Ian Update

[HeckBound]

I think Ian's family assumes that she has been sufficiently Godded and guilted into her role as caretaker that there's no danger of her bolting. I think they'd only been dating for less than a year prior to his accident and were pretty young...really, the relationship could have gone anywhere at that point. His dad seized on the opportunity she represented and ensured his son a lifelong caregiver.

There's nothing healthy about that relationship, the sex aspect or any other. If she were my daughter, Id put a pillowcase over her head and get her to a deprogramming facility ASAP. She sounds suicidal sometimes, IMO.

[rward]

November 3, 2012:

If he has mental capacity, then have testing done and declare him competent. Remove the legal authority someone holds over him as it is no longer needed. Until he is mentally competent, having sex with him IS non-consensual, by legal definition. Were this a man with a TBI woman we would have no problems calling it rape, for very good reason.

Seriously? She's judging his ability to consent and function as an adult on the answer in a board game? :pink-shock:

Larissa, honey, I could have come up with "stool pigeon" at age 5. I was not a functioning, legal adult back then.

[formergothardite]

I really hope that she is just saying they had sex to make their marriage seem more real and that she really didn't have sex with a man who is functioning at the level of a child.

[ladyaudley]

She must know some sadly slow eight year olds to think they couldn't come up with something like that. Then again, if they're all sheltered fundie 8 year olds, then they probably wouldn't.

I assume *if* she actually has sex with him - which, just... no. God. - she's hoping to fall pregnant. Have someone else in her life. I don't even want to think about the disaster that would be.

[Morton Fan]

I really hope that she is just saying they had sex to make their marriage seem more real and that she really didn't have sex with a man who is functioning at the level of a child.

She's alluded to something about trying to have kids or wanting to get pregnant, IIRC, so I think they really may be doing the deed.

[salex]

Seriously? She's judging his ability to consent and function as an adult on the answer in a board game? :pink-shock:

Larissa, honey, I could have come up with "stool pigeon" at age 5. I was not a functioning, legal adult back then.

I am a terrible cynic, but on a lost weekend of reading their blog and listening to as much of it as has audio, I came to the conclusion that the things she says he says vs his actual utterances may not be exact quotations. Nothing in the videos they have posted suggest that he would be able to make the long and articulate sentences, questions and explanations that she quotes on her blog. I cut them some slack, thinking maybe I was just too cynical. Until I saw the art. And now the walking video... it is described as walking with only a cane and one person helping balance on a gait belt. I've walked with people using a gait belt, and mostly I didn't do anything, just was there in case they overbalanced. I didn't use my full body weight to keep them from falling.

This just confirmed my thoughts that there is a bit of pushing for improvement where none is likely (possible?). Someone else mentioned that if they are paying for PT themselves, it is because they have a diagnosis suggesting PT won't be valuable. THat just adds to my doubt.

Would someone who has more experience in the PT realm tell me if the full body weight use of the gait belt is common in PT and I've just not seen that kind of case, OR if my observation is accurate?

I think sometimes Ian is like a ouiji board or magical writing for Larissa. She sees/hears what she wants to, and superimposes words she'd like Ian to say. I hope I'm wrong.

[louisa05]

I am a terrible cynic, but on a lost weekend of reading their blog and listening to as much of it as has audio, I came to the conclusion that the things she says he says vs his actual utterances may not be exact quotations. Nothing in the videos they have posted suggest that he would be able to make the long and articulate sentences, questions and explanations that she quotes on her blog. I cut them some slack, thinking maybe I was just too cynical. Until I saw the art. And now the walking video... it is described as walking with only a cane and one person helping balance on a gait belt. I've walked with people using a gait belt, and mostly I didn't do anything, just was there in case they overbalanced. I didn't use my full body weight to keep them from falling.

This just confirmed my thoughts that there is a bit of pushing for improvement where none is likely (possible?). Someone else mentioned that if they are paying for PT themselves, it is because they have a diagnosis suggesting PT won't be valuable. THat just adds to my doubt.

Would someone who has more experience in the PT realm tell me if the full body weight use of the gait belt is common in PT and I've just not seen that kind of case, OR if my observation is accurate?

I think sometimes Ian is like a ouiji board or magical writing for Larissa. She sees/hears what she wants to, and superimposes words she'd like Ian to say. I hope I'm wrong.

I think you are right. All the deep thoughts from Ian quoted on the blog seem way beyond the capability of the Ian in the videos.

As to the origins of the marriage, as I understood it from the blog there was no engagement/betrothal prior to the accident. From all accounts there it seems they were dating (not courting) and had vaguely talked about marriage but did not have specific intentions or plans. It was definitely Ian's father who pushed the idea on her. I really wonder what her parents actually think of the whole situation as we have never heard a word from them or even a word attributed to them about it.

[lilwriter85]

I am a terrible cynic, but on a lost weekend of reading their blog and listening to as much of it as has audio, I came to the conclusion that the things she says he says vs his actual utterances may not be exact quotations. Nothing in the videos they have posted suggest that he would be able to make the long and articulate sentences, questions and explanations that she quotes on her blog. I cut them some slack, thinking maybe I was just too cynical. Until I saw the art. And now the walking video... it is described as walking with only a cane and one person helping balance on a gait belt. I've walked with people using a gait belt, and mostly I didn't do anything, just was there in case they overbalanced. I didn't use my full body weight to keep them from falling.

