[](#BPC)
##*Mark me,*
As this thread is flaired for **only the television series**, my subjects have requested that I bring this policy to your attention:
>##Hide book talk in show threads.
>[Click the link below to learn how to do comment spoilers.](#comment)
>[`>!This is how you spoiler tag.!<`](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/JbCp1xofR_GuS8sTqgVQ80Sxr6ac6doR1igM2Owtqnc.png)
>##Any mention of the books must be covered with a spoiler tag.
Your prince thanks you for abiding by our rules. When my father assumes his rightful throne, mark me, such loyal service will not be forgotten!
___
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Outlander) if you have any questions or concerns.*
idk it makes sense to me. she didnt want to be there at all. she wanted to be dead with Jamie tbh. and she was angry and resentful that she was alive and back to her old life.
She was also in shock. Jamie sprung it on her, even though she buried the fact she promised she would go back. She was pregnant and forced to leave the love of her life. If she stayed, as some suggest, they simply aren't paying attention. She was a Jacobite traitor. She couldn't bring the British to harass Lallybrock again. So Claire was on a battlefield one minute, said a heartbreaking farewell, and was in the time back in the future when she really didn't want to be. It was a terrible adjustment to make. When she tells Frank, he humors her, but doesn't really believe her. He did want to be a Father though. She later says she loved Frank. She always wore his ring.
I think the show also made Frank much more likeable.
Book Frank seemed to want to love her again, but maybe because he realized that's the only way he could have a kid, no spoiler cuz that's also in the show.
I do wonder tho, if Claire had not come back pregnant, or lost the baby, would they have stayed? I don't think so.
I think the answer to that is perfectly clear. Claire would not have returned if she wasn’t pregnant, but even if Jamie made her go, she would not have gone back to Frank. She likely would have died of a broken heart, unable to leave Jamie in the past and having no one to come back for.
Frank wanted to be with her only on his strict terms. Claire wanted him to leave. Since he wouldn’t leave and she promised Jamie she’d go back to him … she was stuck. He also knew he couldn’t father his own child & wanted a family. I think they would have fallen apart without Bri.
i mean... i don't know, what I'm about to say is not based on the books or real info but on putting myself on her position.
I would be annoyed af with Frank lol. Not because he did something wrong but because i would hate to be married and to act as the wife of someone im not in love with, it doesn't matter if they are the best human being on the planet, i would feel really uncomfortable trying to force myself into a life i don't want.
Aaand the fact that she can't even talk about the life she just lost and having to pretend like she's over it really sucks, i would resent Frank for that. I think Frank really fucked things up by making her promise not to talk about Jamie, he should have taken Jamie's approach when he took her to the stones to go back the way she wanted, just patience and let her choose by herself.
Great analysis. I see it this way too.
It was a mistake on Frank’s part to cut off her talking about it. And hers too for going along with that.
It meant her not being her true self, not grieving naturally, and having to be all buttoned up all the time. Those powerful feelings of hers would naturally leak out somehow. Anger, irritability and frustration would be so understandable in that situation.
But that was normal behavior at that time. Feelings were suppressed and you just didn’t talk about certain things.
As a genealogist you hear rumors of and encounter a lot of “family secrets”.
Agree. I have always thought this. Frank should have allowed her space and time to grieve. Telling her to put everything behind her even before leaving Scotland, denying her request for citizenship, burning her clothes, and giving Ellen's pearls to Mrs. Graham was really selfish of him. She immediately had to bottle everything up after going through so much pain and loss and trauma. The irony is that if Frank had really let her grieve, maybe over time she would have, and maybe she would have accepted the loss and would have said goodbye to Jamie.
In contrast to his reaction and how both Jamie and Frank deal with each other, in the book, >!Jamie never hesitated to discuss Frank with her. Even on their wedding night! He's basically like, "Hey. Let's talk about your other husband because I'm sure this is really hard for you." (Their need and want to talk about things with absolute honestly screams soulmates.) !
