seen? If it was bad enough, he might never be the partner I craved. He was just right to be. I'd seen that much. Ruthless, but utterly without cruelty. Violent, but nonaggressive. Righteous fury. Inflexible under oppression. Clever and adaptable. And happy, funny, and sweet when the sun shines on him. Equipped to enjoy life.
Oh, I wanted to make him a tiny sun, just to follow him around and make him smile.
Harry actually can make tiny suns. And whatever Harry can't do, Demonreach's prisoners could. Though of course nothing should require that. It would ruin Harry to use them.
He's ideal. Enforcer, planner, liason, and lover. Long lived and healthy. Exactly what I needed.
Wait. Butter and margarine? Justine was being too familiar, even for her. Justine was... Was...
Justine was missing. And possessed by the most terrible evil Harry had ever encountered. How had she caught me? She made me forget. Best to keep her talking. Only twenty minutes left on the collar.
"I feel like there's a pun I should be making here, but nothing comes to mind," I drawled.
Justine started driving.
"What happened? It's not new makeup. Don't lie."
Fuck this bullshit girl-talk.
"How's the baby, Justine?" She was obviously no longer pregnant.
Suddenly, a migraine. Intense, white hot pain in my skull.
"The baby is fine," she said in a dull, dead voice nothing at all like her usual dulcet tones. "The baby is well, all is well, all manner of things will be well. Except you, Lara, you fucking thing." She shook her head violently. White hair flew everywhere.
"We're going to make you ours, Lara. Like you've done to so many. Take your will away. Make you a servant to evil." She turned and showed me a vicious grin. "More of one than you are already, I mean."
I hit her in the face. Heel of my hand to her nose. It broke with a sickening wet pop, but the grin remained.
"You'll make the perfect tool for dismantling Harry Dresden, Larrrrra. He's falling for you. Has been for years." Blood trickled into the grin, made it even more macabre and grotesque. On such a pretty girl, it was an obscenity. "Every time you show up and do the dark paladin routine, the badass with the heart of ebony, he melts a little more. He can't admit it even to himself, but we know. Nemesis knows your every weakness."
She steered without looking, flawlessly weaving through traffic. I looked hard at her, looking for my Justine, the one who was all but family. Heartbreaking that I couldn't find her.
I elbowed the glass out of my window and worked the exterior door handle as quickly as I could. I was pushing the door open almost before I heard the pistons hiss. My head ached and pounded and I couldn't help feeling pathetic. Just a woman, not quite young, with just a woman's strength, against a monster who'd played chessmaster with an orphaned god to the tune of half the city. I hit the street and rolled, came up with my hands ready to deflect, but Justine and the car were gone. Somehow.
Time to borrow another phone and try that all over, I thought, sighing.
But when I turned around, Dresden was coming around the corner. He had a staff in one hand, a blasting rod held loosely in the other. He didn't show any emotion but a hint of impatience. His poker face was improving. Mab was a good influence.
"Sea turtles. Would've been more flattering than a tree," he drawled as he walked up. "They live forever and mate for life."
"Too ungainly for a woman of her grace. Redwoods at least are majestic," I replied, watching him closely. Were we going to pretend he hadn't risked my life in a fit of pique?
Dresden smiled sadly.
"Like a tiger. Lara, we need to talk about what the earring did to me."
Not an apology, but a counterattack. Very good, Harry. Predators love with their claws out.
"It represses memory and feeling for one person. And encourages you to be open to feelings you aren't currently confronting. Why are you worried, Harry? Did you feel something you didn't like?"
Damn the man. He actually blushed. Fucking adorable.
"I have your word, as Queen?"
I scoffed. (Prettily, to be sure.)
"You want Lara's word, not hers. Yes, I promise you, whatever you felt was natural."
He nodded once, sharply, and clearly settled the question within himself. He didn't hesitate. He'd trusted me, again.
"Why were you here, of all places?" I asked.
"This is where the tracking spell led." He frowned.
"Justine picked me up. And I didn't even realize that was wrong until almost too late."
Harry scowled. "Nemesis."
"What is Nemesis, Harry? Did it infect me?"
"That's what it does. It did it to Maeve before she died, made her a liar and a traitor. Others. It can release Fae from anything, from the Winter Law itself. It's responsible for most of my cases and all of my catastrophes."
Except the ones you caused, I thought wryly. And a little sadly. You were Nemesis to the Red Court.
"And so how do we know if I'm infected?"
He looked grim and weary. He put away the blasting rod, and held out a hand.
"Come back to my workshop and I'll see what I can do. I can't promise anything, since I don't have an infected subject, but I'll try."
"Can you fix me if I'm infected?"
"I've never tried. You have a lifetime of experience of having a demon inside you, so if anyone anyone could fight this off, it would be you, Lara."
"Then let's go now," I said, taking his hand.
Dresden POV
The castle was nice. It was really nice, actually. Safe, spacious, thoroughly warded. I'd had two rooms remade into a replica of my old apartment, too. With a TV from the Svartalves and WiFi for Bob. I even watched it sometimes. Have you seen Game of Thrones? My God.
Lara strode in my wake, looking regal and elegant again without the collar. Perfect and pristine and somehow less appealing, even giving off whiffs of succubus aura as she walked. This Lara wouldn't give me the best massage of my life. The best feeling of my life would burn her for trying.
We took a ladder down into the basement. And were greeted by Bob's ecstatic glee.
"You brought me Lara Raith, Boss? What are we going to do to her?"
I huffed.
"We do nothing. I do, you observe."
"Oh, yes. I can watch. I promise to miss nothing."
Lara was expressionless for this, clearly preoccupied.
"Bob, we're tracking Nemesis. I need a potion to make her aura clearer and more detailed. As well as anything else that might help."
"BOOBS," Bob agreed. "Two of them."
He swirled out of the skull.
"I'll read off the ingredients when you're ready. We have all we need. Just a little bit of fluid from Lara and we're set."
I searched for a scalpel. And, astonishingly, found it quickly. I proffered it to Lara.
"Just a nick. A few drops will do."
Absentmindedly, Lara took it and drew a thin line on her forearm. Pale blood dripped into a vessel I held for her. It smelled rich, heady, like mead. If I drank this, I'd be priapic for hours. I'd seen it drive Will and Georgia to fucking in a combat situation, when they were killing Madeleine Raith. They had only had drops. And as wolves. I did not drink it.
Bob and I made the potion while Lara perused Bob's romance novels. She picked one up and leafed through it idly, bemused. She'd relaxed so much since Mab's deal. Cackling, smiling, grinning. The memory of her cool hands on me, spreading the silence of painlessness and the warmth of care was sweet.
Nobody had ever done anything for my pain before, not directly. It was still gone. My body moved flawlessly, without a whisper of pain. Moving felt good. She'd given me that with her own hands. Her elegant, long fingered, strangely delicious hands...
I snapped back to the potion when Bob started giggling.
"Cuntstruck." He whispered hysterically. "Cuntstruck!" He dissolved into giggling when he made the mistake of looking at Lara.
She was the picture of imperious disdain.
"What is your spirit saying?" She frowned at Bob.
"Absolutely nothing, sweetcheeks." Bob replied. "Nothing at all. Hey, so, about those clothes..." He wiggled bright orange eyebrows lasciviously.
"The potion first, Bob. Drink this, please. It's bad, sorry." I handed her the vial and she chugged it.
"Well, gold star. Back in a minute."
Auras are easy to read and hard to interpret. Too many factors involved. Identity is complex and convoluted, constantly shifting in response to experiences and the perspectives of others. But a good wizard can simplify by defining the scope in time and perspective. I intended to see only how Lara and I interacted in the future, our present and future compatibility, betting on her being a tool for Nemesis against me.
