UK - Constance Marten & Mark Gordon charged, Newborn (found deceased), Bolton Greater Manchester, 5 Jan 2023 #7

[BreadnLumpit]

.. but she never moved to the countryside, did she? Good point re behaviour and personality disorders not being mental illnesses.

My question is still about what it is about this particular relationship that makes her behave so erratically?

I accept eccentric arty neurotic flighty and those kinds of adjectives for anybody living in an untypical manner but this is a step further.
[...]
We're never gonna know, are we?

Some 'scandals' might emerge but nothing major, I think.

In fairness we don't know where in Wales they were living - there's plenty of rural areas there, so they may have been in the countryside for a while before hightailing it back to city life.

It's always difficult to understand other people's disfunctional relationships. I just see their relationship as one of toxic symbiosis:

IMO she, having grown up with staff picking up after her, doesn't know how to cook and keep a clean house but knows how to give orders, and he grew to adulthood in prison - where a different sort of staff picked up after him and gave orders.

I suspect that both of them are equally volatile and prone to domestic violence rather than it all being one sided, and that they both see that as "being passionately in love" rather than domestic violence. But just like everyone else, I don't know and I'll never know - I'm just reading between the lines and drawing my own conclusions based on my own life experiences and those of people close to ne.

 

[Nikynoo]

I find it extremely frustrating . So many things that are not clear and probably we will never know the answers too.
I can see the attraction for him ie her looks ,intelligence trust fund etc.
What did she see in him he has none of the above qualities and a criminal history of serious SA !
I think now they will stay together as she has totally burned her bridges with everyone else in her life and I doubt he has support elsewhere.

The choice of partner could simply be C sticking two fingers up at her family. It seems more than this to me - they appear to be really fond of each other. I wonder what would happen if C is found guilty, but M is not - would he move on to another relationship, or would he stand by her?

 

[Baby baby Jane]

Her (his/their) own choosing according to evidence disclosed during this trial:

She admitted under cross examination that the trust were buying her a house in early 2017 (child ff was born late 2017) but she refused to sign the sale contracts at the last minute. At the time she claimed her backing out was because of her "career progression", but in court she said it was because she wanted to live in the countryside.

Neither makes any sense - once the house was hers she could have sold it and bought some where rural or rented it out.

IMO she just does stuff to thumb her nose at everyone else (family, convention, societal conventions, SS, authority in general), regardless of whether it impacts her negatively or not, simply because she can.

It reminds me of a family member of mine who was diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder. Behavior and personality disorders aren't mental illnesses though - some people just behave in ways that make their lives harder, while blaming everyone else for whatever happens.

Thank you for mentioning ODD! Am more familiar with this in children, but they do grow up! will add ODD to the mix.

“Career Progression” makes total sense in context of being Professional Opposer/Defier.

Also … IMO, refusing house could be keeping MG having any financial tie/or claim to support. They are not married, not in civil partnership, he is not living in a house she owns. If she is in total control of funds … then she controls MG (to an extent).

 

[BreadnLumpit]

I'm not sure either. Photos on her FB show her (and the children) clean and well kept, so I have no idea.

IMO a number of those pictures were taken at contact centres (judging by the backgrounds), so the children would have been under the care of Foster parents, who would have bathed and dressed them if that is the case.

 

[kittythehare]

I'm not sure either. Photos on her FB show her (and the children) clean and well kept, so I have no idea.

true, they were lovely photos.
Did something happen before the children were taken?
I know there's no answers.. but she was glowing with health too and this was pre filters I think..

She looked awful when she was arrested.

 

[kittythehare]

The choice of partner could simply be C sticking two fingers up at her family. It seems more than this to me - they appear to be really fond of each other. I wonder what would happen if C is found guilty, but M is not - would he move on to another relationship, or would he stand by her?

I think he has to get the same verdict, does he not?
His lawyer painted her as a domineering woman, in a way, at a stretch but put no case forward for him so they'll either fry or walk together if I'm reading the law right? am I?

Also, on the night the baby died, he must have known she was exhausted.. she gave birth, she was doing the feeding. The least he could have done was to remain awake while she slept?

That annoyed me.
He could have watched the baby..
he did not.
Lazy.

 

[Baby baby Jane]

.. but she never moved to the countryside, did she? Good point re behaviour and personality disorders not being mental illnesses.

My question is still about what it is about this particular relationship that makes her behave so erratically?

