Charlot123
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I believe any discussion about leaving together for Ecuador was just ... fantasy as lovers do. I don't think JL planned to ever leave his wife and children either, AND I don't think Suzanne wanted him to. IIRC, she was going to leave BM and not contact JL for a while.
I disagree that JL was a cad using Suzanne for a good time. Could be that she was using him or they were using each other They knew each other way back, she trusted him and they were also friends. I believe he helped her realize her worth and probably validated a lot of her feelings regarding BM's treatment of her.
We know the attraction of high school relationships, especially ones that "weren't meant to be". Today we speak about "unresolved gestalts", but basically, it is intense curiosity of "how it might have been, if". I suspect that Suzanne was split over Barry a long time ago - on the one hand, "God has provided", on the other, he was a boorish, narcissistic, uncaring, rigid man. And especially since in HS she "disappeared" with JL, for one evening, maybe she always kept that image of a tender, cute boy in her mind? We always say, "history doesn't have subjunctive mood", yet on a personal level, who hasn't fallen into this trap? So once, in a fragile moment of her life, Suzanne wanted to create the past that didn't happen.
Essentially, in JL, she saw exactly what she had seen in HS - still attractive, but weak and uncorageous man. Burdened with family, not super successful. Why did she cling onto that dream? Probably, being drained by cancer and deeply offended by Barry, she wanted to see the same adoration in the eyes of JL that she saw in her youth?
I think in the future, she would have collected herself and, step by step, find everything - a job, a good partner. All she probably needed was some boost of self-esteem. This is why, regardless of their photos and the relationship being physical, it served only her emotional need.
And JL, well, same thing. Returning to his youth, to the girl he loved. It's not the same as a middle-aged man hooking up with a young woman. It is really relieving own youth.
Neither was a cad. Both paid dearly for their short-lived trip into own youth.
And, I don't think we should shame either of them. Suzanne is dead. JL, give or take, is the keeper of her memory. Memory that is now tarnished by BM who publicly, on TV, called his deceased wife an addict. And by the time of her death, she was still battling cancer.