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Stirrings
I have often looked back and tried to identify a moment at which my marriage irretrievably foundered and I turned from the conventional, discontented wifelet into the swinger that I am today, but, of course, there is no such convenient Damascene conversion, just a succession of apparently unrelated and trivial events which, in the end, constituted an unanswerable argument.
In June of that year, my sister-in-law came to stay for six weeks. That contributed at once to my recognition of problems which now seem obvious and to my awareness that those problems were not exclusive to memy problems were widespread – even commonplace - and that to be needed was necessary. Carrie was just finishing her second year at university. She was deep in debt and in a state of profound emotional confusion.
She had a long history of self-harming.
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Her family, bemused and therefore irritated, simply told her to stop being silly. A year ago, I might have done the same.
Now, I found that I related to her. I recognised myself in her. We sat up smoking and wittering night after night. I was aware when she was lying to me or seeking to exploit me and was able to tease her into truthfulness. I obtained a job for her at our office, retained all her pay and covered her costs.
Suddenly, whilst Carrie was there, supplying a purpose to our existence and distracting us from our oppressively but inadequately mutually dependent existence, we were happy. It was a hot summer. We enjoyed working together and, in our leisure time, walked the dog to country pubs, caught live music wherever we could and spent a couple of long weekends in Cornwall.
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