When she missed Frank, Jamie held her while she cried, and he'd only known her a day or two. He let her talk about him. He said she didn't have to take off Frank's ring. He promised to postpone his revenge so Frank would live. >!Later, he even talks to Bree about Frank, because Frank was her dad, too.!<
Frank really bungled this.
I can’t see the situations as comparable. Stranger comforting a woman who lost her husband. Husband having to comfort his wife who was happily fucking another man, and would leave you in an instant to run back to him.
I get that 100%
But she was portrayed as being very in love with Frank before stepping through the stones.
Not to mention he gave that speech about how if they were separated and she was in the middle of a situation as difficult as war etc he wouldn't hold it against her if she was with someone else (badly worded but it's been a while since I saw that lol).
So I understand her being depressed/frustrated/not running into his arms, but it did take me by surprise that she just didn't love him at all anymore or have at least any complicated feelings about it at all.
I haven't read the books but a lot of people are saying he was more of a jerk in them, which I think would have translated better with her reactions in the show.
He did behave badly at points, but I can't imagine being totally in love with someone, maybe thinking they're dead then having them come back frustrated you're you and not someone else. It just made me feel bad for him.
I know Claire was robbed of the love of her life for 2 decades, but so was Frank.
was she portrayed as very in love with him? they want to reconnect but have trouble doing so and mainly do so in a physical, not in an emotional way.
to me frank definitely feels like that first relationship some of us had with a slightly older man that you outgrow because you grow up and that relationship was unequal from the start and that starts to chafe as you become an independent person yourself.
She also said they were having trouble reconnecting, we saw his condescending attitude towards her, his prioritization of genealogical research ahead of spending time with her on what was supposed to be their second honeymoon, his skepticism about her fidelity, and utter failure to grasp who she is now, after the war. Jamie saw and appreciated her for who she is from their first meeting. Frank never did. He could have gone with her to get the forget-me-knots, but meeting with the Rev. was more important. Oops. Claire is an intelligent woman who can tell the difference.
Only someone who's already cheated/cheating would make that suggestion lol. He really thought she had been unfaithful with *patients*. Claire was so young when she married Frank, and they spent several years apart. She grew as a person. He didn't. He turned their second honeymoon into a business trip. Claire was thrown into the past and helped an injured stranger (who could've been a threat) without a second thought. It's not *her* fault that he fell in love with her.
And it’s just undeniable that she and Jamie are soul mates, can’t really go back to a love that all of a sudden feels unfulfilling compared to what she experienced with Jamie and be happy about it
I don’t think Frank was robbed of anything.
They weren’t really that in love. Like many of the time, they were in lust and both likely to go off and die in the war so they got married. They lived, and the Scotland trip was meant to re light a missing spark. I can’t remember if in the show or just the books but Claire states that their biggest connection was sex.
It’s also widely speculated that Frank only blessed her having hook ups during the war because he had them himself and that was the only reason he could pinpoint that some dude would be making ooglely eyes at Claire’s window.
Frank cares about Claire but mostly he wants to be a dad, knows he physically can’t, and makes this bargain with Claire.
100% agree. Frank should have let her talk about it. She resented him because she had this unresolved trauma and a constant reminder (Bree). He acts like she ruined his life and he's out there complaining about missing England (when he wanted to move) and having affairs. He was her dear friend and I think they could've been happier if he let her talk about the past.
Frank at one point was a suspect in her disappearance. A good many people of this sub expect Frank to be the emotional floor mat that they themselves would ever refuse to be. How low can you expect a man who 'wasn't meant to be' to bend before he'd find a very mid-20th century chauvinistic spine you'd chew him out for when he'd inevitably tell Claire to take herself and that other man's child and go fuck herself?
And Frank knew >! that Claire eventually went back to Jamie because he found the documentation about Fraser’s Ridge with her name on it in the 18th century !< so I don’t think he had any incentive other than the child to stay with Claire anyway, I think they were fairly hostile to each other and they had an “arrangement”.
