Archers thread #165: Bridge over troubled waters! Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you believe Rochelle exists, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please! We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/5071889-the-archers-spoilers-thread-9-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

This thread may well fill up as fast as the last one, so let's just get stuck in!

Well now he’s announced it to the world there’s nothing stopping him talking to someone about it

She had a coil. Which would prevent the implantation of a fertilised egg. As Harrison should know.

Except it doesn't, as she and Harrison would know.

The Doctor did say that it ( miscarriage)was unlikely to have been caused by the accident, and that there are many causes of miscarriage.
A fetus is pretty well buffered by amniotic fluid , and yes, it’s very unlikely that such an early pregnancy would be dislodged by an accident as the Dr implied.

Considering Fallon always saying she doesn’t want children though, Harrison was foolish to think he might be a Dad. She would definitely have wanted to terminate that pregnancy. He needs to realise that. There was never going to be a baby.

Also, tubal litigation isn’t an easy thing to get. With so many other methods of contraception, it’s unlikely it would have been made available for Fallon at her age.

In the 'meh' episode earlier in the week, I really enjoyed the insight into Pip's mothering style, particularly when she said she had good intentions to feed the ducks on the way to school, but the reality was rushing out the door at the last minute.
I know I'm unusual here, but I always thought Ruth was a great role model of a 'good enough' mother balancing family life alongside her career and I think Pip is similar.

I imagine Harrison thought he WAS ok with not being a dad, and that his powerful feelings about Fallon’s short lived pregnancy have taken him massively by surprise.

I do have sympathy for Harrison. He is allowed to have strong feelings about it all, it's just that I feel much more sympathy for Fallon. Harrison has steamrollered his way through the whole thing, making her pregnancy and miscarriage more about his feelings about it than hers, not acting respectfully of her clearly expressed need for a few days of privacy about it, and acting aggressively towards Fallon's best friend, even in the face of Fallon begging him not to and trying to tell him that he's got the wrong end of the stick. She's far more deserving of my sympathy about the whole situation than he is right now IMO, although I hold capacity to have sympathy for them both.

Has anybody speculated yet that a near future drunk Alice will complain to Harrison's boss about his aggression to her and that that will be the straw that loses him his job?

He should have the ability to talk to process his feelings about it all, but ultimately her need for privacy about what has happened with her own body does trump his need to talk. A bit like the fact that the baby would have been both of theirs, but that she would have always had the ultimate power of decision over whether to continue with it or to terminate, because the pregnancy is her body, not theirs. In a real life and emotionally stable couple, I would hope that they would have realised that counselling with a professional (not clergyman friend) would have been a good way to have met both of their needs.

@ThatLibraryDebate Ooooh that's a good job loss twist. I had thought that Harrison was going to beat George up once the truth came out but that's much more boring.

There is a similar storyline in an old TV drama I am rewatching at the moment. The father/partner cannot get over his wife continuing to be adamant as she always has been that she does not want to be a mother and wanting (and eventually going ahead with) the termination of an accidental pregnancy.

He apparently thought she'd "grow up" over time and "realise that she wanted to be a mother" after all. He weeps and wails that she's not taking his feelings into account, that this baby is half his and that they can think of a way to make it work, he would go part time to help look after the kid etc etc.

She ultimately makes the decision to terminate the pregnancy and he goes on about her having killed his baby.

I have sympathy for the men who desperately want the future child that a termination removes, but my exasperation with that series as well as with this TA storyline is that it's never really acknowledged that women need to have the deciding vote over whether to continue an unplanned pregnancy or not. It's her body, not theirs, and her life that is at risk with continuing with a pregnancy and birth, not theirs. It's her who is at risk of pregnancy related health deterioration, which may or may not have lasting effects, her who will maybe need an episiotomy, potentially experience urinary and faecal incontinence afterwards. It's her who will need to take a career break to recover from the birth even if nothing more to do with caring for the baby, and let's face it it's highly likely that it's her career, pension pot, earning potential, and time and energy that is most likely to be affected for the next 18+ years, even with a father who promises the earth and may even deliver at least some of it.

I haven’t listened to last night’s episode yet, but I feel very sorry for both Fallon and Harrison. Harrison has, objectively, behaved very badly, but I think he is so upset that he can’t think straight and wants to lash out. Fallon, quite understandably, can’t be around his emotional incontinence while suffering the after-effects of the crash and everything else. She desperately needs breathing space and time to process stuff on her own, not being forced to manage all his emotions as well as hers.

They have both been put under a lot of strain thanks to Alice’s appalling judgement and behaviour, and while Harrison’s work problems were his own fault, Alice made it worse. Unlike Fallon, Harrison does not have a lifetime of friendship with Alice to buffer the impact she has had on his life.

I hope that after some time to recover, their marriage will survive, but Harrison’s wish to be a father is evidently much stronger than he knew.

Alternatively: Harrison tells his boss he's struggling with the miscarriage (and maybe mentions his wife nearly dying) and she comes over to offer support. While Harrison is making tea a well meaning Fallon mentions his rage incident, assuming that he has already told his boss about it and that this is the reason she is worried about his mental health. Taken off guard, Fallon discloses how scary he was, and that it involved Alice, and that's all his boss needs to make the final decision to end his career. He may or may not be advised to retire quietly rather than face dismissal.

VoxPop
Wasn’t it said in another post that Fallon had said she would want children later. If so it must be difficult for him as presumably in too deep by the time she changed her mind.

I think that applied to Alice, not to Fallon. Fallon as far as I know never wanted children; Alice havered and said "maybe" a lot.