I accept eccentric arty neurotic flighty and those kinds of adjectives for anybody living in an untypical manner but this is a step further.

She made some vague references to a childhood event that changed/altered/affected her..
This can be a real pathology so I'm trying not to sell her short, trying very very hard for a very very long time..

We're never gonna know, are we?

Some 'scandals' might emerge but nothing major, I think.

It can also be the case, that individuals with disordered thoughts experience events totally differently and their experience of the “trauma” may be different from the experience of others who were there at the time.

For example, a parents taking a holiday is experienced by one child as a prolonged painful abandonment, the other child as just time away.

No amount of explaining would convince them that they were not abandoned, hurt and wounded. It’s real for them, and it’s not helpful to tell them it not because their experience was a prolonged abandonment. They will say you are lying, their truth is how their brain remembers it.

 

[kittythehare]

It can also be the case, that individuals with disordered thoughts experience events totally differently and their experience of the “trauma” may be different from the experience of others who were there at the time.

For example, a parents taking a holiday is experienced by one child as a prolonged painful abandonment, the other child as just time away.

No amount of explaining would convince them that they were not abandoned, hurt and wounded. It’s real for them, and it’s not helpful to tell them it not because their experience was a prolonged abandonment. They will say you are lying, their truth is how their brain remembers it.

I suppose each life force is unique and a delusion is experienced like a reality.
It's the same because it has the same effect on their vital force.

 

[JennieM]

true, they were lovely photos.
Did something happen before the children were taken?
I know there's no answers.. but she was glowing with health too and this was pre filters I think..

She looked awful when she was arrested.

I think an incident of DV has been reported in the media.

 

[BreadnLumpit]

I think he has to get the same verdict, does he not?
His lawyer painted her as a domineering woman, in a way, at a stretch but put no case forward for him so they'll either fry or walk together if I'm reading the law right? am I?

Also, on the night the baby died, he must have known she was exhausted.. she gave birth, she was doing the feeding. The least he could have done was to remain awake while she slept?

That annoyed me.
He could have watched the baby..
he did not.
Lazy.

He is as culpable as she is. It annoys me immensely that he's almost an afterthought in press coverage.

I do think (MOO obviously) that she is dominant though: Looking at the CCTV footage, she always seems to be the one leading the way. She walked in front at the bus interchange in Bolton; got out of the taxi first in Whitechapel; sent MG shopping while she sat in the kebab shop; led the way at Newhaven; sent MG into the garage to buy supplies there too; seemed to be holding his wallet when they were recorded on the ring doorbell (judging by the audio) and was walking striding out in front again when they were finally stopped.

None of that strikes me personally as being the behaviour of a cowed and fearful woman.

 

[JennieM]

I think he has to get the same verdict, does he not?
His lawyer painted her as a domineering woman, in a way, at a stretch but put no case forward for him so they'll either fry or walk together if I'm reading the law right? am I?

Also, on the night the baby died, he must have known she was exhausted.. she gave birth, she was doing the feeding. The least he could have done was to remain awake while she slept?

That annoyed me.
He could have watched the baby..
he did not.
Lazy.

I am not sure I trust their account but I agree they are both equally culpable.

 

[kittythehare]

I think an incident of DV has been reported in the media.

I saw that but not in much detail.. something about a window?

 

[BreadnLumpit]

I saw that but not in much detail.. something about a window?

Yes. CM claims that the oldest 2 children were removed because she (CM) accidentally fell out of a window and SS blamed that on domestic violence perpetrated by MG.

But CM is not a reliable narrator IMO. Firstly, in my own 1st hand experience, SS do not remove children on the basis of one incident of DV unless it was catastrophic and life threatening to the children - although I remember reading that she was pregnant with their 3rd child at the time and discharged herself from hospital AMA (even though she was also told that doing so could be dangerous for the baby). I can't for the life of me remember where I read this unfortunately.

Secondly, although it is almost automatic to assume that the person falling from a window must be the victim, it should be noted that perpetrators of coercive control (which is also DV) frequently use threats to harm themselves as a way of making their victim compliant.

 

[kittythehare]

Yes. CM claims that the oldest 2 children were removed because she (CM) accidentally fell out of a window and SS blamed that on domestic violence perpetrated by MG.

