rosemarie fritzl, a bad decision
Patrice's marriage was similar to Rosemarie Fritzl's in many ways and yet she managed -- with incredible difficulties -- to divorce her sex-addicted husband and build a new life for herself when her daughters grew up and left home in 1984. So why was Rosemarie unable to do the same?“Rosemarie Fritzl's decision to stay with her husband was a very bad one for the whole family, including Fritzl whom she enabled,” says Patrice. “Had this horror taken place in the 1950s - when men were masterful hunks and women were submissive dolls – it might not even have reached the headlines, but that it all started in 1984, after decades of feminism empowering women to get out of marriages with domineering men, makes Rosemarie look very bad indeed.”
"For 24 years now, since 1984, I have lived an independent life, and I feel so strongly about the Fritzl case because my freedom started in the same year that Elisabeth lost hers,” explains Patrice. “Had I remained married, I dread to think what my life would be like now and how many people would be damaged as a result of my enabling that man to be what he was.”
“Gaining my freedom wasn't easy -- no flight from a horrible situation is," says Patrice. "I was totally alone, I had no support network and I had no work experience outside of housework. I went through years of harassment and death threats from my ex, disapproval and manipulation from our adult children, ostracism from family and friends and abject misery living in a cockroach infested rented room and working as a kitchen slave before my luck changed.”
“At times, yes, I wondered whether I had made the right decision because it was so hard on me,” says Patrice, “but when I consider the alternative – ending up with a scandal like the Fritzls face, and an old age of shame, I am so proud of myself for taking the direction I did.”
Read more by Patrice on this issue:
Labels: Amstetten, Austria, Cliff Richard, dependence, divorce, dolls, Elisabeth Fritzl, families, Fritzl, incest, Josef Fritzl, motherhood, protective shells, Rosemarie Fritzl, sex addict, sex games
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