I know I'm risking stones being thrown my way here (ducks) :thinking:... However, since much of the media attention (and attention here) is on TM driving GBC to murder and having to admit she played a role in it... I don't agree.
I don't say she's smart, gifted, talented, funny, "Better than Allison" etc. Rather, I think she was fairly vulnerable and susceptible to GBC, as many other women seemed to be, and with the help of his manipulation was able to foresee a future with him. Even if she started the affair this implies that GBC gets out of blame for the affair. He was the married person (as I understood it, TM wasn't married but had a "partner" where the relationship was dissolving) and he's the one who's broken his vows. At least TM left her partner/husband when she realised it wasnt working.
If this wasn't a murder trial, and GBC had divorced Allison years ago and married TM (as TM expected), how much mud would we sling TM's way? None, because there wouldn't have been a murder. A murder that was committed by GBC - let's not forget how unfathomable an act this is, what sort of person it would take to physically do what he did, how shocked people around him were when Allison went missing. I think it's important to keep an eye on the real devil here - GBC. By blaming TM, are we joining in with all those in the past who have given him leniency? Think of his friends who perhaps thought, "Oh, I'll lend him the money, he's in trouble but it's not totally his fault, so, OK". He's an expert at blaming anyone but him. I think all of GBC's actions are entirely his fault and his failure to see this led to what happened.
On the other hand, why do we romanticize and even adore "famous couples" who came together when the husband married his mistress? I'm thinking Bogart & Bacall, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward... these famous men cheated on their wives with these women ("Bogart was still miserably married and his early meetings with Bacall were discreet and brief, their separations bridged by ardent love letters" - his Wiki entry) and left behind their children and shocked first wives. Johnny Cash, his wife and June Carter also come to mind. Even Angelina Jolie is now being cut some slack for breaking up Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston (I thought, It was his decision.) Before he died, some reporter asked Paul Newman to give up the secrets to his long, happy marriage. They didn't ask him about the part in the beginning where he kept promising he'd marry Joanne, then changed his mind, and it went on for ages and in frustration Joanne almost married Gore Vidal instead. (Gore at that point identifying himself as bisexual.)
I'm referencing famed Hollywood stars, who are after all just people with faults, traits and a tendency to cheat (at least at some point in their lives). So why do we condemn the woman when the man is the one committing adultery? And in the case of GBC and TM, GBC not only cheated but committed murder. IMO, there's only one person to blame for Allison's death: Gerard Baden-Clay. I admit I'm not fond of the BC family either, from what I've heard, but I wouldn't attack them on the street - because I can't say for sure what level of involvement they had, and it must be horrifying to learn your son's a murderer. In a lot of cases like this, the parents don't even really BELIEVE what their child has done until a good decade or two after the murder. And thats in cases where the parents seem to be decent people who did a good job of raising their child, who would later go on to murder someone.
As to sisterhood, I feel like women need to stop condemning other women so much. Perhaps this has all touched a raw nerve, I don't know. But an example close to my heart: my best friend of 20 years - since early high school - recently married a man who was cheating on her with his ex. She found out and they broke up for nine months, then got back together. I knew for a fact that he was still cheating on my friend with multiple others and made the mistake of telling her. Surely, I thought, after 20 years of solid friendship she has the right to know about this. Instead, she started cutting me and all of her female friends out of her life. Towards the end, she spoke with panic over any female he worked with as a b**** who would probably "steal" him. I kept thinking, "How do you steal a person? He's doing all the cheating." He is a cop, by the way, and you can't imagine the reaction she had when he was assigned a female partner. Without even knowing a thing about this female partner apart from stalking her facebook page, my ex-friend decided she was the devil. This woman was going to "take" my friends husband. She went on a witch-hunt over this woman for about six months. Finding nothing, she still continues to hate her and any female that could be part of his world. She is now still married to him, her only friends are his family, she turns a blind eye to his cheating, blames random women for trying to "steal" him, and is bringing up a baby more or less alone as he "works late".
And this is a woman who I never, EVER thought would shoot the messenger.