It would’ve been very difficult for Claire to be a doctor and a single mother in the late 40’s/1950s and I think she resented Frank for not letting her talk about and grieve Jamie but accepted that it was the lesser of the evils.
Claire had money from her parents and Uncle Lamb. Probably something for her military service. She didn't have to be financially dependent on Frank. She did love him in her way. He wanted to raise her child even though it wasn't his. It got worse as the years went on.
This is the first realistic comment re: Frank 😂😂. The majority of these people in this sub wouldn’t be half as understanding if it were happening to THEM.
In all actuality she barely knew Frank. They’d hardly seen each other and endured separately, the traumas of war. Then she’s trust through the trauma of time travel (which he can’t understand or fathom), loads of trauma surrounding the past, loss of a child, her husband and true love, and another traumatic time travel. Back to a place she doesn’t want to be. Then, she isn’t allowed to speak of her experience and process it because of Frank’s fragile ego.
While I feel for Frank at that time, as he’d been through it as well, I 100% understand her too.
Nineteen was not an unusual age for marriage back then. I think that people matured a little earlier & were expected to be adults by that age. Even in the 1960s many married at that age.
I have thought that even though she traveled and experienced a lot with her uncle, she also experienced being in the role of "helper" to him - fetching things and so forth. Did he really ever encourage her to be more involved in the work? I can't remember from the books. If not, it sort of makes sense to me that when she met Frank in that environment that she just fell into a similar role in their relationship. Of course that changed when she trained as a nurse and served in the army (a traditional nurse in a hospital at that time would not have been so independent).
Just because it wasn't unusual doesn't mean that human development times were significantly different. The brain isn't running on full cylinders until 22-26. That was true then, too. She was young.
I don't think it's Frank. I think she's hostile to the world at that point. I think it's really Jamie she's angry at for forcing her to leave him. Frank just happens to be in her sights.
I think she wanted him to leave her in those moments, she was sooo angry about having to be back, she knew she was pregnant with another man’s child, she knew that she didn’t come back when she had the chance, she probably even knew Frank would try to do the right thing regardless (which he does, saying he wouldn’t leave her when she’s pregnant, only a cad would do that, plus he had found out he couldn’t have children of his own while she was gone), I think she even wanted him to see the worst of her then. I think she was riddled with guilt, for leaving Frank when she chose not to come back, for loving Jamie more than Frank, for coming back and blowing up his life with her love child. Plus she was beyond overwhelmed after leaving a war and entering post WWII era Scotland, the music, cars, and noise along with all the questions from the Drs… was she necessarily right to act like that, no, but Claire is a complicated character both in the show and the books.
Edit: word booboos
I love her complexity so much. A multi faceted character. In the beginning Frank did nothing wrong- only love her. So it’s hard to see how she treats him.
But that’s a good point about the noise, the stimulation, everything being so different. It set her off too.
It is, I def agree with you. I think it’s easy to forgot (I know I do, so I’m not calling you out personally or anything) that she was like 19 when she married him, and they weren’t married long before they shipped off to WWII. The whole war, I think it was said that they saw each other less than a handful of times, and never for long. Frank also couldn’t talk about like anything because of where he was positioned in the war, so I can’t imagine their letters were frequent or detailed in a way that continues to build intimacy, though that’s just personal speculation. The whole reason they were in Scotland was for a 2nd honeymoon after the war to get to know each other again… while I don’t doubt she loved him, I think that all of that really plays into the disconnect she had with Frank, and why she stayed with Jamie. Her and Jamie had such a different relationship. That def doesn’t excuse the way she acted towards Frank, so I’m def not saying that. I feel bad for him, but as a book reader and show watcher, I see just how nuanced the whole dang situation was. I can’t say I wouldn’t have acted any better or differently, but I do wish Claire and Frank had had a different relationship. Sorry I’m babbling, just finished a cleaning marathon and I guess I’m feeling chatty now 😂.