But CM is not a reliable narrator IMO. Firstly, in my own 1st hand experience, SS do not remove children on the basis of one incident of DV unless it was catastrophic and life threatening to the children - although I remember reading that she was pregnant with their 3rd child at the time and discharged herself from hospital AMA (even though she was also told that doing so could be dangerous for the baby). I can't for the life of me remember where I read this unfortunately.

Secondly, although it is almost automatic to assume that the person falling from a window must be the victim, it should be noted that perpetrators of coercive control (which is also DV) frequently use threats to harm themselves as a way of making their victim compliant.

Is there a link handy with any more detail?
Whichever of them instigated it, if it wasn't an accident, losing 2 presumably much loved children as a result would harm a relationship permanently, would it not?
Blame etc...

 

[missmargot]

I am so frustrated that MG didn’t give evidence. It feels like we barely know him when we heard so much from CM, so a big part of the jigsaw is missing.

 

[BreadnLumpit]

Is there a link handy with any more detail?
Whichever of them instigated it, if it wasn't an accident, losing 2 presumably much loved children as a result would harm a relationship permanently, would it not?
Blame etc...

I'll see if I can find the link and post it if possible.

In a toxic co-dependent type relationship, normal blame rules don't apply. My opinion is that CM and MG are so enmeshed and absorbed in each other that people outside their relationship, including the children, are pretty much a secondary concern.

So maybe they just blame other people (her family, SS etc) for the loss of the children because that's easier and less painful than threatening the safe space that their relationship provides.

 

[kittythehare]

I'll see if I can find the link and post it if possible.

In a toxic co-dependent type relationship, normal blame rules don't apply. My opinion is that CM and MG are so enmeshed and absorbed in each other that people outside their relationship, including the children, are pretty much a secondary concern.

So maybe they just blame other people (her family, SS etc) for the loss of the children because that's easier and less painful than threatening the safe space that their relationship provides.

It looks like that but is it?

I'm kinda surprised they didn't join or form another cult.

I was expecting they had become entangled in something wholly unsavoury..

If they did we will never know..

There's not enough there to even hate her or him or dislike them strongly..

Pressure must have been awful for her for the duration of the trial.. but she never acted out, even when being described in awful terms by the prosecutor..

I'd love to know what the jury saw..

 

[Alyce]

Yes. CM claims that the oldest 2 children were removed because she (CM) accidentally fell out of a window and SS blamed that on domestic violence perpetrated by MG.

But CM is not a reliable narrator IMO. Firstly, in my own 1st hand experience, SS do not remove children on the basis of one incident of DV unless it was catastrophic and life threatening to the children - although I remember reading that she was pregnant with their 3rd child at the time and discharged herself from hospital AMA (even though she was also told that doing so could be dangerous for the baby). I can't for the life of me remember where I read this unfortunately.

Secondly, although it is almost automatic to assume that the person falling from a window must be the victim, it should be noted that perpetrators of coercive control (which is also DV) frequently use threats to harm themselves as a way of making their victim compliant.

Yes. CM claims that the oldest 2 children were removed because she (CM) accidentally fell out of a window and SS blamed that on domestic violence perpetrated by MG.

But CM is not a reliable narrator IMO. Firstly, in my own 1st hand experience, SS do not remove children on the basis of one incident of DV unless it was catastrophic and life threatening to the children - although I remember reading that she was pregnant with their 3rd child at the time and discharged herself from hospital AMA (even though she was also told that doing so could be dangerous for the baby). I can't for the life of me remember where I read this unfortunately.

Secondly, although it is almost automatic to assume that the person falling from a window must be the victim, it should be noted that perpetrators of coercive control (which is also DV) frequently use threats to harm themselves as a way of making their victim compliant.

I remember the info about the hospital discharge and being pregnant with child 3, which does fit with the timing of the DV incident. I think it might be from one of the many podcasts, will try and find the quote.
So for now, I will say this is MOO

 

[BreadnLumpit]

I remember the info about the hospital discharge and being pregnant with child 3, which does fit with the timing of the DV incident. I think it might be from one of the many podcasts, will try and find the quote.
So for now, I will say this is MOO

Yes I think it may have been a podcast or a transcript of one, but I listen to them all so that doesn't narrow it down much.

 

[JennieM]

Is there a link handy with any more detail?
Whichever of them instigated it, if it wasn't an accident, losing 2 presumably much loved children as a result would harm a relationship permanently, would it not?
Blame etc...

They have a very co-dependent relationship.

ETA: sorry @BreadnLumpit, I just saw you said the same thing.