I OBJECT.

These charges are erroneous. The degree of slander laid at my client’s door is unfounded and offensive. The rumour-mill was always going to be unavoidable, but the lack of common decency displayed by the plaintiff has forced my client to demand a counter-suit. It has come to this. The plaintiff has goaded my client into making their dirty laundry a matter for the public to attempt to rule on.

Now admittedly, the defendant may not have always been as loving as she is naturally disposed to be. Further – she may at some points have made statements that can here be considered to have displayed cruel intent. True, by the end of the relationship she found it impossible to remain in the same room as the plaintiff. She may have thrown a shoe at him on one occasion. Although regrettable, my client’s behaviour was not entirely without reason.

I would also like to state for the record that the plaintiff acknowledges her failure to sustain an adult relationship with the plaintiff. She willingly admits that she often actively avoided sexual relations – sometimes even going as far as to feign illness, or injury – and on a few regrettable occasions refusing to shave her legs.

Ladies and gentlemen: this is a person who truly feels she was engaged under false pretences. Having been just 18 years old when the relationship began, she was in no position to take on the responsibility of being a partner and – as it turned out – a carer to the plaintiff. She was drawn in by the idea of someone older, a protector, and this ideal was reversed as soon as the relationship took hold.

This is a girl who was plucked from everything she had cultivated for herself. She had worked hard, and the results were splendid. Suddenly, she was taken to the middle of the world, forced to sit and smile. To be a teacher’s wife, and nothing else. To put on make-up before she left the house. To cease spending over 24 hours in her pyjamas, as was her wont. To deliver Christmas cards to the neighbours. To stop swearing, because it was deemed “unladylike”.

She is not liable for payment with regard to the accumulated responsibilities. She does not have to pay the household bills, because she no longer uses the Internet, or lives, or hangs around waiting for the plaintiff to come home and ignore her, or eats, or sleeps, in the residence. She no longer has to give up her meager salary to ensure that the plaintiff can enjoy life when the mood takes him; she is certainly in no position to continue funding his dilettantish whims. The plaintiff can fish, he can shoot, and he can buy as many designer suits as he deems necessary, as long as they allow him to feel like he has elevated his standing in life to an acceptable level.

I present as evidence the billable hours related to the relationship, prior to its dissolution. Included are the many hours spent traipsing around supermarkets in search of “sustainable” vegetables, as well as the amount of time the defendant sat beside a river / lake / sea in the vain hope that the plaintiff would be able to hook a pike / carp / mackerel. Also included are the amounts of hours the client spent hiding in another room because the plaintiff was “in a bad mood”.

She genuinely feels that this decision was a gift to both parties. They lived together in a tense little bubble, filled with almost constant cleaning and the purchase of terrible DVDs. The defendant secretly ate chocolate whilst pretending to be on a diet. The plaintiff drank more than is socially acceptable. This could not have continued and yet, it could have been their life forever, had my client not terminated proceedings.

Furthermore, she asks that the plaintiff consider any future children that may have been spawned in a misguided attempt to solidify the union. These phantom children – the results of a gene roulette including the defendant’s ridiculous paleness and the plaintiff’s tiny features – would have been forced to atone for their parents’ misery. They would have had to sit in the back of a car bound for a nondescript countryside, inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke and malice. It is thus a service, rather than an act of misconduct.

We present to you the case of a girl who was passive. Is passivity a crime? From a purely legal perspective, lying down and allowing life to wash over you – even if said life leaves you screaming on the inside – does not make you a criminal. Unfortunately, it means that she will forever have to live with the fact that six whole months of her post-University life were spent following the plaintiff around. Yes, she gave up on the relationship. She called an end to the agreement. After years of work – from both sides – and a great deal of investment for a supposed future, the defendant ended it. It is over, and this case should be closed.

MCR

Photography: https://www.see.me/profile/tabeasimple/post/4085643?tab=image