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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Erato on Saturday 04 May 19 05:43 BST (UK)
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Mother testifies on daughter's behalf in divorce trial:
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That's a bit rough isn't it!! ::) :-X
;D ;D ;D
Wiggy
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The mother obviously didn't want the daughter to get married but what an awful thing to say
Louisa Maud
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She was either being brutally honest or she had a much better idea of the fiancée's character than her daughter did.
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That is what I thought Mike, sometimes Mother knows best :)
Cheers
KHP
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I think it sounds like such a hurtful thing to say. I am acutely aware of how ugly I am but it still hurts when someone feels the need to point it out. It would hurt even more if it was my Mum who said it.
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No one is ugly. If people would only look beyond the outer shell and see the beauty within.
Mother possibly knew best but I am pleased she was not my mum :o :o
Dorrie
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No one is ugly. If people would only look beyond the outer shell and see the beauty within.
Mother possibly knew best but I am pleased she was not my mum :o :o
Dorrie
Some of us have no internal beauty either.
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I give the mother the benefit of the doubt and say she was deliberately trying to put the chap off.
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"I think it sounds like such a hurtful thing to say. I am acutely aware of how ugly I am but it still hurts when someone feels the need to point it out. It would hurt even more if it was my Mum who said it."
Pharma, please don't think like that, we all have qualities and it doesn't matter about good looks, look within ones self, I am no oil painting but I don't mind, why on earth should people even tell anyone how ugly they are, so Pharma, think good about yourself
Pharma, what about helping others, you must spend a lot of time helping others on Rootschat, isn't that a good quality
Louisa Maud
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I think it sounds like such a hurtful thing to say.
Definitely. Let's not derail the thread by talking about ourselves though, however ugly or otherwise we think we are!
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One of the many reasons I love trawling through the newspaper archives ;D
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My grandmother's sister was apparently a "cripple" (in calipers?) who was "no good for the family" and was cast out... upon marrying, her husband proved violent and knocked her about... she managed to make a plea to her father who apparently came to the house and "sorted him out".
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I wonder whether it was a cunning bit of reverse psychology and she really didn't believe that he was a suitable match for her Daughter!
Carol
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I think she was pretty long sighted.
The phrase “ a face only a mother could love” springs to mind,brutal though the truth was ,she was proved right.
In the long run all in her daughter’s best interest perhaps.
It takes a lot of love sometimes to be so frank , tough love.
I am grateful I was just ordinary, no conditions that make life so hard for those who are unfortunate and do have them.
Now had I been a gorgeous beauty ,I might , in the words of women where I used to live,” Have gone bad ways!”
Wonder what that would have been like?
At least I do not look in the mirror and regret the looks I have lost,cos I never had any.
Viktoria.
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I think she was pretty long sighted.
The phrase “ a face only a mother could love” springs to mind,brutal though the truth was ,she was proved right.
In the long run all in her daughter’s best interest perhaps.
It takes a lot of love sometimes to be so frank , tough love.
I am grateful I was just ordinary, no conditions that make life so hard for those who are unfortunate and do have them.
Now had I been a gorgeous beauty ,I might , in the words of women where I used to live,” Have gone bad ways!”
Wonder what that would have been like?
At least I do not look in the mirror and regret the looks I have lost,cos I never had any.
Viktoria.
I don't think it was in her daughter's best interests. Saying something like that would push her towards her fiancé in my opinion. It also provided him with another possible way to be verbally abusive, e.g. "even your mum says you're ugly"
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At least the young lady escaped, and hopefully went on to meet a new man,and had a happy life. ( and realised mums in desperation sometimes have to resort to what appears to be unkind comments)
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I don't think it was in her daughter's best interests. Saying something like that would push her towards her fiancé in my opinion.
I disagree. We are only told that the words were spoken to the suitor, not the daughter - tho she would have heard them in court during the proceedings. I can't really imagine a fond mother saying that to her daughter directly. It will have been a ploy which didn't work. What date was it - parents probably tried harder to direct marriages in those days.
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That newspaper article says "she was not good looking enough for him"
To my mind that doesn't mean she was ugly but maybe not a raving beauty that her mother thought that the suitor would have married.
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I do feel sorry for that poor girl who would have heard her Mother's surely, hurtful comment. I think such a comment must have caused a gasp from the court at the time.
Perhaps if this was the Mother's general attitude then this is what might have contributed to the daughter falling for an abusive man. Daughter might have felt low self esteem and unworthy of anything better.
Perhaps it might have been better if the Mother had said in court that she had felt that the man was shallow in his values and might not appreciate her daughter as those who truly loved her did. She could have added that she had raised her concerns with him about this prior to the marriage.
I know though this fall into the category of 'could have/would have/should have'.
It also might have been that the Mother may have been on the autism spectrum. Some people with an autism condition can be brutally honest in voicing what they think with little awareness about the impact that certain comments may have.
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I do feel sorry for that poor girl who would have heard her Mother's surely, hurtful comment. I think such a comment must have caused a gasp from the court at the time.
Perhaps if this was the Mother's general attitude then this is what might have contributed to the daughter falling for an abusive man. Daughter might have felt low self esteem and unworthy of anything better.
Perhaps it might have been better if the Mother had said in court that she had felt that the man was shallow in his values and might not appreciate her daughter as those who truly loved her did. She could have added that she had raised her concerns with him about this prior to the marriage.
I know though this fall into the category of 'could have/would have/should have'.