When I came back, Lara was juggling Bob, and he was giggling and squealing like a little girl.
"Nice, you two."
Lara pretended to fumble Bob, but caught him at the last second... Only to dump him on the floor anyway.
"Our auras?" She asked, dusting off her hands.
"For the reading. Bob will do it. He has centuries of experience."
And that's when I saw an expression I never expected to see on Lara Raith, something even Ethniu hadn't inspired - terror.
LARA
You have got to be fucking shitting me.
He wanted to know what I had planned for him. He didn't trust me. Maybe he shouldn't, but... He wouldn't like all my plans. US political dominion. Demonreach. The sex trafficking thing. Not all of it would go over smoothly. I did not want him predicting our conflicts. Or worse, interpreting them as Nemesis.
"Bob will do the reading. He's mostly unbiased," Dresden explained placidly.
Was he handling me? Had he seen my terror?
You saw his, and spoke to it. Why shouldn't he do the same for you? You are meant to be partners, after all, said my youngest sister, the only one I had cause to envy, Inari.
"It's actually our reading. We stand together and Bob reads the commingling of our auras," Dresden continued.
"O-okay." I didn't stammer. I only emphasized the first syllable.
"Also, you need to be naked and embracing." Bob interjected from the floor. "So, prepare for a burning sensation."
"About that. I have something to try for the love problem that is less... intoxicating. I'll wall off my Murphy memories with wizard discipline," Dresden explained.
"Then we're ready,” I said.
I disrobed. I'm always only a few moments from nakedness, like a cop on duty is only a second from his gun, and for the same reasons. My nakedness is armor and weapon both. No one wants to ruin perfection. No one wants to mar my beauty with blood. And few men remember any weapon but the one between their legs when they look at me.
Bob made animal sounds and rolled around on the floor. Then he slipped out of the skull, a flickering trail of campfire sparks in yellow orange. He immediately formed halos around my breasts, and slowly rotated, groaning.
"Fabulous, Bob. Like you're fifteen, not fifteen centuries,' Dresden complained.
He turned his back on me and undressed. All but boxers. Keeping his present wrapped until it was my time to unwrap it. Romantic. I liked and disliked it. How dare he hold things back from me even when necessity dictated nudity? And yet, his shyness said he cared how I saw him. I liked the admission that I had power over him.
"I'll hold you from behind. Turn," he said gruffly. "So he sees us in profile."
Obediently, I faced the wall and waited. The sound of elastic, footfalls. And then his arms around me and the rest of him pressed against me firmly. No hesitation again. Good. A soft gasp escaped him. "Bob? Whenever you're ready," he said in a very slightly shaky voice.
Bob left nipple orbit and took up position beside us.
"Okay, so, to release your auras, just... Be glad you're alive. I know I am," Bob said cheerfully.
I tipped my head back, so it fit beneath Harry's chin and closed my eyes and gave gratitude, to whatever there was, that even demons are sometimes granted some small hope of being loved and whole and complete. Here it was, after centuries of blood and death and ruin.
And Bob made more incoherent noises, but these sounded less like animal satisfaction and more like religious awe. He sounded moved, awestruck, humbled... And bitterly, intensely jealous.
"Boss, I've never seen an example this perfect. I'm doing a memory snapshot so you can see it. It'll blow your fucking mind. I can't actually promise she's not infected, but I can say it's basically irrelevant to you. Your strings are entwined, and will never be sundered. Perhaps not even by death. Nemesis cannot turn this woman against you."
"Nemesis made a liar of Maeve. Made her a traitor. She can turn anyone. Why not Lara, Bob?"
"Because she's your soul mate, Harry. It couldnt ve clearer. Literally. This is an impeccable example of the pattern. It's flawless."
Dresden let me go. A little reluctantly, I felt. Once he did, I let my feelings show on my face. Feeling, really.
Because all I felt was triumph.
DRESDEN
I was reeling internally, but my poker face was intact. I watched Lara dress from the corner of my eye.
"My soulmate, Bob?"
"You two are going to spend centuries together. Battling apocalypses, probably. By what I see, you'll amplify... Well, everything about each other."
No.
"Even the demon?" I growled.
Lara made a noise behind me. I turned to look. She was dressed and staring, eyes glittering.
"Harry, it's your souls that resonate. The demon is adjacent to her soul, not part of it. It doesn't participate in this connection. It can't. In fact, her soul may begin to drive it into hiding or even hibernation, depending on your choices together. This stuff is antithetical to a demon that feeds on selfish, one sided pleasure."
"I hate not having a fucking choice, Bob. This is not what I wanted to hear," I hissed through my teeth. "I need a fucking Coke." I turned and left.

We’ve been together for 4 years, she cheated on me and left me for another guy. It’s been 6 month since breakup and still I can’t get over her.
She (24F) was my (26M) first girlfriend, but she had boyfriend since she was 16. She has been with one guy, then jumped to another and then another etc. We’ve met 5 years ago when she was in relationship and she haven’t told me about that. When I found out I didn’t wanted to walk in her and his life, so we had little contact. After 3 months she broke up with him and after that we’ve been meeting sometimes and remained friends for year. What I found out after break up - in that time she had Tinder and was also seeing tons of guys.
Year after we met for the first time I was moving out to another city for College and our paths crossed and we’ve ended up together as a couple. Beginning was awesome, then covid came and I moved back to my home city. We’ve been spending even more time together. First two years were so good. My parents started to treat her as their own daughter.
After first two years she changed. She had problems to me with almost everything and she was starting fights with me for no reasons, but when fight was over - everything was again so good (Now I know that it was toxic behavior and it looked like sinusoid - when it was bad, it was bad, but when it was good, it was so good). From that time she started talking about break in relationship which I didn’t wanted, but after six months of talking about that I agreed - break lasted 4 days and she came back crying, telling me that she understood how much she loves me. After that it was again good, even better than before.
For 5 years she had fucked up situation at home, because her father cheated on her mother (and was doing it for all that time) and there was a lot of fights between them. Also her father’s brother cheated on his wife and her brother (my ex’s brother) also cheated his gf and left her for another woman. In our last year she moved to my house and she lived with me for few months.
All 4 years when we’ve been together I was working full time job and was doing College in weekends. After work I was doing stuff for College, but every minute I had free, I was spending with her. We’ve been on vacations few times, visited many places etc.
I was doing for her everything I could, when she had any problem - I was always for her. Our last 3 months looked awesome from my side - we were on vacation in Rome, we were out of the city for one week for a mini vacations, we were on many parties, we also had our 4th anniversary.
Two weeks after anniversary she came to me and she told me that I’m a good guy but not for her and that was it. 5 minutes of talk ending 4 years relationship. After 3 days I texted her, because I wanted to talk. She agreed and we met for the last time. We’ve talked for an hour (I was talking most of the time). I was begging her to give us a chance, I understood many thing I made wrong in that relationship, because she told me she wanted to be complimented every day how beautiful and gorgeous she is and that she felt unloved. I know I could give her even more from my side, but she didn’t wanted telling me „I can’t. I don’t love you anymore”. And that was the last time we saw each other.
Later I found out that she was cheating on me after 2 years being together and that was the reason of the break she wanted to have, but it seems that it didn’t worked out with them, so she came back to me. I also found out that she was cheating on me with second guy, few months before breakup and with third guy - the one she left me for. Week after breakup they’ve posted ig story of themselves with „Love of my life” stickers. Three weeks after breakup they went on two weeks vacations in Egypt. 2 months after, they were living together, renting apartment. Now they’ve stopped renting apartment and came back living with her parents and his parents - few days here, few days there etc. but they’re spending 24/7 together - we’ve had many mutual friends so I know it from them.
