Mr Hayward & Ann Baxter's relationship
Hi everyone,
I've rewatched the show a couple of times now, as well as seen all of the recent TOBS promo, and it got me thinking about the exact emotional nature of Tom & Ann's relationship. Specifically the fact that in several of the interviews, the cast refer to her as Tom's "long-term partner". I know these things are not exactly transferable to our modern understanding of what does and does not constitute an actual romantic relationship, but I was still wondering - would having a (publicly known-about) understanding with someone about a potential future engagement have been roughly the same as being considered to be in a relationship with them? Would this have made it "ok" for them to kiss, the way Mary and Tom did after she accepted his proposal, or would this have ruined Ann's reputation, since they were not actually engaged yet?
Do you think they were at any point actually in love with each other, or was it more of a mutual fondness? I kind of understood it as the former from what Ann says to Mary at the beginning of episode 5 regarding the initial excitement of young love. Based on that scene, my impression was that at least for some time, they really were in love with each other. Although things then seem to have very quickly cooled down or faded under the strain of Tom's having to work so hard to take their relationship to the next step. Obviously they were not well-matched in the long term, but I'm still curious what others think about how they initially started out and whether it might have played out even remotely like Tom and Mary's first encounter in terms of a 'spark'.
I am also trying to understand the timeline of things. Ann says she and Tom met "three years ago this spring", but then Tom later refers to their understanding as having been made when they were "quite young", which to me made it sound like more than just a few seasons ago, especially because there would have been at least some time between meeting and forming that understanding. Obviously when you are still somewhere around your mid-20s, 3 years in one direction or the other does make a difference in how "mature" you feel, especially in retrospect, but I was still a bit surprised.
Anyway, happy to hear anyone else's thoughts on the matter. I know this relationship is not in the book and was brought in as a narrative obstacle to their relationship, but since I'm not the biggest fan of this type of scenario, I guess I'm sort of trying to find a way of making it more 'okay' in my head by trying to figure out how (emotionally) serious the whole thing was in the first place.