Why did Alma take so long?

[chowhound]

I've always been a little puzzled by why Alma waited so long before confronting Ennis about his relationship with Jack. After all, there's almost ten years between the reunion kiss and Alma's outburst in the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner:

1963. Ennis marries Alma.

1967. Sept. 24. Reunion kiss.

1972. July/August. Ennis almost forgets creel case.

1975. Nov 6. Divorce.

1977. Nov. Thanksgiving dinner.

We know that Alma, after seeing the reunion kiss, hatches a scheme to find out more about these "fishing trips" that Ennis and Jake take together. This is how Alma explains it in the kitchen scene:

"So one time I got your creel case open the night before you went on one a your little trips - price tag still on it after five years - and I tied a note on the end of the line. It said, hello Ennis, bring some fish home, love, Alma. And you came back and said you'd caught a bunch a browns and ate them up. Remember? I looked in the case when I got a chance and there was my note still tied there and that line hadn't touched water in its life."

It is not clear when this happened. However, there is one scene in the movie in the July/August of 1972 when Ennis almost leaves without his creel case and Alma calls his attention to this. Of course, his forgetfulness could simply suggest that fishing wasn't the first thing on his mind as he hurries off to meet Jack. Alma, however, would have even more reason for not letting Ennis forget his creel case if that's the occasion when she has concealed the note within it. If that's the case, Alma would have had her suspicions about her husband and Jack more or less confirmed by the late summer of '72, yet still she chooses to remain silent.

They divorce about three years after this (Nov.6, '75) and Alma, with a fair degree of rapidity, marries Monroe. By the Thanksgiving scene, she is comfortably settled in her new house and, in addition, is about four or five months pregnant. So, all in all, it seems as though Alma is now enjoying the domestic security and financial stability that she scarcely ever enjoyed with Ennis.

Yet, it is at this point in her life, that she at last brings up Jack and throws their affair into her ex-husband's face. Why? And why then?

I have a few half-formed explanatory notions of my own but would be delighted to hear from others what they think on this topic.

[Front-Ranger]

What a great question!! I was actually thinking about the Thanksgiving scene at Monroe's and Alma's house recently, and remembering about how Ennis told the girls about his aborted saddle bronc riding career. It seemed like Alma was getting kind of steamed as she sat there drinking her milk and listening to Ennis diss himself. Then, in the kitchen, her emotions seemed to get out of control (maybe pregnancy exacerbated this) and she "turned on the faucets." I don't think Alma ever expected to "spill the beans" about Ennis, not to him nor to anyone else, and certainly not to her children. Being the unenlightened woman that she was, I think she feared she would "lose face" with society if her studly ex-husband were revealed to be gay. I think, if Ennis had continued to support her and the children comfortably, she might have continued to be married to him. But, maybe not. At any rate, she was bound to protect Ennis' secrets since he was the father of her children and lived in the same small backwards town. But somehow the saddlebronc story was the last straw for her. I think she saw Ennis' relationship with Jack as a one-time youthful fling and that he would straighten up eventually. (Charley in A Single Man seemed to think this about the gay man she had a crush on, too.) But, it was not to be. Ennis was thrown for a loop when he met Jack, and he never did get back in the saddle again.

[Katie77]

They divorce about three years after this (Nov.6, '75) and Alma, with a fair degree of rapidity, marries Monroe. By the Thanksgiving scene, she is comfortably settled in her new house and, in addition, is about four or five months pregnant. So, all in all, it seems as though Alma is now enjoying the domestic security and financial stability that she scarcely ever enjoyed with Ennis.

Yet, it is at this point in her life, that she at last brings up Jack and throws their affair into her ex-husband's face. Why? And why then?

Yes she was safe and comfortable now, and when Ennis said the "once bitten", that was what fuelled the outburst. She was saying, its not ME or any other woman that ruined our marriage, or the fact that you dont want to settle down with another woman, it was JACK NASTY....and she's telling him, that she's known for a long time the secret he thinks he has been keeping, so shut up the bull shit about the "once bitten" thing.

If she had confronted Ennis with that, when she wasn't feeling so safe, then she may have been afraid of the repercussions.She knew his temper, so would have been very unlikely to have confronted him when she was alone, or still living with him.

The chances are, she may have never confronted him ever, about it, back then, it was probably better off not saying anything to anyone, for fear of repurcussions, but that day, she just let fly.