They look like they are living best life, when I’m sitting in home feeling like a shit. I know I should move on, but God, I fucking loved that girl with all my heart. I was able to do everything for her and I’m thinking I wasn’t good enough for her, I could’ve done more. She told me many bad thing about me, but still I miss every single moment I’ve had with her - even stupid things like cycling around city, lying together on beach or even eating ice creams in park. I wanted to propose her this year, I wanted to start family with her, buy a house together and have good life together. She is the most attractive girl for me, even now. I miss her as fuck. I can’t get my life together without her. I can’t imagine life without her, for me she was perfect. I know sometimes it was really bad and fucked up, but I miss these good moments. I felt like she was the one. I can’t think of being with somebody else.
I know she will be with him for ever, because he seems to do everything she wants and they fit perfect, and it kills me inside, that she is no longer mine and she’s living good life without me. I feel like I’m living in another reality. It’s been 6 months, that’s a lots of time, but still I’m thinking of her everyday and things I could do differently to keep her.
I know it seems like she has issues, I know that. But still, after 6 months I still think about all these good memories and how good it felt. We’ve had great connection and I’m scared I will never have this kind of thing with anybody. She was way more extroverted than me and most of the time it was her ideas to go somewhere or to do something. She made my life way better than before her, but how after her it’s bad as never. It hurt when I’m thinking that we could worked it out and now we would have great life.
When I’m thinking about anyone by my side, I can only see her face. All the time I have flashbacks to memories like vacations, sitting in park, cycling around city or even laying on grass.
I know many will say „You will be way more happy with somebody else” but I can’t even describe it. It felt like she was in my life since beginning and will be forever. I also fucked up by taking her for granted. But also I was ready to sacrifice everything for her.
He knew that she is in relationship. I know that she also told him everything bad about me and she made me a monster. He knew what to do, he was telling her everything she wanted to hear and also he was and still is giving her attention she needed.
I don’t think they will ever breakup, because she have someone who do everything she says, like trained dog. And he almost have no family. No siblings, grandma, uncles etc. - only parents. She dragged him into her big family - once I was part of. So they have benefits from both sides.
Our mutual friend also told me that they were talking seriously albout having baby after 2 months being together, so…
Her parents also bought apartment few years ago, and they moved in into this apartment few days ago, so they also have free place to live.
As you can see they are having perfect life, spending every second together and being happy.
I always wished her best, but after what and how she did to me it really fucking hurt as hell.
Why do I think it’s going to work out between them for ever? Because in our relationship I was more like a introverted side, she was ultra extrovert. I liked to plan, organize things etc., she was only thinking about visiting new places, parties etc. There was almost no day that she could sit at home where she would do basic things like laundry, cleaning the house and later in evening watching some movie or something. She had to meet with people.
Now they are living together since November, spending every minute together. I was spending time with her when I’ve had free time - sometimes it was hard to find any. I bet they know each other better than we did for 4 years and they’ve had more sex than we did in these 4 years.
I was taking her on many dates, we’ve done so many things together, but I was showing my love by doing and I’ve done for her tons of thing when her life was a mess. He is love bombing her at every step. Even at the end of 2023 he posted story of them and he wrote shift like poem for her saying how much he loves her, that he is gratefull for having her, that she showed him what true love is and how many plans they have. It looked silly and goofy as hell, but probably she liked that. I couldnt do thing like that in public, because I always liked our love to be private only for us and never saw anyone do shit like that.
If we talked about future it was like wedding, buying house, financial stability and then baby. Two months after breakup they’ve started living together, talking about having baby soon. I bet she will be pregnant at the end of year if she is not yet.
Sometimes I also saw that we are from another worlds, we’ve had different perspectives on life and priorities and hobbies. They want the same thing, have same perspectives and they fit better than we did. They also have same hobbies, cause I think thats how they met.
One more thing is that she blocked me everywhere after breakup, but 2.5 months ago out of nowhere whe unblocked me. Still, we dont follow eachother on Instagram and we are no friends on Facebook. Two weeks after unblocking, she send me „Happy birthday” text message.
Also after unblocking, she is watching every single insta story I post. Mostly after 0.5-1h after posting and she never missed one yet.
But still, I think maybe I could save this relationship, giving her more attention she wanted. Seeing them living happy life kills me inside.
Please help.

Husband,
I loved you with my whole being. I loved your humor, your charm, your ability to make a friend wherever you went, your ability to put yourself out there and go with the flow. You were the parts missing in me. I loved you so much and that's why I pushed you so hard to be the man I knew you could be. I never not wanted to be married to you. You are still the only man I would ever want to be married to. You are the father of my precious children. You are the man that has hurt me the most. I have forgiven so much. I have enabled so much. I have accepted so much. I never thought that you would ever cross that line, but now I see you probably crossed that line years ago. When you wrote love poems to another woman when I was four months pregnant with our first child. When you left me for two months with a toddler and newborn and canceled our housing- leaving us essentially homeless. When I found the condoms in your bag after you begged to come back. When you chose to go to another country for two years without us. You were ready to cross that line at the first opportunity. I see now that I loved you more than you loved me. You loved having someone take care of you though. To do the child raising, the cooking, the cleaning, the financials. The responsible one. The one that would swoop in and solve your problems or fix your mistakes. I was never your love. I was your safety net. But you were my love. I hate that I miss you. I miss you because I miss the guy I fell in love with. Every now and again, I'd get a glimpse of him. Most of the time, it was the alcoholic. The one who abused me- emotionally, verbally and even physically. But on that rare occasion when you were that guy I fell head over heels for...I was so happy. But maybe you were never that guy. Maybe all those red flags were there from the beginning and I overlooked them all because I had been told my whole life that no one would ever want me. I was made to feel worthless by my father and programmed to accept hurt from someone who claimed to love me. But then again, he was also a narcissist, a manipulator, a liar with a substance abuse problem. So when I took down all my walls and let you see my authentic self and all my flaws and you still said you loved me...well, how could I not give my heart to you? And now the thought of you with another woman...it's gut-wrenching. It's heartbreak like I have never known before. It's the worst betrayal. All I wanted was for you to change. I wanted the man I married without the alcohol use and the crippling mental health issues. I wanted a man to love me, to love our family that we created together. I've asked you why. Why would you do this to me after 19 years? How could you abandon your family? I'll most likely never get an answer. I'll never hear an apology and maybe you aren't even sorry. I will have to find a way to still heal though. Because I still have our beautiful children to take care of. And I hope they are the best of you and me. And I hope you get the help you need one day. I tried to get you to therapy and you resisted. I feel that it's fear holding you back. So I hope you can overcome that fear. I still would never want to see you hurt and maybe that makes me stupid. Or maybe that means I have a good heart and am still capable of love. I just wanted you to know that I gave you everything I had. I gave you my heart, my hard work, my trust, my blood, my smiles and my tears. And I would have kept giving til death parted us.
Love,
Wife
​

I will try to keep this short. We met on bumble and instantly clicked in June. Me, being someone who gets heartbroken even for silly things and who didn’t wanna disappoint family when it comes to partner, had been doing casuals for a while and was clear about it while she was in a life phase of have two breakups in an year and living alone in Pune.
On the third date, we realised that we are getting close. She shared her personal struggles with me, breakups, menial salary , lakhs in debts from credit card spending which her ex and she had together but he didn’t take any responsibility of. I felt close to her cos of her struggles and I liked her company. She was the kind of girl who loves partying, living the urban life and I rarely meet girls like that. I loved her drunken stories and night outs and wished to be a part of that. She started telling me she loves me after we ve had sex. Also we never used condoms and she used to ask for me finishing inside her. It was very passionate and I got attached to her.
