Dear Fatty - Dawn French....with hindsight

[whatkungfuthat]

Not sure if this is the best place for this but I've just finished reading the book and found it desperately sad that after everything she wrote about and to Lenny in it that they separated. There is a fair bit mentioned about the incident with another woman, both directly and indirectly and anyone reading it at the time it was first released would think it had been dealt with and that they had moved on.

It doesn't look that way at all now, sadly. It made me wonder if 'it' (infidelity, whether emotional or actual) always finishes you off as a couple in the end? Of course, this may not be the reason that they ended their marriage but the incident got a lot of space in the book considering it happened over ten years before the book was written.

Love Dawn French. She's amazing and wish her all the best. Personally I think that once the trust has been betrayed in a relationship you never get it back in the same way again. Knowing that someone can decieve you, hurt you and not care about your feelings, and then say that they love you is very destructive IMO. Maybe by writing about it Dawn was processing it and trying to work her feelings and foundations out.

I think she's got a new partner and hope she's happy.

Yes I hope so too. Reading it knowing what had happened since was desperately sad. It made me think that if something like that can happen to a couple who seem so happy and have been together so long, then can anyone ever really get over it? I have read a few threads on here about moving on and forgiving lately but in my case (20-odd yrs ago) I didn't even try and I have sometimes wondered what would have happened if I had stayed.

I agree she is amazing.

I think lots of people assume that the break-up was related to that incident, but although the couple have never said why their marriage ended (and there's no reason why they should IMO) the media has always suggested that the break-up was at Lenny's behest, not Dawn's. In the book, Dawn also alludes to her own indiscretions so I don't think this was the catalyst everyone thinks it was. I think what made it more horrific for her though, was the press intrusion and finding out via them and not her husband. She says in the book that the press also lied about lots of things and that added to their pain.

I felt sad when they broke up because they'd overcome so much together and they both seem like lovely people. But my take on it is that the romantic relationship had just run its course and nothing more sinister than that. If the alleged infidelity had been a deal-breaker, this would have happened ten years earlier in my view.

I read her novel recently, the husband in that is basically 'Len'. And she dedicates the book to him.

I think they're both happy and have enduring love and respect for each other, while no longer wishing to be a couple.

Nice work if you can get it, as my mum would say.

It made me wonder if 'it' (infidelity, whether emotional or actual) always finishes you off as a couple in the end?

Not necessarily. My dad had an affair about 30 years ago. Mum threw him out but they did patch things up over the course of a year and for all intensive purposes are happy together today in their 70's.