Posted by fair user Heloise_of_Paris in the hour of terce:
Title: Feeling abandoned by my husband; unsure of the proper path.
To make a long tale brief: my former lawful husband coerced me into abandoning our marriage and entering a monastery. I feel miserable and cast aside, yet he has not reached out to me to offer consolation or words of wisdom. It recently came to my knowledge that he has complained about me and despaired of our situation behind my back to a friend! I cannot believe that he would have the cheek to complain in this way when I have sacrificed all for him and he has repaid me not at all.
The longer form of my tale is that I met this man when he was a guest and teacher in my uncle’s house. Though we began as teacher and pupil, we soon grew closer. After a romance befitting the most scandalous of lovers, I realized I was with child. He assured me that we should be at once married. Because of my deep love for him, I agreed. After the child was born, he told me that for the good of us all the marriage had to remain a secret. Again, I agreed because of our great love. Then he told me I had to secret myself away in a monastery and pretend to be a nun! What more can I say? I really did not desire this at all, but I agreed! Again, how greatly I loved him. Then, my lover suffered a brutal assault, and after that he abandoned me! I wanted to be his greatest champion and never leave his side. What did he want? For me to to devote myself to the monastic way forever. I did not desire that life. But my love for him compelled me. I have been living in this monastic devotion for a number of years, and he has not granted me his presence nor sent a word from his quill. I gave up all for him, and yet he could not bring himself to do his duty as wife and spiritual partner to me.
But here is the greatest calamity: I heard that he wrote a letter as consolation to a friend that brutally and wrongly portrayed his suffering and my role therein. What gall he has to complain about what he has suffered when I have suffered most! So I immediately wrote him to tell him my mind, which with any luck should reach him soon. In the meanwhile, help, my dear Mediaeval Forum Lords & Ladies! How can we two come to a better understanding about my mind and the woes I have suffered for him?
8 Comments | Sorted by Best
Fair user CapellAndreas commented at the hour of matins:
Ah, so the shortcomings of having a relationship with partners of equal wit and education reveal themselves! No doubt he will write you a letter full of sweet words and platitudes to mollify you and win you over. No doubt you will reply with a letter full of equally cunning rhetoric to ensnare him. He will be silver-tongued to try and win you over. Do not resist it, for this is what your love has wrought. I also notice in your post that you say that your relationship began with a shared love of learning. This is absurd! No wonder you have suffered. Everyone knows that love begins with pain created from meditation on the fair sight of another. You cannot have seen his brain to have fallen in love with it, can you? But perhaps all is not lost. If you imagine a series of complex Dialogs relating to your situation, I am sure the answer will reveal itself.
Fair user MarieLovesLais commented at the hour of compline:
Would your problems not have been solved if you had not married him at all and carried on your affair with whispered words through a wall of your adjourning houses? I also believe your husband’s choice to compose a piece of writing summarizing his misfortune was good despite how it may have grieved you. Yet perhaps you may yet sway him your own piece of writing. Perhaps some nice moralizing Breton poetry next time?
Fair user ComtessaBeatrizDia commented at the hour of nones:
I agree that you need to communicate with this man directly, but I do not think you are at fault at all here! In fact, I sympathize greatly. You are clearly hurting! There is nothing better than an illicit love that you cannot maintain for good, but clearly this love has been soured by your husband’s insistence on marriage and monasticism. The only consolation I can offer is that there are a lot of songwriters who have loved similarly and put their experiences to verse.
Fair user sanctuspaulus commented at the hour of terce:
I am appalled that you, as a nun and sister in Christ, would have held and continue to hold these feelings about your brother in Christ. The fact that you were married once is moot; he has no more marital obligation to you now that you are no longer his. Remember that in this you are each sinful; strive more wholeheartedly for monastic salvation. #BetterToMarryThantoBurnButNotLikeThat #NunsShouldNotContinuetoLustAfterTheirFormerHusbands
User jerome-in-the-desert responded to user sanctuspaulus:
Agreed. What a godforsaken situation is this! The heretical original poster should
withdraw to a life of asceticism and rethink her actions.
User Dr_Augustine_MD responded to user jerome-in-the-desert:
Nay, you, user jerome-in-the-desert, should rethink this! Marriage is a
sacrament, though hers may have been born from sinfulness. Now
it is good that Sister Heloise_of_Paris has turned from the path of
sin, though it is not good that her spiritual partner has abandoned
her! Even as her Brother in Christ rather than her husband, he owes
her guidance.
Edit: To sanctuspaulus: For shame! Hashtags are vanity personified.
Home run! St. Paul's bitchy (and completely excessive) hashtags are the icing on the cake (although I also really like Andreas's tone-deaf reply).
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