I had been clear to her that I won’t be exclusive but when I started seeing her insecurities , I felt really cute and stopped seeing other people. Things escalated fast. I started living at her place for a month in August and we were practically like a family.
She gave me a daddy figure in the relationship and used to come to me and look up to me for advices and help. What it did to me was that I took that position in a negative way too. I started being more controlling and had opinions on her life. This was naturally happening cos my ex before her was way younger than me and I had that control over her. So with this girl, who I shall call M from now on, I might have used the same method when M gave me a daddy position initially. The fact of the matter is we both didn’t even get time to understand each other since we got attached too fast.
So fights started happening in our day to day life. Mostly because of my insecurities and lack of understanding her. The time I met her she was in Pune, planning to move out of Pune cos of her new job in Mumbai and she was done with Pune. She felt alone there. So I got attached to her when she was moving from Pune to Mumbai, finding a place there and settling. I used to help her financially whenever she asked , amounts in 1000s and also used to take all the expenses when we go out or hangout cos I knew she wouldn’t be able to afford. I used to get her clothes when she liked something she saw on the streets. She wasn’t asking me to spend so much to buy her stuff. But I loved when she loved something cute and wished to have it. She never asked me to get her anything expensive .
Between me and her, issues started happening once I saw her settling in Mumbai. She started being busy and had new friends and colleagues which made me a bit insecure when she used to not respond to msgs when she went out with them. But tbh after a fight I used to understand that it’s her behaviour and used to adjust to that. Once we had a huge fight about she ghosting me for a whole night when she went partying and when she came back she told me all her drunken stories. Of course I was a bit jealous too cos I wasn’t there . But after that fight, I never ever asked her to text while partying . So yes I used to learn from fights. One other time when I saw her spending habits, I got pissed off and brought up the topic that I always spend when we are together and when I am not there u don’t seem to have any issue in spending with friends. Wasn’t my place to say that or say it in that way which made her feel disrespected. But yes I have those anger issues where in the spur of the moment I say something out of control and then regret and say sorry after a while.
I am stating my negatives bcos I ve regretted all of them. Once I fought with her cos I felt like she is trying to keep me as a secret. She usually posts everything on Instagram and when me and her hangout , she doesn’t post or posts like she is alone. I got insecure and it ended up in a big fight where she said that she isn’t sure of me and she needs time to know me. Also by this time around 4 months in, she stopped saying love and all which she used to say every night before. I on the other side was confused about my feelings and at one end I was fighting with her for silly things and at the other, I was practically living for her and treating her as my princess.
A bit about her background, she doesn’t have a good relationship with her family. She doesn’t love her father cos she thinks he is a failed human being and she and her mom can have fights where they cut each other for months and not talk. Basically her family doesn’t really check up on her since she started living alone with her then boyfriend from her early 20s. Also she is from Kolkatta. Now the important part.
In October after she stayed with me for a week she went home for Durga Pooja. She told me to go on other dates and not be alone since we were starting long distance where I told her that she is the only girl I want.
She reached home and we ve started fighting on silly things again. Few days later we had a big fight which ended up us patching up when she said me and her are soulmates and even if we don’t end up together, we would be best friends for life. I told her that I have huge abandonment issues and maybe that’s y I m picking fights with her , we promised to not abandon each other. Next day she asked me if I can get her a loan to clear off her debts and her father’s money needs . She wanted 5L. I genuinely wanted to see her doing well in life cos I ve been seeing her struggling to make ends meet. Also I thought since we were fighting every other day, this gesture would let her know that I really care about her . I got her the money and she promised to pay the emi as my bank scheduled. It was a personal loan for me from my bank and she would pay the emi to my account before the bank debits it . It’s for the next three years. She said thanks.
Couple of days later we had another silly fight which ended up in her telling me that she has lost all trust in me and that she can’t do it anymore. What happened was silly. But the fight ended up in her telling me that she has her friends and family that loves her which made me pissed off cos she had no one when she needed help and it was me . So in the spur of the fight I told her if u have friends and family suddenly to love and support u, get the loan from them and just clear me off. That’s why she said she don’t trust me anymore. After 10 mins, I understood the shit I told her. I realised that I cornered her for something she can’t fight back and it was really bad that I did that. I started telling sorry and kept on writing sorry messages for the next few days. She said it’s okay and that we all meet and solve it out. But somehow after that she started informing msgs, stopped responding, even went to a point where she told she doesn’t wanna read anymore sorry msgs that she isn’t receptive anymore. Whatever I tried to say she started assuming a negative intention in that and accused me that I m thinking something I didn’t even think of.
At the same time I started seeing her stories with a guy friend of her who I had a bit of doubt back in August itself when I saw her sending him her selfies. She said he is a close friend. But later after a month I met her in Mumbai to tell her sorry. Cos in this one month when she distanced me , I realised how much I hurt her and that I really love her and her distance is killing me. I was in a very bad phase of my life of guilt and the realisation that I love her.
Also she was pregnant with me at the time, so when I met her in November we were seeing doc and taking the medication for it. Sorry if that’s triggering to you. She had to go through the surgery, I stayed with her, and kept on breaking down and apologising. But she was a completely different person. She said she can’t go back to that and she has changed. But I couldn’t understand the reason cos for the fights, I ve been telling her, admitting and owning my mistakes and asking for forgiveness. I started asking her if there is another reason for the distance. She denied. Later on when I said if she can’t change, I am leaving and let’s end this, she said she can stay casual for the time being but that she has feelings for someone else and she can’t go beyond casual with me. I was heart broken cos it took her a week after that loan to replace me, or it was already happening and I never saw it coming. I realised that she and him has something way deeper and longer that me and her ever was. They speak the same language, they met through mutual friends, they’ve been friends for almost a year and now they have feelings for each other .
I decided to stay casual but my heart was filled with feelings nd she was clearly distancing me from the emotional attachment we previously had. I understood that he is getting all that importance and love she gave me once. We had plans to go to Goa in December for my bday. The plan was made by her. She said she wants to take me for a travel on her bday in march and she said it’s on her. So I offered to take her to Goa on my bday and mine came first. Even though we had fights about her new emotional distance and cold treatment, we somehow went to Goa. She didn’t even gift me anything for my bday where in August I saw her gifting him personalised stuff . I took her to Goa and took almost all the expenses. After Goa, I kept reaching out to her saying that I have feelings and I can’t be okay with the distance she is taking. Everything which was special for her once, she contradicted and said it’s just ordinary for her. After October, she started saying that I don’t match her lifestyle and that we have different views and we don’t match on any fronts. She never took responsibility about the fact that she is the one who broke boundaries and introduced love into our equation when I was clear with what I want. Now that I am in deep feelings and attachment, she doesn’t wanna get involved or even be part of comforting me.
She was excited about her new year plans made with her new boyfriend. And one day when I said I deserve more for the love I give, she just ended it. She said she can’t take this anymore and she removed me from all social spaces and left. Never came back. I had a very very hard next few months. Anxiety, depression, worst phases of that. Suicide thoughts, dreaming and talking to her always on my head cos I couldn’t understand how her love would just end in a weeks time and was easy to replace me . Me who helped her out when she was struggling, me who stayed with her when she showed insecurity, me who could have stayed non exclusive and non attached, but who didn’t do it cos I loved her.
