Couples--For Better or For Worse

Summary:

Someone once suggested that before couples have children they should take a test to qualify them. That may be too late--they should be tested before they even become a couple.

Is it fate or do people just choose to screw up their lives on purpose?

Article:

In the early 1940's a guy, Frank, and a girl, Emma, are introduced at a dance in a whistle stop in the Midwest. Emma is the daughter of a reasonably prosperous farmer. She has a sister and four brothers--none of them completed grade school. Frank is the son of a not so prosperous farmer, failed entrepreneur, small time crook and communist sympathizer. Frank has one younger brother and six sisters. Frank never made it past third grade.

They have a roll in the hay and have to get married. With help from Emma's parents they buy a small farm. The baby, a girl, is stillborn, but Emma is immediately pregnant and gives birth to a boy. The farm produces very little income so during the winter Frank leaves Emma and baby alone for months at a time to find work at logging camps.

Emma looks after the farm and livestock on her own. Her brothers are quite lazy and do little enough on their own farm never mind help her on her little bit of acreage that almost borders her parent's farm. Emma has always been bitter about the boys. She feels they received preferential treatment and that she and her sister did all of the hard work. She actually hates men, and now she has a baby boy whom she treats like a girl.

Frank's sisters dislike Emma. They think that she thinks she is too good for them, and they are right. When Frank comes home Emma complains, cries and throws anger fits. Frank is a devil may care guy and lives for today. She and the boy stay with her parents often when Frank is away and sometimes when he is home.

Frank drinks a lot of home brew--that his dad, also a bootlegger--produces from a homemade still. He is not an alcoholic, but he likes to drink and cavort with his buddies. Emma disapproves and is already becoming a bitter, no fun at all, unreasonable woman.

At age two, Frank's brother and one of Emma's brothers get the boy stoned on home brew, they think it's pretty funny, but the overdose of alcohol stays with the boy for several days, Emma nearly freaks out, and when Frank gets home blames him because he wasn't there.

An arsonist sets fire to their winter hay, the barn goes with it, Emma moves in with her parents until Frank returns. They decide to move to the nearby city. Once there they live in unheated walk ups. They fight over money daily. Frank, now a long distance trucker is gone for weeks at a time. Sometimes Emma will not let him back in the door.

The boy witnesses this unhealthy behavior, he is not yet seven, the age by which psychologists claim his personality will be formed. His mother is also overprotective. Emma is a clean freak--his room is always spotless, furnished with adult furniture and decorated with doilies and other finery made by Emma.

This constant fighting between Emma and Frank continues, the usual subject is money--Frank wants to live a little, but Emma has become a frightened, miserly, no fun at all skinflint. The boy is not allowed comic books, toys or anything else that brings childhood pleasure. His mother is a cheapskate and probably a little unbalanced.

By the age of fourteen, the boy starts to drink, stay out late, carouse, skip school and is a petty thief. He is constantly in trouble and his rebellion is over the top. The parents, especially the mother, cannot cope and they blame the kid for everything. They do not take responsibility and are more concerned about themselves and what others may think than about the boy, who is now suffering from periods of depression.

Frank and Emma stay together for over sixty years arguing daily, both feel victimized. Frank, a hypochondriac with every disease known to man dies at age eighty-seven. Emma, now a bit of a nut-ball, is still alive in her nineties. Their boy is another story altogether.

We can see from the get-go that this couple should never have become a couple. But they did stick it out, for better or for worse.

Author:

Joseph N. Kolton is a seasoned entrepreneur, author, humorist, closet philosopher and the founder of myPhotoLottery.com and PhotoBrainiac.com, http://www.myphotolottery.com/couple.html

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