Shades After page 94
Warning for some upsetting talk of past suicidal feelings. I appreciate that this is under the comic, but the main warning when you enter the site does cover a multitude of things. Here’s my hint of Chris coming from a catholic family, none of the belief but all of the guilt.
Turns out you can make manga studio do custom patterns, which makes doing a tiled bathroom about 1000% easier.
*sigh*
I understand you, Chris. It’s not like you can will yourself out of liking and/or needing something that fundamental. But have you ever thought that part of the reason why she left you was because you went to a domme without ever warning your wife, which is essentially cheating?
At least it seems he’s in a better place in life at the moment.
I’m not entirely sure if it’s been proven that Chris went to a domme without telling his wife. I THINK he did initially, but when the wife found out, she tried to work with him couldn’t handle the openess of their relationship?
At least that’s what I’m guessing. I remember Pearl, his older daughter, alluding to the possible cheating (“Did your dad cheat, too?”) but here it sounds like when his wife saw the infected wounds, her response was apparently “I can’t handle this (anymore)” instead of “I can’t handle this (unfaithful action).” I’dunno, though. I know there must have been a mix of shock of exactly how he cheated so it’d be less “You cheated!” and more “You cheated in THIS WAY?” but from his comments I got the impression that the wife tried to be okay with it, but couldn’t handle it when she saw the results of a bad domme.
I’m getting the impression from this conversation that his wife knew but freaked when he got actually hurt/damaged after all his promises of it being safe. Which in my mind might also imply that she let him do this with the understanding no actual sex would happen, and when he turned up with permanent damage she began doubting everything about the whole situation and thought he must have just gone and done everything he promised wouldn’t happen. To some people’s minds if one promise is betrayed than all past promises of that person are now deeply suspect.
I kind of don’t think she’d be open to him visiting a domme. Perhaps she tried to close her eyes and put up with those visits, but the burns were that one thing that pushed her overboard. I suppose we’ll see later.
Ah… And here is where we start to feel *a little* sympathy to his ex. Maybe all this aggression she shows is protectiveness as well as a sense of rejection. It doesn’t make it all right, but it makes her behavior a lot more human and understandable.
I still can’t sympathize with her… That means she abandoned him when he needed her the most. The same thing kind of happened to me; I was dumped as I was going through one of my depressions. He knew what was going on, and instead of attempting to help me and understand my condition, he abandoned me. On one hand it’s for the best, you shouldn’t be with someone who can’t support you, but I still can’t condone abandoning someone who obviously is crying for help.
On the flip side, my friend had a serious boyfriend for 4 years who was a drug addict, and he was only pleasant when he wasnhigh. Every time she tried to leave him, he’d swear he’d commit suicide and he couldn’t handle life without her, and she thought she needed to stay with him for aupport. Trouble was that much stress and responsibility was draining her to the point she was having break downs, and she had to leave him. He didn’t commit suicide, btw, but the bottom line is you should not be responsible for another’s well being like that. That is asking A LOT. I don’t know what you were like and I won’t make assumptions but I know from experience trying to take care of someone who is incredibly low and is doing things to themselves that are hurting them is incredibly traumatic not everyone is equipped to handle it. Not everyone is a therapist or a saint. I’m sorry you got dropped in your time of need but I don’t neccesarilly blame your friend, just like I’m not blaming Chris’s ex so much anymore. Also, she had her kids to think about, seeing their dad like that probably would’ve fucked them up, this might have been the time he was with the abusive domme who didn’t know when to stop, or worse did know and didn’t care.
It is not abandoning if she continually told him she was uncomfortable with it, and he did not keep promises. It doesn’t matter *what* state of mind he is. In fact, given they had children she had all the more right to kick him out if she felt his lifestyle choice was bleeding into their home (metaphorically). There’s an interesting letter in Savage Love this week that is along the same lines, and Mr. Love addressed well. http://www.thestranger.com/columns/savage-love/2015/06/24/22433085/savage-love
It is the responsibility of the adult who needs help to seek it—not his/her partner. If you are worried about your partner doing something bad to his/her self, call 911 and/or their family members/friends. To stay in a miserable, incompatible relationship, because you feel you have to *fix* someone does neither person a favor. That’s codependence, and it’s very unhealthy. BTDT. Never. Again.
If Chris asked her to help/was actively seeking help on his own accord? That’d be different, but it sounds like he wasn’t communicating to her about it much at all—nor made any effort to make changes with his life on his own. For this alone, she had the right to walk—for her sake and the sake of her kids.
