Carol, I'm just replying on this so you don't misunderstand what I was trying to say.
You walked off, instead of fighting for an immediate re-marriage…. But I think you may be telling us that you later regretted walking off.
No, sorry, Ann, that wasn't my intent. I only used that personal experience to show that something as ugly as a divorce can't just be shrugged aside and forgotten instantly, no matter how much you love your spouse. It causes real, terrible pain that has to be gotten over before rebuilding the relationship can begin.
But, Sheila, it seems to me that you have repeatedly told Carol that she should re-write her story and change Lois's behaviour.
That hasn't been my intention. I have requested additional scenes to show the positive sides of the characters' behavior (both Lois's
and Clark's) or to explain their changed feelings, but my intention has never been to have Carol change what she's already written. For example, if Lois falls in love with Clark while he's being a b*stard to her because he's so good-looking and so good with their son, it makes her look shallow or masochistic. But if Carol includes a scene from Lois's POV where Clark is playing with the baby and being so kind and friendly to her as well, then the reader goes, "Yeah, I can see why she'd fall for him."
I get the impression that you have been slamming this story to the point that you have insisted that Lois's behaviour is intolerable and needs to be changed.
Carol, I hope that isn't the way it comes across, but if it is, I'm sorry because it isn't my intent. After my first post, I've just tried to respond by telling you how the characters or situations make me feel. It's up to you to decide whether that reaction is what you want some of your readers to have or not.
It seems to me that Sheila is saying that if a man wants to leave his wife, it is up to the wife to fight for her marriage and make her husband stay. If he leaves her anyway, it is the wife's fault, because she didn't fight for him hard enough.
Sorry, Ann, I have never, not for one moment, thought anything remotely like that. Not about my own marriage, not about anyone else's marriage, not about any fictional marriage. I only mentioned my own divorce and remarriage in response to Sara's song quote, "If you love someone, you've got to let them go," to explain that I know experientially what it means and that it's not the same thing Lois was doing.
