We The People: Responsible for Tomorrow: Jennifer Wilbanks for President

We The People: Responsible for Tomorrow: Jennifer Wilbanks for President

Here's something I wrote about the case of Jennifer Wilbanks in a comment section.

Although my picture of President Bush is considerably more positive than that of the author of the piece this link will take you to, I definitely agree with him about Jennifer Wilbanks and how she should be seen.

Now, here's the comment...

Empress Juju--

There are only two things I could say about Jennifer that would say she was doing something wrong.

#1:
One thing was in how she went about postponing her wedding until she could decide what she wanted.

The most decent way to have done that would have been to have gone to her fiance and told him that she was having second thoughts--or, if unable to do that, to have gone to someone else to talk it over and help her to figure out how to break this to him.

However, the tragic truth was that--among all of those people--she didn't believe that she could find a one of them who would be understanding of what was going on with her (and she could barely understand it, herself).

Which brings us to...

#2:
When she learned what a big deal her departure had caused, she felt too much shame to tell the real story, so she made up a story--meant to be related only to her family and fiance--about being kidnapped and raped.

She had no idea that they were going to connect her with the area police to tell her story to them.

And THAT is how what she'd done went to being a possible felony.

Changing your mind about getting married isn't a felony--it's not even a misdemeanor--and what she did was much better than continuing to live a lie by entering a marriage that she was very unsure of.

What if she had done so and, eventually, brought children into the picture?

Eventually, she might have had a nervous breakdown when she could no longer keep up the front, and here she would be with a husband and family--which would either be keeping her "locked into" a life that made her miserable or else would have her playing the heavy and deciding on divorce.

In the long-run, everybody is better off.

What concerns me more than what she did is that society makes it so difficult for someone like Jennifer to have been able to be more honest with everybody--including herself--at an earlier date.

Perhaps, she could have told her fiance (likely, even before he became her fiance) that he was a good person and deserved someone special, but that she didn't love him in that way.

I could say even more about this, but I think I'll quit for now...