mrs. robinson

Cathy is 23 and is separated from her much older husband - a control freak - who had been a friend of her mother's.

"She had probably wanted to marry him herself," explains Cathy. "but the next best thing - to keep him in her life - was to marry me off to him!"

"Apparently this guy had felt sorry for my mom - a widow raising a kid on her own - and he had given her a job as a cleaner," explains Cathy. "He was a father figure for me for many years - but all the time he was waiting for me to grow up so he could own me."

"I don't think any money exchanged hands, but in effect my mom sold me to him, saying he was a good catch and would ensure I got a good education and a good life - whatever that was," sighs Cathy. "Sure, I had all the trappings of a good life, but it was not until I met Mick, an 18 year fellow university student, that I first understood what love or happiness really was."

"Mick and I fell madly in love and when it looked like we were close to becoming lovers I asked my husband for a divorce."

"He went berserk and called my mother over and the two of them verbally tore me to shreds - wanting to know all about Mick - where he lived - who his parents were and that sort of thing."

"They went over to Mick's house that night and confronted him and his mother," says Cathy, "and demanded their co-operation in getting me to do what they wanted."

"My husband came home, smug, and laughed at me, calling me a "Mrs Robinson", a cradle snatcher for wanting a little boy."

"I didn't understand who Mrs Robinson was," sighs Cathy, "but when I did hear Simon and Garkunkel's song Mrs Robinson from the film The Graduate -- in which an older woman seduces a younger man -- I couldn't believe that my husband could be such a hypocrite. Mick and I were closer in age than he and I were!"

"If anyone was a cradle snatcher - he was - but he failed to see the irony of the situation, or didn't think it applied to men."

"The next day I saw Mick and we decided to run away together - throw in our university careers - cut ourselves off from our families - and start a new life together."

"We left notes for our families so they wouldn't report us missing, and took off that afternoon - with the minimum of clothes - and drove all through the night, wanting to get as far away from everyone as possible."

"We consummated our love for the first time in a motel miles away from care," says Cathy, "but the next day Mick had a pang of conscience and called his mom to tell her that he was okay."

"What he didn't tell me was that he had told her where we were staying and the next thing I knew a policeman called at the motel and told us to go home."

"I couldn't believe that Mick had betrayed me," sighs Cathy. "And yet he was as much under his mother's thumb as I had been."

"He looked at me and cried - telling me how sorry he was - that we should go home and do things properly - whatever that meant ," says Cathy, "and I knew that he was telling me that he was torn between me and his mom and that she had won."

"I left him that day", sighs Cathy. "I took a Greyhound bus to the next city, found a job at a diner and started a new life of my own. There was no way I was going back to my mother and husband.

"Sure I'm upset that I couldn't finish my university course," says Cathy, "but I've got the rest of my life ahead of me."

"I wish I had run away from home at 15 and taken my chances," says Cathy, "but I was too much under my mom's thumb and scared by all the things she used to tell me about the big bad world."

"Well, as it turned out, she and my husband were the big bad world as far as I'm concerned and I can't wait for the divorce to come through."

"No, I don't expect to ever see Mick again," says Cathy. "He's got five more years to go before he's capable of cutting ties with his mom and in that respect maybe I was a Mrs Robinson -- but I sure as hell wasn't old enough to be his mother like the woman in the film."