I'm going to get a bit cross now but it's not aimed at you @echt , it's a general howl of frustration.

YOU try going to the doctors or seeing a nurse and telling them that you don't want to be a mother and you'd like to manage that properly by making sure it can't happen. You know, being responsible about it all. YOU try telling them that yes, you're only in your 30s (or, God forbid, 20s) but you do actually know your own mind and no, you definitely don't want children.

See how far you get.

Because I - and a hell of a lot of other women - have been there. And we've been sent away with not so much as a sniff of a consultation on the matter because "You might change your mind". "Lots of women say that at your age and go on to have children". "Your husband might want kids" (as if that's the final bloody word on the matter, what the man in your life wants!).

Quite aside from the issue that it's a medical procedure with attendant risks, woman just are not listened to even if they want sterilisation.

As you were.

“Considering Fallon always saying she doesn’t want children though, Harrison was foolish to think he might be a Dad. She would definitely have wanted to terminate that pregnancy. He needs to realise that. There was never going to be a baby”

I think we are being as presumptuous as Harrison (without the excuse of much skin in the game or desperate wishful thinking) if we are trying to dictate the way another person would have definitely reacted, especially to changed circumstances.

We could say it seems most likely, given her previous decision, but as already explained by another poster with similar experience, it is not unknown for a women to change her mind and that is of course her prerogative. Just like Harrison seems to have done when rather than refraining from initiating a pregnancy, thought there was a potential child, his child, already growing.

So of course Fallons decision, not for us to imprint on her, nor even at the end of the day, for the potential father, however it might rip them apart if they basically see it as their child being destroyed and totally powerless to protect it.

Of course generally the object of all this angst (actually usually a lot more than a few cells, with a beating heart and potentially much more) has no choice at all and that is just the way it is.

Tough stuff all round

And considering Fallon's decision against having children, shouldn't she have had her tubes tied, or whatever they do the days?

They don't do anything these days. Our NHS trust doesn't fund female or male sterilisation. Batshit really, they'll continue to fund my ongoing contraception (and potentially abortion or pregnancy), rather than fund a far cheaper vasectomy for DH (cheaper once you take into account the years of contraception, and definitely cheaper than a pregnancy).

And i imagine private female sterilisation isn't easy to get either.

Right, back to the Archers. I do feel sorry for Harrison...to a degree. He clearly desperately wants children and - like so many men - just assumed that all women do too. He found himself at the sharp end of a dilemma when the woman he loves said she didn't want to be a mother. He thought he could live with it.

Suddenly there's an actual potential baby and he has - wrongly, I suspect - tried to assume that Fallon would want it now it had happened, or at the very least he'd have been able to talk her into keeping it (I can hear it now: "But a baby is a blessing..." and all the attendant promises that he'll do all the work).

But he's allowed his feelings to blind him to everything else. Fallon had a near-death experience and is absolutely traumatised by nearly drowning, and now all he seems to really care about is the pregnancy. Like many women I suspect she's realised with horror that her partner may see her as a baby-producing machine first and a human partner second.

Fallon has respected Harrison's feelings as far as I can hear, because she knows how much he would have wanted that pregnancy. But he hasn't respected hers because he attacked Alice verbally (and almost physically) and in doing so told the world what Fallon desperately wanted to keep secret. And he certainly hasn't respected her view that she doesn't want children because that would mean acknowledging the ginormous elephant in the room: would Fallon have kept the baby?

I suspect Harrison/the situation will push her until she snaps and tells him that she wouldn't have had it anyway.

I take it by everyone else's silence that I'm the only one to have found the marriage advice from the oft-married-and-divorced Pirate J-Lo of Ambridge low key hilarious?

Sorry, I have spent too much time with teenagers recently. I did genuinely find that scene quite amusing though, as well as being glad that Fallon has someone to actually listen to and support her.

Not really. Wayne, Sid, Kenton. She split up with Wayne. Happily married to Sid, but he died. Now happily married to Kenton. I will concede that she and Sid ended his marriage to Kathy by their affair. Kenton's relationship with Kathy ended before he and Jolene paired off, IIRC.

Fink
I take it by everyone else's silence that I'm the only one to have found the marriage advice from the oft-married-and-divorced Pirate J-Lo of Ambridge low key hilarious?

I thought about that one, and realised that Jennifer had the same number of children born outside marriage, the same number of marriages, one more divorce and more on-air affairs than Jolene!

@Fink I thought both scenes with Fallon and Pirate were rather lovely. It made me miss my late DM although I suspect the chances of my needing to turn to her about a near drowning car crash and an accidental pregnancy any time soon are rather remote even were she still with us... 🤣

To be fair, I also would have laughed at the idea of marriage counselling from Jennifer. I think she was great, and sorely missed, but ultimately not someone whose matrimonial experience I'd like to have had.

Jolene is probably a lot better qualified to give relationship support than someone who hasn’t had troubles in their own marriages.

Giving support doesn’t come naturally to Jolene. Except when he’s nearly had a bollock bitten off, she undermines her husband at every opportunity. And she seemed to be going out of her way to sympathise with Burns rather than accept what Fallon was telling her at face value.

I hope that Alice goes to London with Ruaaarggghhhri and starts fresh. With regular contact with Martha and maybe a chance to back to her engineering career. She gets a flat and Fallon comes to live there too as a flat mate. They don’t need the men in their lives controlling their reproduction (thank you very much PC Plod) and they are too young and dynamic to stay in bloody Ambridge.