She has been paying the emi till now, I remind her every month once or twice and then she transfers, I asked her to document the loan but she didn’t respond or even care about it. In feb mid and march, I kept reaching out to her saying if we can stay platonic friends cos I don’t wanna loose her or be strangers with her. That we promised words of forever and soulmates once, that too her . She didn’t care much. She asked me to move on and keep my head down. She said she is no longer in that headspace to deal with me. She can stay in touch but can’t be friends like I think of. It was her bday in march. I made her hamper of a lot of cute gifts that mean something about our relationship, wrote notes on each of them. I wrote a big letter to her, explaining my side of childhood traumas and stuff that led me fight with her initially and that it was all wrong, I wrote in that how she was different and how it was the first time I fell in love and I am really broken cos of her leaving. I also wrote that of there is anyway she can stay as a friend, please do. I wrote at least 10 poems about her after October, most of it she has seen. I don’t know how else to show her that she has mistaken about me and that I really love her. She went with her new boyfriend on a trip for her bday. Something she planned with me back in September. I don’t know what she is when she doesn’t even care for my mental health. Like all I want is her to not become a stranger. Maybe in time, have a better relationship with her of a good friendship that lasts for life. Cos we promised it, we were like that once. For her breakups and cutting people off is common, for me, it was all new, I always thought two people can sit and solve any issues if they love and care for each other, but the person I loved the most, doesn’t even have time to think about me or understand my side.
Now I just hope that she didn’t plan this out to remove me after getting her financial stuff done cos the way she changed after that was so fast and so ulta. After October, she became really mean to me, she started looking down on my life, called my life sad and boring. She said I have a grandpa mentality and I acted like her dad . She said I am just waiting to yes to whatever she wants. I cried when she said that cos I was thinking I was giving her princess treatment cos she used to tell me that no one treats her like a princess and she was mine. She has become a cold cruel person who is busy with her Mumbai life and parties and new boyfriend where my constant reaching out is being completely ignored . Please share your views on this, if I am in th wrong , I am ready to correct myself. I hope sharing this would help me in my healing. It’s been 6 months after her distancing and till today every moment passed with her thoughts and day after day I keep realising that she isn’t the person I thought she was.
Also, couple of days back she started a new Instagram page for food blogging and she posted a reel of our complete Goa trip. Every places we went and tried out food. It felt so sadistic cos that reel is our shared experience and I am there in that. She has even shared our personal experiences in the description but the actual person who was with her and who even sponsored the whole trip is struggling to meet his days passed cos of her and she doesn’t even care .

Found that the discussions in The Diddy Really Light Himself on Fire (03-11-2024) provides a ground to develop some of the questions raised in Mentally Girard (10-23-2023). Think Rene Girard and his theories serve as a nice site to develop the themes, the concepts, and the personages discussed.
Their response to Sam Kriss’ article Overwhelming and Collective Murder serves as the opening to an exploration of Rene Girard.
During this segment, Dasha raises the following criticisms of Girard’s theories.
A. He doesn’t take Love seriously enough
B. Sidelines the Blessed Virgin Mary.
C. Inadequate in his accounting and theorizing of Lack.
01:10:13-01:11:48
Dasha:..cause Kriss’ article did make be like ‘I should really look this source material here’ cause it seems like he’s mixing a lot of things up. To make a pretty flimsy and tenuous point but then automatically I feel the point of his article is that, it’s nice when people have you know ala Freud, when people can come up with ambitious ideas which know one does anymore. And that Girard has value because he tried to do that.
Anna: Yea and obviously all ambitious ideas are by nature, reductive ones. They’re models.
Dasha: And in that way I’m gonna counter-signal Girard here. Uhhh…and say that I don’t… I’m a little confused by his alleged Catholicism…because… well he’s not a theologian. He’s doing this like anthropological kind of history…
Anna: Sam is right to point out that he approached Christian teaching not only as a devotee but as an anthropologist, which those two things are fundamentally in conflict in a way.
From Kriss’ article,
“But then, by his own account, the philosophy that would make him famous came to him while he was working on his first book, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. That first work, as Cynthia Haven writes in her introduction to the new Penguin collection, All Desire Is a Desire for Being, was “a study of the books and authors that fascinated him—Cervantes, Proust, Dostoevsky, Stendhal and Flaubert”—and led him to question what he called the “Romantic lie”: “the myth of personal autonomy, the ‘authentic self’ enshrined from Rousseau onward.” It was in this text that he first set forth the secrets of mimetic theory—an intellectual breakthrough that, Haven suggests, was entangled with his religious conversion to Catholicism. “His revelation,” she writes, “was a revolution of the self—religious and literary and anthropological and deeply personal, and this conversion experience would be the basis of his thinking and writing.”
Think it’s helpful to view Girard as being, first and foremost, a literary critic. Grounded in literary criticism. Never stopped being a literary critic and it’s as a literary critic that he engages with the Gospels. Reminded of Harold Bloom’s description of his own literary approach to religious criticism in The American Religion. And were Harold Bloom draws upon and affirms Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James, Girard’s approach to criticism draws upon and negates G.W.F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche (perhaps Hegel through Kojève and Nietzsche through Heidegger… really you have at least 16 permutations of this). And perhaps influences are to thank in part for Girard intellectual ambition. Without diminishing his commitment to Christian truth, Girard should very much be situated within the late 20th century philosophic tableau. Relates more to these thinkers than any of the Church Fathers or Doctors of the Universal Church. Girard’s companions would include his fellow countrymen and interpreters of Nietzsche; Bataille and Deleuze.
0:55:26 -0:56:09
Dasha: They beat em to it.
Anna: Yea in it he describes Girard as a relatively obscure and “fairly ordinary” professor of Comp Lit who was transformed into a “business philosopher” and “Rightwing Prophet” by none other than Peter Thiel, his former pupil at Stanford and now known FBI informant. He argues that Girard has been taken up by a “...a certain sector of the online right. Girard’s name is dropped on podcasts and shoved into reading lists. Girardianism has become a secret doctrine of a strange new frontier in reactionary thought, one that’s begun to question not just the utility but the existence of democracy and social progress. For his new followers, Girard’s theory illustrates the central thesis of reactionary politics: whatever we claim to believe, and whatever fictions we build, human nature is always the same.”
Dasha: Meh. A bit of a tenuous connection I feel….
Anna: Yea.
Dasha:…it seems that when he said Girardian he often meant Straussian.
Anna: By which he meant Nietzschean…
Dasha: ..Right…
Anna: By which he meant…
*mouth sounds*
By which he meant…
The mouth sounds like the echolocation used by bats and dolphins. Anna’s pregnant pause is Bronze Age Pervert shaped.
“By which he meant…?”
Like Girard, Strauss is providing his own response to the same personages. Providing his own contribution to this grand production. Being himself a great reader of Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche, who had also famously engaged in a lively and long correspondence with Alexander Kojève.
Like to think of “Nietzschean” in this production as being at once a moment, a mask, or a personae in the Straussian drama. One of the entities the student inhabits, converses and struggles with, praying for in the manner of a two-way street. Nietzsche is active and charitable with his time, responsive to bibliomantic inquiries. One gets the impression that he would answer emails, no matter who it was from. In literary terms, the Sensitive Young Man as a phase the protagonist inhabits in their philosophical bildungsroman, pre-Platonic (though not necessarily pre-Socratic). If Costin Alamariu is in fact, the man inhabiting (or being possessed by) Bronze Age Pervert, then it’s worth noting how well the thesis of Professor Alamariu’s dissertation, recently published under the title Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy, connects with Girard’s theory and in particular Girard’s adaption of Heidegger’s thinking about the Heraclitean Logos writing in Science and Reflection, “Nevertheless, the essence of modern science, which has become world-wide meanwhile as European science, is grounded in the thinking of the Greeks, which since Plato has been called philosophy.” Western thinking springs from Greek thought.
