I'm not sure if I'm getting my point across. What I'm trying to say is that sometimes when you are in a relationship where you are constantly rejected and where the object of your affection is seldom emotionally available for you, it comes to a point where you stop trusting that person. You begin to have doubts and wonder if he or she still loves you. You are so hurt already that even if that other person has a change of heart and tells you that he/she indeed loves you, you find it hard to believe it.
I know from this. This is the reason that after two years of punishment, I finally moved on from the love of my life to the point where, when I'd been seeing my now husband for a couple of months and he came practically crawling back to me, practically begging me to give him another chance, as hard as nails as it was, I was able to say, "No."
I had much less to go on than Jack did, though. Well, wait a minute - yes and no. I was about to say that this guy never once told me he loved me, then I remembered... I was about to say that this guy never once made any future, long-term plans of any kind that included me, then I remembered... And this guy only allowed himself to be truly intimate and affectionate with me on very rare occasions - so rare, I can count them on one hand. But then, I was a woman and he was a man and I had much more opportunity to find another man I could love *openly* and with whom I could be accepted by society as a couple. There's the difference.
I agree. Jack had given up. That's what that last look with those empty eyes and hardened jaw is all about. Doesn't mean he'd ever have stopped loving Ennis. And I'm sure if he hadn't died and had taken up with Randall at his parents' ranch and Ennis got wind of it and tried to talk him/beat him out of it, he'd have one hell of a fight on his hands. Jack was a broken man at the end - that's almost as heartbreaking as his literal death. Like Jake said, he died the moment he knew he couldn't be with Ennis like he wanted. I know from that, too. To a much lesser extent. It occurs to me just now that maybe that's why Jack appeals to me more than Ennis. I feel his pain more because I've felt it before.