Marriage

At a friend’s house I met Lise Winter who set out to seduce me. She was nineteen and not shy and I was not difficult to get. She moved in with me but that was not enough for her. She wanted to be free from the influence of her parents who lived in Odense, and nothing less than marriage would do. I was not averse to it; we had good sex and got along well, and In some way I still expected that my life could become ‘normal’.
She put me on the phone with her father and he said: “I hear you want to get married. We should set a date.” I was taken aback but then I thought if I am ever going to get married then it’s now. We set a date about a month later and Lise, who had first opted for a secular wedding, changed her mind and wanted a church wedding.
I was invited to visit in Odense and here were signs that should have warned me. Lise had some reactions to her parents; she was picking at her hair and didn’t answer when spoken to. I had not seen her like that before, but it was only momentarily and in general we had a good time. Her little brother at sixteen was very attractive. We dressed him up in her clothes and took him out for a walk in town. Her father was distant and seemed nervous, but I got along very well with my future mother-in-law. All in all, the visit was a success and we went on with the plans.
The wedding was a big affair and we went off to Skagen, the northernmost tip of Jutland, where some friends of her parents had lent us their summerhouse for the honeymoon. Already the third day Lise showed signs of distress. She tore out hair after hair and would not speak. Day by day it got worse and all means of communication fell short. I even smacked her once, not in anger, but as a frustrated attempt at getting through to her. When she finally talked, it was to say: “I don’t love you anymore and I want to go home.” I had had it by then and was content to set her on the train the next morning. Peter Steen, a young aspiring actor, came a day later to keep me company and we bicycled the 200 miles home together. Passing Odense I had a talk with Lise’s father. She had told him that I was gay, as if it was something that had been revealed after the marriage. She was pregnant and threatened to take her own life if he didn’t help her with an abortion. He was a doctor and had connections and the abortion had already been performed. He suggested that we file for divorce and I agreed; at this point all I wanted was to get out of the marriage.
A year later Lise put out a feeler through a friend; she wanted us to get back together, but I had had enough and we continued our separation until we were granted a divorce. By that time she was pregnant again and wanted the child but not the father. That was the last I heard of her.