The surrender-survival perplex

Now, if you'll recall your early history of the Pattersons, you'll remember that Elly had the expectation that when she was done supporting John during the post-grad era and he'd established himself, she could pick up where she left off and please her mother by getting her Bachelor Of Arts degree. It didn't quite work out that way because, well, the repellent choad thought that one of the things he should have been praised for saving her from was getting a degree. Given the setting, it's sort of obvious that the fifty year delay looks like a denial because even if he does convince himself he's being a wonderfully progressive person for letting her get that degree that seems to have been a potential reason that she resented her lot in life, it's too fucking late to do anything with it. That being said, Elly has no right to complain because she let John walk all over her because she was afraid of losing his ass and reverting to the status of 'child' instead of progressing to the status of 'woman who dodged a big, stupid, entitled bullet.'

This is where an annoying habit people have of protecting themselves from having to admit to having pointlessly endured needless suffering at the hands of imbeciles comes into play. I should think that if April were to have the horribly poor luck of expressing sympathy for Elly because of the long, long delay in realizing her dream and so on, she'd be met with Elly defiantly claiming to have survived quite well without it. This is so she can look down on and feign sympathy for Therese for the same reason everyone else does: she eventually grew sick of her life and told Anthony to shove his narrow point of view up his scrawny ass. The need Elly had to be in a relationship that's based mostly on her exploitation because the alternative seemed scarier blinds her to the fact that most of the men in her life don't like the idea of people not buying the bullshit they're selling. Since she can't deflect her asshole husband and doesn't really want to live without him, she really is responsible for her own problems. So is Liz for the same reason. So is Deanna for quite another.