There is a continuity between the character Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias and Nietzsche. How easy I found it to associate the other guy with the person of Callicles, after all Socrates is Socrates, Alcibiades loves Socrates, and Socrates probably destroys Callicles with facts and logic, right? Plus Callicles translated into the modern context appears to be a “Rightwing”-coded figure, my own politics are different. I’m the one correcting the Chud third-rate Callicles.
Callicles you intemperate slut!
Only lightly read. By no means a Strauss scholar, but have found the writings and reflections of Leo Strauss that I have read (along with the works of those in lineage-dialogue with Strauss) exhilarating. Feels like a much better tradition to struggle against. My overarching impression is that Leo Strauss invites the student the engage with the text. Converse with the personages, inhabit the character, and truly think through them together. The student and the teacher immerse themselves in the dialogue. The possibility of wisdom’s reception is opened up in this virtual immersion, mediated by the animate imagery of the text. Translations of the material often ossifying this potential or risk miring the reader in the linguistic particularities and tensions of the (for us reading the translation, old, but being a translation for the text itself, new) language translated into. English has its own body of associations, its own doctrine of sympathy. By engaging with the Ancient Greek and Grecian sympathies, and wandering through the gaps and the continuities… we might generate some original insights. Like lightning-flash. Find ourselves standing in a Clearing. A place seemingly out of History. In The Turning provides the following elucidation on language and the activity of thinking and the mode in which we think,
“All this we can do only if, before considering the question that is seemingly always the most immediate one and the only urgent one, What shall we do? we ponder this: How must we think? For thinking is genuine activity, genuine taking a hand, if to take a hand means to lend a hand to the essence, the coming to presence, of Being. This means: to prepare (build) for the coming to presence of Being that abode in the midst of whatever is into which Being brings itself and its essence to utterance in language.”
Heidegger's poetic description of thinking as expansiveness. There is a infinity within the finitude, represented by the activity of thinking. Rather than simply a crashing against again and in-turning. Thinking as the spiritual act. Found Heidegger’s understanding of Language resonates well with the Kardecian Spiritist understanding of prayer and the limitlessness of prayer. Echoing through the whole of cosmos and universe. From the smallest to the largest to the smallest. A reverberation that sets in motion, sets the ground, and sets us towards the making of a receptacle. Heidegger goes on to write,
“Language first gives to every purposeful deliberation its ways and its byways. Without language, there would be lacking to every doing every dimension in which it could bestir itself and be effective. In view of this, language is never primarily the expression of thinking, feeling, and willing. Language is the primal dimension within which man’s essence is first able to correspond at all to Being, and its claim, and, in corresponding, to belong to Being. This primal corresponding, expressly carried out, is thinking. Through thinking, we first learn to dwell in the realm in which there comes to pass the restorative surmounting of the destining of Being, the surmounting of Enframing.”
In the essay Language found in the collection Poetry, Language, Thought Heidegger refers to the speaking of Language as the peal of stillness, “The gathered bidding, the command, in the form of which the dif-ference calls world and things, is the peal of stillness.” Language is distinct from speech/discourse or linguistics, verbal and text-based communication. Language as the Power of Stillness gathers and commands. Language speaks. Speaks of the necessary difference and in the gathering of the different, their intimacies, the pain of intimacy. Stillness setting the difference and in the difference the intimacy. Differentiation is twofold process. The things and world, stilled, can only ever be different. And in this, Stillness is recognized as Difference.
It’s simple. It’s how we come to an awareness of God as God. I think the key to appreciating Heidegger’s project is in the following reflection from the same essay,
“Mortal speech is a calling that names, a bidding which, out of the simple onefold of the difference, bids thing and world to come. What is purely bidden in mortal speech is what is spoken in the poem. Poetry proper is never merely a higher mode (melos) of everyday language. It is rather the reverse: everyday language is a forgotten and therefore used-up poem, from which there hardly resounds a call any longer.”
Every day metaphysics is a forgotten and therefore used-up poem, from which there hardly resounds a call any longer. This is Heidegger’s view of what he refers to as the Onto-Theological, meaning the given articulation of beings (ontology) in relation to Being (theology). Here Alcibiades’ description of Socrates as being like a statue of the flute playing satyr Silenus which splits open to reveal a myriad of gods comes to mind and from there a 15th-century statue of the Virgin Mary opening up to reveal images of God the Father and God the Son and the Church.
…
It’s a lot. Perhaps too much. Recall BAP’s mention of Heidegger in Bronze Age Mindset,
“You can see from all this anyways why Enlightenment can never happen but also why those critics of Enlightenment like most of the followers of Heidegger go the wrong way. They are right when they say, in so many words, that the inborn character of every man is in someway unique, the biology too particular, much more so than the more uniform character of animals. For animals that worker ant, or two fruitflies, will have exactly the same inborn, but humans are all slightly different. From this they draw the conclusion that no common “way” can suffice for all, but that the only authentic way for you can come from the needs of your inner self. Every adherence to an external code, religion, or ideology is “inauthentic” and represents essentially a form of mind control, your adopting the thoughts of another, inappropriate for your own metabolism, biology, peculiar conditions for growth or flourishing. Yes, it is true, Nietzsche went so far as to avoid reading anything written by others, so as not to infect his mind! And he was a mutant with a very particular biology - such types often are, and he was right that for them, physiology, diet, may be the most pressing research necessary. But he never forgot that the fundamental fact of nature is inequality, and this is something these people, the followers of Heidegger, and Heidegger himself to a great degree, all forget. It is madness to ask the common prefab run of man to fashion his own way, his own “religion” - the many find solace and meaning only in submission.”
This reading of Heidegger’s project interesting. Tastefully incomplete. BAP’s reading of Heidegger excises the portion connected in more explicit terms with the political. He further develops this slight-of-hand by asserting that this first-half of Being and Time plagiarized Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation. BAP’s public criticisms of Heidegger then take on the character of petulant fanboy upset over Heidegger’s dismissal of his fave Schopenhauer. It’s important to keep this in mind going forward. Especially as it relates to BAP as a “Left Hand” Straussian. I’d argue his breaking with Strauss and his constant denigration of ‘wordcels’ and philosophy is the greatest service he can provide. By disavowing Strauss he avoids further tarnishing the philosopher’s legacy, that last thing I can see BAP or Costin Alamariu wanting to happen is for their to be a new round of inquisitorial purges against Strauss and those interested in Strauss’ work, or for there to be an active association made between Plato and White Supremacism leading to a “canceling” of Plato and the universally mandated requirement to add myriad disclaimers and denunciations of Plato that simultaneously and unquestioningly reproduce this “connection” anytime Plato happens to be cited. And as it stands, Plato along with Hegel had come to be considered in certain, off-puttingly influential circles, the Philosophers of Totalitarianism and the “Closed-Society”.
BAP casts the person of Heidegger as a kind of Magician who, enthroned within the magic circle, enters an akashic trance. Becoming the Unity of Microcosm and Macrocosm in a state that is timeless and spaceless. Words reverberating out from the Depth Point. Pure meaning. The reconciliation of the head and the body. And from this state Heidegger declares that in the current age every man and every woman is tasked with the production of their own Holy Scripture. Find myself translating BAP’s criticism in the following terms; Heidegger takes his status as a Philosopher, seemingly, for granted. The leisurely time provided for him and the reserves of Power he’s capable of tapping into. This opens the way for an interpretation of his thinking that’s amiable to a kind of Mystical Lifestyle Anarchism. Open to all and for all. The reader wanting to be judged as being “authentic” rather than “inauthentic”… proceeds to engage in all manner of hodge-podge ‘inspired’ bullshit based on personal inspiration and a horizontal ‘anti-Authority’ and ‘anti-Hierarchy’ model which will in long run likely prove spiritually, psychologically, physiologically, and socially deleterious. As BAP goes on to develop it, most people’s “authentic” mode is premised precisely on this “inauthentic” fetishism and commitment to custom or Ancestral Nomos. I’d add further to this by saying, not just most, but all. Don’t read Heidegger as being necessarily antithetical to this.
