I was surprised by how many friends and colleagues were getting divorced in their fifties. The reasons all seemed the same. Here's a composite from real conversations, that captures the essence of many of them:
My first contact was with him:
Him: "I was taken completely by surprise. I thought our marriage was fine."
Later, I ran into her:
Her: "The marriage had been going downhill for a long time. For years I told him that things needed to change or I would leave. I told him what I couldn't put up with. He wouldn't listen. It was as though I were talking to a wall."
The next time I saw him:
Me: "You said you were completely surprised. But she says she's been telling you for years that there were problems, and that she would leave if things didn't change. Are you saying that's not true?"
Him: "No, it's true. But she never left, so I didn't believe her."
I'm reminded of this when I think about some of the reactions to women who point out things that are illegal or problematic. When the media paid a lot of attention to a story about sexual harassment by a Berkeley professor, someone worriedly told me, "But Alice, a lot of what he did were things many of us have been doing for years."
I wanted to say (and I should have said), "Yes, we've been telling you it's wrong and should stop, but you wouldn't listen."
I'm continually astonished by the willful cluelessness of those who say "If only you had said something sooner, we would have done something about it before it came to this!"
We did say something. Over and over. (Some of my own examples are in the stories I've been posting.) We tried every possible way to tell you.
We tried being direct.
We tried being subtle.
We tried being angry.
We tried being professional.
We tried pleading and crying.
We tried being funny.
We tried being witty.
They (you?) told us we were prudish, or uptight, or overreacting, or stupid, or nagging, or lying, or crazy. They (you?) were dismissive or angry.
Some of the "surprise" at this year's protests against racism and police brutality toward Blacks strikes me as a similar kind of cluelessness. They (you?) didn't realize that the U.S. has a long history of racism? They (you?) didn't notice the years of discrimination, segregation, police brutality, protests, riots, media reports, books, and other writings that came before?
Is such cluelessness innocent and harmless, or has it been part of the problem? And what should we do about it?