It also might have been that the Mother may have been on the autism spectrum. Some people with an autism condition can be brutally honest in voicing what they think with little awareness about the impact that certain comments may have.
I agree with you lass and I fear an abusive man would have repeated back to her what her mum had said to isolate her from her mum and to put her down.
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'Mothers'
what do we learn from them ??
to teach our own in a totally different way in my case?
however
what ever we say always always - they find their own way - and Peer / marital pressure will out.
xin
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Yes, isolating people from those who truly have their best interests at heart
is a classic strategy used by those who try to control other people.
Next move is it is all the victim’s own fault and they believe it.
Then they deserve to be punished,humiliated and demeaned.
The victim really starts to believe it to the extent they start to feel neglected if they have not been verbally or physically abused for some time.
Those with autism can not be false,they speak the truth as they do not really understand subterfuge and lies,even to saying thank you for a gift they do not like,they can’t do it.
But what honest ,fair people,
Stirling characters.We have one such in our family ,born before Autism or in their case Asperger’s Syndrome was invented!
Still not formally diagnosed but all the signs are there.
The plus side outweighs the negative.
To get back on topic,we do not know it all ,but on the face of it the mother was brutal,but in her defence she obviously had the measure of her son in law.
Poor daughter,looking at the best of this ,it is possible her daughter was not the type the s in l liked,mother could see what the outcome would be.
She spoke up in defence of her daughter’s well being and was proved correct.
It is a bit like saying to a friend “ does this suit me? “ and being told by a true friend that it didn’t,whereas a false friend would say it did.
Poor Mum would be wrong either way.
Would the mother’s comments be even published today?
Viktoria.
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Whether it was expressed well or not, it seems to me that the mother was trying to say to the suitor that she doubted his motives for marrying.
If he was particularly good looking and the daughter was not (not necessarily ugly but just not as handsome as the suitor), then she wondered why he had chosen the daughter when he would have had his pick of the crop (so to speak).
I see him as a good-looking villain, and the daughter was attracted by his good looks.
And so - it seems - it was proved.
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"Mother may have been on the autism spectrum."
Yikes! That seem like a long stretch from what is just an amusing 1914 news article from rural Ohio.
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In truth none of us know the reasons why the mother should say such a thing, unless someone is following this for their own family history we may never know, but never the less it is sad thing to say, she had her reasons
Louisa Maud
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Well, Mr. Fenn [the husband that everyone here assumes was a cad], was probably an incredibly distant in-law, somehow related to Mary Fenn, the wife of gg-uncle Robert. It was a small town and there were several branches of the Fenn family living there since the mid 1800s. I don't think I'll bother to work out the relationship, though - it's too far afield even for me. So whether Mrs. Fenn really was unattractive or whether her mother really was on the 'autism spectrum' we'll never know. Of course, it's also possible that the mother's testimony was misrepresented by a spiteful or mischievous small town newspaper reporter.
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Of course, it's also possible that the mother's testimony was misrepresented by a spiteful or mischievous small town newspaper reporter.
Fake news even then!
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;D ;D
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Yes, I agree that it might be a long stretch that the Mother may have been on the autism spectrum.
However, I was just trying to introduce another possible angle regarding why such a seemingly insensitive comment may have been made. Some people on the autism spectrum can have difficulties with being able to empathise and consider things from another person's perspective. They might say what they think with no real understanding that certain comments might be hurtful. If this was the case here - and again I agree this might be a long stretch - the Mother might have just been saying what popped in her head with no intention to hurt her daughter's feelings.
We will never really be able to know based on one small article. It could well be that her actual words were misrepresented. Or that these were her words, made with the best of intentions but expressed insensitively.
If these were really her words, I still don't think that this was the best thing to say in her daughter's best interest. I think it would have been better to have focussed on his behaviour rather than any possible shortcoming on the part of the daughter. Mother could have given any number of examples to highlight her sense that he was not a good match .. he stood her up, he was non-supportive, he didn't listen/show interest, he was lazy, critical, bad tempered, violent, etc. .. The daughter, perhaps blinded by love might have still gone on to marry him and may have told Mother that she didn't want to hear anymore against him. In such a scenario, Mother could say that she had said her bit and would say no more. Then if/when things went pear shaped she (ideally) would be there to support daughter and daughter might realise that Mother had shown tough love in her best interests .. and still be able to emerge with self esteem still intact.
I agree too that such a comment would be good ammunition for an abusive person to use to isolate and belittle. Perhaps in the way of 'even your Mother doesn't care for you she told me you were not good enough for me .. I don't want you to have anymore to do with her, she criticises us both. Then again your Mother was right, you aren't good enough for me, I could have married a much more good looking girl but I settled for you ...'
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I agree too that such a comment would be good ammunition for an abusive person to use to isolate and belittle. Perhaps in the way of 'even your Mother doesn't care for you she told me you were not good enough for me .. I don't want you to have anymore to do with her, she criticises us both. Then again your Mother was right, you aren't good enough for me, I could have married a much more good looking girl but I settled for you ...'
That is exactly the things I was thinking of when I said that what the mother said could be used by an abuser. It wouldn't have mattered if she had heard the original conversation, abusers will snatch on anything that allows them to abuse and control their victim. They will also twist the motive behind what was said so if she had his measure she should have been very careful not to give him any ammo.
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She was either being brutally honest or she had a much better idea of the fiancée's character than her daughter did.
I agree the mother was not referring to her daughter, but referring to her fiancée's chauvinist requirements of a woman.
Cheers
Guy