There is often a myopic (narcissistic) failure to account for the heterogeneity that defines and animates this homogenous macro-organism. The ways in which existing customs specifically situate and address the formation of the individual. Take for instance Indic traditions of astrology and traditional medicine (Ayurveda). No single person is exactly the same. There are differences in dietary regime, different mantras are prescribed, different puja to different powers, different stones to wear and herbs to consuming. There are generalities, for instance, most people likely shouldn’t be spending much time in charnel ground or wearing dark clothing, unless this explicitly received into initiations and received the mantras and empowerments to do so (an initiation likely prescribed thanks to some inauspicious celestial formation at time of birth) and as I’ve led to understand by a variety of commentators initiated in Yogic and Tantric lineages, transgressive practices, what could be categorized broadly as Vamamarga (Left-hand) are only viable insofar as the initiate has actually upheld the traditional religious taboos. Drinking alcohol and offering alcohol as libation, or eating flesh and offering flesh as a sacrifice, at midnight is only truly potent for the one who didn’t drink and eat flesh for years beforehand and who’d wake up at before dawn to perform puja. The average American lifestyle is already wildly transgressive by Hindu standards. In some sense the most transgressive thing most of us can do (barring particular communities and upbringings) is develop and consistently maintain an ascetic devotional practice.
Alternatively we might say that Heidegger compels the philosopher to produce their own grimoire. And my own interest in deepening an understanding of Heidegger came about from my perception of the Fourfold he develops in his latter writings as a kind of ontological topography. The Fourfold as Dasein or Existence revealing itself. That in relation to Philosophical alterity; Alchemical transmutation, Christian transubstantiation, and Witches’ transmogrification.
The personages of Solomon, Moses, St. Cyprian, and Faust, have a wide range texts attributed to them. Various authors throughout history having written their own magical texts inhabiting these names, in a manner sympathetic with the Alexandrian scribes who’d attribute their works in a devotional manner, to Hermes and before Alexandria had become Alexandria, to Tahuti the patron deity of scribes who’d go on to be syncretized with the Grecian Hermes. Lunar and Mercurial. This Union with the Personae, or the use of the Collective Alias informed by subject and trade is one I was introduced to in my studies of European Grimoires and the different currents of Grimoire-Grammar production and the attempts to recreate and adapt the practices they transmitted.
These texts are by-and-large permutations of one another, permutations of Arabic and Byzantine texts or manuals that found their way into Occidental Christendom. Their distinguishing features or character being a result of the idiosyncrasies of personal translation and transcription, along with the ways different texts got woven together and organized (for example, the Lesser Key of Solomon or Lemegeton was the result of what might be effectively understood to be a 17th century mixtape of older materials. Five books, one on the evocation of demons, the evocation of directional aerial spirits, the evocation of calendrical angels, and one on prayers and implied mnemotechnics to aid notaries) and what said compilations might imply about the individual interests and practices of those who produced them or commissioned their production. Compilation and commentary. Other grimoires arose from this cultural substrate, existing not only as compilations and commentaries but as records of the magician's personal practices and visions. By extension of practices and understandings reflecting the topos or location, herbs and stones, and the social relations and popular culture of the time. Interwoven with regional folklore and beliefs. Leading to interesting syncretisms. Texts like the English Manuscript v.b.26 of the Folger Shakespeare Library (published in 2015 under the title The Book of Oberon, the titles of the two texts that make up the work, are Theurgia and Key of Solomon) produced during the Elizabethan era, containing evocations of Faerie King Oberyion alongside a wide array of prayers in English and Latin, tables laying out the means to calculate planetary hours, tables displaying the sympathetic correspondences between herbs and celestial forces, instructions on the use of herbal effusions/perfumes/incenses (for example anointing yourself with the juices of cannabis and white nettle before conjuring spirits into a magical mirror) and instructions on how to conjure members of the Infernal Courts (whose hierarchies reflect the hierarchies listed in earlier work like the 'Pseudomonarchia Daemonum' from De praestigiis daemonum by Johann Weyer and the Solomonic grimoires) with illustrations of said spirits that are inspired by (or perhaps more accurately, are outright copies of) the illustrations of totally unrelated monsters/cryptids in the 1566 book, Certaine secrete wonders of nature containing a descriptio[n] of sundry strange things, seming monstrous in our eyes and iudgement, bicause we are not priuie to the reasons of them. Gathered out of diuers learned authors as well Greeke as Latine, sacred as prophane by Pierre Boaistuau. All of this woven together in bad Latin (reflecting the lower social status of the manuscripts owner-operators) and rocking a noticeably Catholic character. Catholicism having become synonymous with superstition and sorcery, during this period of English History. Below is an excerpt from the text that highlights the ways in which its authos situated themselves in a World of interwoven sympathies and the lineages of thought like radiant constellations revealing the joyful antimonies of their habit and relations. Bringing to mind Heidegger's elucidation of the fourfold, from his essay Building Dwelling Thinking, the gathering of the earth, the heavens, mortals, and divinities.
"Moses, David, Solomon, Hermes, Cyprian, Lombard, Bacon They and divers and others say best in philosophy in magic and also in necromancy etc., saying that where it is in himself, and there is no doubt that superior things to inferior and inferior to superior do make answer and agree, and our chief worker is God, only from whom all marvelous works do ascend, even as all things be created of one only substance and of one disposition whose father is the Sun and whose mother is the Moon, the which carried him in her womb through the air, and of her speaketh Hermes, the father of all creatures, the treasure of marvel s, the giver of virtues, the virtue of superior things overcometh all things. These most wise philosophers hath set forth a book of four things. One is of stars [+ one is of] herbs, [+ one is of] figures, and that the the introduction of four of the most excellent sciences, one is astronomy, [+ one is] physic, [+ one is] alchemy, and [+ one is] magic. These be the most profitablest sciences, by the which a man may soonest help himself, for astronomy is the root of all things and showeth the secret of workings, and physic discerneth the nature within and without, and it helpeth thee quickly of minerals and helpeth thee and preserverth thee wholly and clean and giveth judgment of the qualities of minerals the mutability of kind of stones, saltm and metals, and that with the producing of one metal out of another, and that by examination of roots of nature, and that maketh everyone to know another things and that by magic, by magnitidue and power, for magic excelleth in this and in all other arts, for he divideth the spiritual possibility in binding and calling of spirits, and with their power and by them he doth incredibe marvels and that to mankind, this art magic is called of the wise, the solace, and utility of philosophers of the which our Allcamus <131. Allcamus: Unknown>"
- The Book of Oberon, Part I Theurgia
In his essay Heidegger expresses the character of dwelling as "...sparing and preserving. It pervades dwelling in its whole range. That range reveals itself to us as soon as we reflect that human being consists in dwelling and, indeed, dwelling in the sense of the stay of mortals on the earth." To build is to dwell. Dwelling is the way in which people relate with their environments. Building as dwelling is the building that nurtures growth and further buildings.
Earth, the ground we make our way on, supporting us at the physical level, nurturing, watering, and providing. Sky, permits us to reflect on the fact that we are here but we are also "beyond", a spiritual-contemplative principle relating to eternity. Mortals includes the living who will one day be dead, the remind of our impermanence and in that meditation the awareness of and the coming to terms with, our essential nature. Divinities, the most basic criterion of Humankind, the poetic fiction or myth, whose anonymity or mystery pervades and sets the standard for dwelling in the world.