This just confirmed my thoughts that there is a bit of pushing for improvement where none is likely (possible?). Someone else mentioned that if they are paying for PT themselves, it is because they have a diagnosis suggesting PT won't be valuable. THat just adds to my doubt.

Would someone who has more experience in the PT realm tell me if the full body weight use of the gait belt is common in PT and I've just not seen that kind of case, OR if my observation is accurate?

I think sometimes Ian is like a ouiji board or magical writing for Larissa. She sees/hears what she wants to, and superimposes words she'd like Ian to say. I hope I'm wrong.

I also think that is going on. I suspect that the same thing is happening with Katie Rye and her husband Ben.

[Effie]

November 3, 2012:

If he has mental capacity, then have testing done and declare him competent. Remove the legal authority someone holds over him as it is no longer needed. Until he is mentally competent, having sex with him IS non-consensual, by legal definition. Were this a man with a TBI woman we would have no problems calling it rape, for very good reason.

I think this is a very important point. The reverse-argument. It reminds me of this kind of Swedish hidden-camera-tv-show, where a man (actor) only had to yell at a woman (actor) in a park for people to intervene. When they did it reverse, the woman could yell at him, hit him and kick him without anyone intervening. I was surprised by the result, and I think the actors also were. They tried to see what it would take for people to intervene. Eventually they added a gigantic wooden stick to the scene. The woman yelled that she would beat him up with the wooden stick. THEN people finally intervened. So it didn't matter how much she kicked him or hit him. Only when she had this "weapon" (wooden stick) did people think: "hey, this isn't right." Compare that to the man who was only yelling at the woman. Victimology: interesting but also upsetting stuff

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if she does it (the sex) out of guilt; because she feels she has "to fulfill the marital vows" (and have his babies). So awful. I do feel sorry for her, but I think that at least someone in her circle of friends/family should be able to tell her: "honey, this isn't right".

[ThatSnark]

All of the above-- agreed completely. The thing that "tells" for me is the absence of her family on the blog. They don't seem to visit her parents; if she has siblings, they're absent. All the family that's visibly involved are his. What I infer from this is that her family have been the ones to tell her that this isn't right, and since that must make her very uncomfortable, they are cropped right out of her public life.

If I've missed her family on there, please speak up... I want to believe that she has someone in her court.

[Palimpsest]

Look, the competency issue here is a huge ball of wax. I'm going to argue against the prevailing opinion, but I have no firm opinion on the Ian and Larissa situation myself.

Competency issues, how they are assessed, how a person can be competent in some areas and not others, how guardianship/conservatorship is decided, the responsibilities of a guardian/conservator to maximize and respect a person's decision-making capacity as far as possible and use substitutive judgment when necessary, informed consent to sex, etc. ... It is a massive subject and the subject of more professional papers, journal articles, debate, discussion and knock down drawn out battles than you would believe.

Looking at the videos, I would not presume to assess Ian's decision-making abilities. It "seems" to me that he does recognize Larissa, is capable of communicating with her and is able to tell her that he loves her. His TBI obviously has greatly impacted his ability to communicate verbally, to care for himself, and (they admit) that his short term memory is impaired. However, to say that he is the mental equivalent of an 8 year old child is not necessarily correct. He is an adult in a grievously disabled body. We can't tell how much he understands, or how well he communicates, from a video.

I was surprised to see him walking in the most recent video. It looked to me that although she was doing more than helping him balance, he was moving on his own. He was responding to each cue (cane, left, right) and supporting some of his own weight. That is actually a huge improvement. Yes, she was cuing him, but he seemed to be moving on his own.

On Larissa's role in the marriage: Presumably someone (his mother?) had guardianship after his father died. In order to agree to the marriage, when guardianship would be assigned to Larissa, the judge would have had access to all medical records and professional assessments of Ian's mental status. As a marriage is assumed to include sex, this would definitely have come up at the hearing.

Should a physically or mentally disabled adult, person be denied sex and the enjoyment of loving touch at any age? It is a thorny issue and much under discussion right now. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-2 ... -care.html (news source so link not broken). Every single case has to be assessed separately and the Protocol has merit.

Had Ian and Larissa already been married when he was injured we would probably not be asking these questions about their sex life, unless Ian seemed obviously abused. I don't see these questions being asked of veteran's wives when their husbands have suffered TBI. I think a spouse who walked away from a veteran with similar TBI would be roundly criticized by some, and if understood by others.

We don't know what her parents think or whether Larissa was pushed/guilted into the marriage. I think her parents are in the wedding video. She is an adult woman, however, and made her own choice. The problem with the Larissa and Ian situation, as I see it, is that she has turned herself into a martyr, but is rather embracing her status as the loving wife and spokesperson for the disabled. I can't help wondering how long this will last, or how she manages. It must be a huge task.

What annoys me most is that John Piper is using Ian and Larissa and exploiting them as poster children for his own purposes. Ian as "spiritual leader" in this marriage is strange, but Piper is running with the concept and Larissa is there right beside him. I'm sure she has her reasons.

edit because of too many riffles.

[Alice_Fraggle]

I also think that is going on. I suspect that the same thing is happening with Katie Rye and her husband Ben.

I just looked up Katie Rye, but her "about" page doesn't tell me much - they were in an accident in 2009 & that's all I see - nothing about how they're doing now. Does anyone have details?