But even if Chris did talk to her (which I doubt given he didn’t bother to tell his asexual about his welts before disrobing), his wife had a choice not to want to be involved with someone heavily into BDSM. It’s not even necessarily a matter of being “close-minded,” but how people are wired. I have gone to parties with dungeons in the basement. Have I gone into the basement and watch? Once (I was invited and curious), but it’s not my thing. Do I judge people who do it? Not at all. Would I want a relationship with a man or woman who did it regularly and heavily enough to leave marks on their skin. No way!
Sure these people may know what they are doing enough not to permanently harm themselves, but I have seen enough physical pain in my past that I really don’t care to see someone close to me heavily get off on it—all the more so if we had (or were planning to have) kids and interfered with our marriage and his/her parenting abilities (and anything that screws with your marriage badly will impact your children negatively).
Chris’ wife does come off as hoity-toity and mean, but given this back story, I could see it being just armor. Deep down she hurts and feels a justifiable jealousy and resentment that goes miles deep—because Chris crossed a number of lines and was so horrible about communicating to her. It may have been different between them if he had. They’d still be divorced probably, but she might not be so angry.
Rol and Dotcom, you both make very good points. The whole situation has a lot of fine lines, to be sure. I didn’t mean it to come out as she should be responsible for Chris, but it also doesn’t sound like she gave him much of a chance, either. I never expected my ex to “fix” me (as a matter of fact, he tried, and that made things worse and I told him so), but a little understanding could have gone a long way.
As far as the fact they have children makes it tougher for sure – I definitely wouldn’t want someone so self-destructive around my kids, but I’d probably rather do a separation, hope that they get better and move on from there, again it just seems like the moment she found out anything she dumped him.
I don’t know if you meant to write pervet instead of pervert but, I had to look it up:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pervet
I chuckled.
Or possibly Pervect?
+1 to continuity for showing a tiny bit of Chris’s injuries as he bends over to fill the bathtub.
From what we know now, it may well be that Chris’s wife’s primary reason to leave was to protect her kids from confusion about whether hurt is good.
I imagine that if you get into abusive structures before you’ve fully explored your own likes and dislikes, and before you’ve reached the maturity to tell apart kink from abuse, a parent who loves to ache can be massively confusing. This very bathroom scene shows that the issue can just happen to surface and doesn’t have to remain hidden until explicitly addressed.
And I’ve known enough helicopter moms to understand that the breakup doesn’t necessarily have to have been about the couple itself at this point.
It reminds me of mother lion images. Maybe that’s why she’s so angry. His preferences, from her view, are a threat to “the cub”, and she forgets everything around herself.
But that’s just theory.
Interesting field of thought at this point. Chris is a father. What difference does it make? Is there anyone around who’s experienced with the double role (parent and phsyically masochist)? What special treatment of the subject (or consequences, like injuries) do your children require?
Child of a masochist here! When I hit the age where I was getting sex ed, my parents addressed that the most important thing is consent. I didn’t know what it was at the beginning, but basically they taught me RACK–you should know what you’re doing; your partner(s) should know what y’all are doing, and everyone should want what is happening to happen.
Beyond that, it was basically down to, “Some people like things that include pain. It’s okay if you don’t like that, and okay if you do, and okay if you do or don’t want to include it in your play regardless. Your partners should respect that, and you should respect your partners in the same way.”
Oh wow—how interesting! Was that conversation strange to you (beyond tweens/teens finding parents talking about sex uncomfortable)?
It sounds like your parents were responsible and had a good sense of boundaries. I am not sure if Chris really was at the time he and his wife split—especially since he probably wasn’t a very good communicator (even still—though he’s at least talking to Anwar *now*).
Been there. I had my suicide all planned out. Turns out fear can be a good thing, though, and I ended up taking in a couple of friends as a reason to keep living. Then it turned out they were using me, lying to me, and one of them was even stealing from me. Which made me more depressed than ever.
When I started to focus on myself, advocating for myself, and getting in touch with myself, that’s when things started to turn around.
oh man, that’s an awful time to find out your friends are a bunch of losers :( i hope you’re feeling better now and that you’ve got a good network of support!
Long time reader’s first post. That Catholic guilt is what got me to stop lurking. Tab, you’re spot on with that representation. For those not raised this way, educationally, it’s incredible the degree of material kids get. For instance, I went to a public school for a single year due to an abrupt move and felt I regressed 3-4 years.
As for psychologically, the faith is used as a double edged sword wielded by the school during the weekdays and the clergy on the weekends. It’s VERY akin to having divorced parents. Mine are still together but I’ve have enough friends with them to be able to help cope. Normal classes are mixed together with an ever present sense of big brother’s watching. A sort of all purpose fill for teachers to praise children’s achievements and scold for their mistakes. Each instance is buffeted by the flying spaghetti monster’s…..I MEAN CATHOLIC GOD, SORRY, ability to allow into heaven based usually just upon a biased merit system.
THAT is just one aspect of it.