Think of the fourfold in relation to the above excerpt from The Book of Oberon,
Earth: "..physic discerneth the nature within and without, and it helpeth thee quickly of minerals and helpeth thee and preserverth thee wholly and clean and giveth judgment of the qualities of minerals the mutability of kind of stones, saltm and metals, and that with the producing of one metal out of another, and that by examination of roots of nature, and that maketh everyone to know another things and that by magic, by magnitidue and power."
Sky: "...astronomy is the root of all things and showeth the secret of workings..."
Mortals: "Moses, David, Solomon, Hermes, Cyprian, Lombard, Bacon They and divers and others say best in philosophy in magic and also in necromancy etc.,.."
Divinities: "...saying that where it is in himself, and there is no doubt that superior things to inferior and inferior to superior do make answer and agree, and our chief worker is God, only from whom all marvelous works do ascend, even as all things be created of one only substance and of one disposition whose father is the Sun and whose mother is the Moon, the which carried him in her womb through the air, and of her speaketh Hermes, the father of all creatures, the treasure of marvel s, the giver of virtues, the virtue of superior things overcometh all things. These most wise philosophers hath set forth a book of four things."
Consulting magical texts. Text being a writing consisting of various characters, symbols, sentences. A book or tome. A written message. A verse or passage of scripture. Text coming from the the Latin textus, a style or texture of work, being the passive participle of texo, meaning "I weave". Conspired with Mercurius in the crossroads. One hand pointed up and the other pointing down. He told me that all roads lead to Rome and that you never step into the same river twice. The old scribes of Alexandria would attribute their works to their patron deity, Hermes. Hermes-Tahuti, Patron of Scribes, of Magicians, of Merchants, of Gamblers and Scoundrels. The Scribes of Alexandria would join together in their devotion to their Patron, in commending their works to Hermes, transforming into their Patron in the process of weaving History into being. The texture of the Real, generated from, as Alexandre Kojève puts it in his Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Dialectic of Reality, fighting and labor. The Lesser and Greater Malefics of the Astrologers, Mars and Saturn. To which I would add, love and law, the Lesser and the Greater Benefics, Venus and Jupiter.
The magician takes as axiom. “That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above.” The formulae evokes a Sympathetic Principle, which commands and gathers. The connectivity of all things that comprise and are contained within the Anima Mundi or Soul World. That the microcosm or little world, the Below, and the macrocosm or big world, the Above are in a state of interpenetration which in turn is their motion or power. A change in one is reflected in the other and vice versa. As Giordano Bruno writes in On Magic,
“magicians take it as axiomatic that, in all the panorama before our eyes, God acts on the gods; the gods act on the celestial or astral bodies, which are divine bodies; these act on the spirits who reside in and control the stars, one of which is the earth; the spirits act on the elements, the elements on the compounds, the compounds on the senses; the senses on the soul, and the soul on the whole animal. This is the descending scale. By contrast, the ascending scale is from the animal through the soul to the senses, through the senses to compounds, through compounds to the elements, through these to spirits, through the spirits in the elements to those in the stars, through these to the incorporeal gods who have an ethereal substance or body, through them to the soul of the world or the spirit of the universe ; and through that to the contemplation of the one, most simple, best, greatest, incorporeal, absolute and self-sufficient being. Thus, there is a descent from God through the world to animals, and an ascent from animals through the world to God.”
Returning to BAP and BAP’s view on Heidegger. Mentioned earlier that he performs a kind of slight-of-hand with his interpretation of Heidegger and his substitution of Heidegger with Schopenhauer. This slight-of-hand nonetheless illuminates a component of Heidegger’s thinking. Taken to a conclusion beyond the minimal and the maximal. In light of this, Heidegger criticism of Nietzsche takes on another dimension. Zarathustra steps into the place of a Moses or a Confucius, of Prophet, becoming the bearer of law and value in the New Aeon. And like all prophets he can only ever be recognized by the majority of peoples in his own time as evil. Declared anti-Christ, self-declared in anticipation. Heidegger as a reader of Nietzsche does what the reader of Nietzsche must be do. He sets himself apart. And so Heidegger sets the following charge on him in the essay The Word of Nietzsche,
“Nietzsche’s countermovement against metaphysics is, as the mere turning upside down of metaphysics, an inextricable entanglement in metaphysics, in such a way, indeed, that metaphysics is cut off from its essence and, as metaphysics, is never able to think its own essence. Therefore, what actually happens in metaphysics and as metaphysics itself remains hidden by metaphysics and for metaphysics.”
Heidegger’s essay The Word of Nietzsche cemented as axis for ongoing readings of Nietzsche and through the critique of Nietzsche a situating of the thinker in the ongoing condition. Consider this essay and Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche a vital wellspring for those prospects engaging in this Work. At times I’ve come under the impression that, as speaking of Hegel in a particular and highly influential mode is to speak of Kojève, encountering Nietzsche through the likes of Strauss, Derrida, and Girard is to likewise speak of Heidegger’s illumination or a Nietzsche fixed in Heidegger’s gaze. This necessitates a return to Nietzsche for the aroused prospective. To think of a Heidegger’s Nietzsche or a Deleuze’s Nietzsche resonates at some level with BAP’s thoughts on AI and by extension of intellect, evoking the image of a floating construct made of various sentences, quotations or snips. An idol comprised of “discourse”, bound or latching unto one another to form a particular shape. In this case a Nietzsche-like construct. What inhabits this construct? What animates and directs and verbalizes under the name of Nietzsche? The dilemma of the Spiritist comes to the fore. How can I be sure I’m actually conversing with the person this entity claims to be? Just because a spirit claims to be Napoleon Bonaparte or Plato doesn’t necessarily mean you’re conversing with the spirit of Napoleon Bonaparte or Plato. Who is this spirit speaking through? After all, the medium is the message. BAP goes so far as to question to historicity of St. Augustine in Bronze Age Mindset, “Augustine is almost surely a complete fiction, and there never was any such man - his pidgin “Greek” is nonsense in that area to begin with, and is rather the makeshift Greek of the medieval monk, maybe living somewhere in Burgundy.”
Makes you think.
Is this true?
Perhaps.
Perhaps there is a need for the intimate engagement. A deepening cultivation of our spirituality and a reception of the techniques that further this cultivation. Is this the same as immersing oneself in institutional forms, department dances and social games, to text and citations and credentials? No. Absolutely not. That’s not the point of Bronze Age Mindset. It’s why I’ve argued that Bronze Age Mindset is not a philosophical text. In fact the opposite is true, what’s present in BAM is anti-philosophy, a kind of misanthropic vitalism that meets the reader where they’re at (even those who think that they’re meeting it at some “higher” level of personal development, the basics apply) without presented some explicit abstract Virtue Ethics. Seen some thinking about it like they would a manual by the Stoics, this is wrong. As anti-philosophy BAM presents the preconditions for Philosophy. Recall Diotima’s Ladder of Love. It begins with the Body, with the recognition of Beauty through or in the beautiful physical form. A distinction between Body and Soul is ruthlessly mocked in the text. The issue in our present time with a text like Plato’s Symposium and its manner of presenting Socrates as Alcibiades’ Beloved is that it lends itself to a most horrific distortion. Plato’s Symposium adapted and directed by Judd Apatow, starring Seth Rogan as Socrates, a plucky protagonist with a heart of gold who wittily outsmarts the pretentious nerds and jocks and proves to be the most loveable of them all.
[To be continued]