INDIA KNIGHT’S COLUMN – THE HUHNE AFFAIR

I love India Knight and read her columns religiously. Thus far I don’t think she has ever written anything that I haven’t wished I had written myself. So it came as a mighty bolt out of the blue to read her column in The Sunday Times this week and disagree completely with her thoughts. She was writing about the courtroom artist’s sketch of Chris Huhne the former energy secretary who recently had to resign because his former wife of 26 years – Vicky Price “allegedly arranged to take three penalty points for her then husband when he was court speeding”.

She describes the sketch as “a whole novel in one drawing”. To be honest I think Alice Jones’ description the day before in her column in the “I” on Saturday was better when she said that it “spoke a thousand words”. Basically they are sitting three seats apart. Vicky Price is facing forward whilst Chris Huhne sits with his back to her. A relatively typical, sad image of two people who have, for whatever reason spectacularly hurt each other and subsequently fallen out of love.

India asks “do they have to be so babyish?” The picture makes her angry – “I see two people who put themselves first, at whatever cost and sod everybody else. Two people who can’t even acknowledge each other’s presence, let alone make a pretence at civility, not even with media waiting. So blinded by ego and narcissism that they believe their feelings and emotions are the only ones that matter”. She believes that this kind of behaviour is “completely unforgivable”.

I disagree. Chris Huhne publicly humiliated his wife by having an affair with Carina Trimingham. Why should she pretend that she’s anything but desperately upset and hurt by his behaviour? Why shouldn’t even their children understand that adults can behave badly sometimes and that all actions have consequences?

India says it’s because they “think they are special” and that “their feelings of injury are deeper than yours”. She points out that 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce and directly tells them “you’re not special at all – you’re a statistic. Normal people soldier on and try to do their best by each other and by their children – through gritted teeth, with the aid of antidepressants, by becoming good at acting, whatever it takes. Because normal people realise that the end of a marriage doesn’t have to mean the end of a family”. Really? Surely they are just two people hurting like all the rest of us can hurt. Why pretend otherwise? Even to the observing world?

What constitutes “normal people” in this situation I wonder? What is wrong with acknowledging the hurt and facing up to it? Is it so wrong to not want to engage with the partner who did that to you anymore? What is the purpose of becoming good at acting? Do our children really want an American Beauty-esque set of parents? I totally disagree with her view that you should take antidepressants rather than grieve in a natural, honest way. Isn’t there something to be said for being true to yourself and your children and being brave enough to face the harsh realities? Why pretend?

She says “the end of a marriage doesn’t have to mean the end of a family” – well the end of a marriage is never going to be the end of a family but it is certainly the end of a family unit as we know it. The end of a dream. The reality is very different. Dysfunctional mostly. Often painful. But, do children really want adults to pretend everything is “FINE” when really what they mean is that they are “Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional”?

I thought we were supposed to encourage children to tell the truth? I accept that as much as possible we should try to protect our children from any sort of harm but surely at some point difficult decisions have to be made. Everybody is different. Each person deals with their pain differently. Of course in an ideal world you would feel your partner’s pain and care about them still and find a way to forgive them but the residual fallout is different in each case. I believe that the Huhne’s are special in their own way and their situation is specific to themselves. The fact that they are in the public eye shouldn’t have to make a difference – they are not celebrities who choose to spend their whole life pretending that their lives are perfect. Their pain is their own. They are not just statistics, they are intelligent human beings who have no doubt given much thought and energy and time to their situation and they are struggling to make sense of new paths and how to live.

Give them some slack I say and if they choose to let honesty prevail then so be it.