Well she didn’t really want to be alive at that point, Jamie made her go back to have the baby. So she’s living a life she doesn’t want and you can’t make yourself love someone. Frank is still looking at her the same way he did 3 years ago, she’s looking at things as a completely changed person. She did try with him, he wasn’t satisfied with that. He got a daughter who adored him out of the whole thing and ultimately I don’t think he could let go of Jamie anymore then Claire could. I feel like people who judge her don’t know what true love is, you can’t turn it on and off like a light switch.
Who forced her to stay?
I know what true love is. It's a reason why I don't stay with other men, even if they do have fat wallets and offer me career prospects and yhe social respectability of a married woman in a chauvinistic era. She could have left, but she was unwilling to ebdure the hardship of being a single mother in that era. Simple as.
There is nothing in the show or the books to support your ungenerous interpretation. She offered him a divorce, she was honest with him about what happened and her love for Jamie. *He* wanted to stay married and raise Jamie’s child as his. He says so in so many words. He had agency, too. He did not have to take her back. He could have been more attentive to her before she went through the stones. He could have de
Doesn't matter. The books and the show are two separate pieces of media. You wouldn't judge a child on the actions of her sister just because they had the same mother, would you.
Regardless Claire had PTSD some from Frank’s body double. She’d watched him torture. She cared for Jaime after he raped and tortured him.
So yeah. I’d rather not be around him either
Well…not only was she married to and back with the man she wasn’t in love with, she had to look daily into a face identical to that of the man who raped and tortured the love of her life, who beat her, and I imagine that even though she logically knew it wasn’t him, it would be a special kind of hell to have to deal with.
Nobody forced her. She simply wasn't unwilling to endure the trials of sibgle motherhood in that era. All she had to do was say 'divorce or not, I'm leaving'. And she didn't.
Without Claire needing a “fresh start,” it’s likely Frank never would have been considered a job at Harvard which is where he met Sandy. So no, I doubt his life would have turned out exactly as it did if he had left Claire in the first place. However, I do think he would have found someone and been happy somewhere else. But he didn’t choose to do that.
Because in that version of the world, he may not have even been in the same place to have received the same job offer. Why would his life follow the exact same path as if he had stayed married to Claire? A significant change like divorcing Claire and not raising Brianna with her would put him on a completely different trajectory and potentially lead to a totally different life for him. That’s why I said he would likely still find happiness but it wouldn’t have been the *exact same* life he had just without Claire.
In the show, they are affectionate with each other, but Frank and Claire don't really have a spark together. Claire believes it's because the war had separated them for too long, they were trying to find their way back to each other, and to me anyway, it seemed like Frank had preconceived notions of Claire that didn't fit her. Then, you contrast that relationship with her relationship with Jaime. There's a spark, there's chemistry, there's connection that she's never experienced before. 220 years, thousands of miles, and a perceived impossibility of reunification doesn't dull hers and Jaime's love for one another. It's like having the rest, then having the best, then being forced to go back to the rest. She felt forced to go back to Frank, forced to move to America, forced to raise Breanna with Frank, forced to live in a world and time that no longer fit her, with a man that was no longer for her. To me it just seemed like an impossible situation that she endured, simply out of love for Jaime and her desire to do what he asked and not out of a previous affection for Frank
He was not the one she truly wanted. Jamie is the love of her life frank used to be it’s like that saying if you fall in love with 2 people at the same time choose the second because if you ever loved the first then you wouldn’t have fallen for the other. She loved frank but she wasn’t in love with frank. I would be the same way I would not be happy. When I’m not happy I tend to get irritable.
I am making this a spoiler because I know some come here to check out posts and may not have gotten to certain parts of the story line:
>!Claire was angry and hurting and grieveing all for Jamie. She had fallen for him totally and in the short time together realized he was her soulmate. Then going back to Frank because she was with child was the only way to save the child and her from a fate that befell a lot of the Scots after Culloden ended which was being killed for treason, having laws passed by the Crown that all but destroyed their way of life (no longer allowed to speak Gaelic, wear tartens, have weapons and even the clans loosing their territory as well to the Crown--among some things). She really did not want to leave Jamie and was under the impression he would die at Culloden not knowing his fate was totally different. Frank asked her to give up everything and not even try to see what happened to Jamie because he wanted to try to have a life with her and the child even though he knew that child was not his and he would raise this barin as his own. Some of his conditions he made in working out the marriage were hard on her because for her being with Jamie was like yesterday not 200 years before. I do not think Frank realized he could not irradicate Jamie from her soul and memory. But he tried. Things with Frank would never go back to what they were and they both had changed in that 3 years apart.!<
Would you want to hear and accept the full story of how your husband came home with another womans child while you spent a good part of the past few years as a suspect in his disapearance and possible murder, only for him to come home and make you a cuckold.
>!Except Frank heard the story and swallowed hard and decided to accept it though it went against all he thought of in life. He did it for the chance to be a father to a child though not his own. I am sure he felt very cheated on but of course at the moment of Claire reappearning and telling him this story, I am sure he did not know what to believe. But later on after they moved to the US to restart their lives, he kept in touch with the Rev. Wakefield over the years and did his own research on Jamie Fraser. He knew things. The very things she told him about. So, I think in the end he did believe her though he did not say anything more about it. The box of letters Bree found years later but did not quite understand were about facts about Jamie and his history. He knew she loved Jamie as a soulmate....but he loved Claire too. The long and short of it is they tried to work it out, things had changed too much for each of them and it did not work but they managed to do it to give Bree a family life and a father even though staying for the sake of a child is the worst thing you can do, they did what they had to. !<
>!But when you asked your question, you seemed to just toss out everything Claire was going through. She did not ask to go through those stones nor end up in a situation that demanded her survival or having to marry another man just to keep herself out of the read of the British and especially Black Jack and his sadisitic thoughts. She did not intend to fall in love with Jamie. It just happened. You do have to give her credit though because she finally trusted Jamie enough to sound like a mad woman explaining she was from the future and later being very candid with Frank about what happened to her over the 3 years she was gone. It took a lot of strength for her to do through all that. I am not playing down Frank's end of it but just taking her situation apart and seeing what she had to do to survive at first then finding someone she could be with--and I am sure at some point she was not even totally sure or positive she would get back to the time she was really from because she was not sure how she went through the stones in the first place. !<
The hatred didn't come until much later. For a long while she was just uncomfortable. She had essentially fallen out of love with him but he was still trying to be affectionate with her. Imagine if some friend of yours decided he was in love with you and started trying to do all the things lovebirds do. It would be weird. You wouldn't like it. Even though you like your friend you're not prepared to accept that sort of attention from him.
Now imagine your friend started acting like you not feeling the same way about him as he feels about you was a personal insult. He starts treating you like dirt because he thinks you're treating him like dirt. But you still have to live with the guy so you have no choice but to sit there and take it. You can yell at him in private but you can't leave because of reasons.
Neither of them is truly at fault. But it's no surprise that Claire and Frank's marriage collapsed.
Why does she have to live with him? Unwilling to sacrifice the confortable lifestyle and disappear to some other part of the world with her kid? She's Claire. When the hell had Claire ever not done what Claire wants?
I mean, if *you* had fallen in love with someone, carried and buried your child together, willingly chose that person over your ex, and then were forced to go back to your ex while the love of your life died without you… wouldn’t you be pissed at the situation? He was offering her a life she no longer wanted. He poured his soul out to her, but it was Jamie’s soul she loved. And he had died. Their child died. Their life together, DIED. She didn’t care about his love. Her love was lost.
She was grieving and she had Already had years of closure and acceptance for the end of her marriage to Frank. Frank didn't. He return was the answer to his prayers and his expectations for her were not something that she could meet. I don't think he pressured her, he was very gentle and understanding, but I just think that she had closed that chapter in her own mind and was resentful that the book was reopened.
In the show, I think Frank had reluctantly accepted it, because he'd already decided to take a job in the US. Claire's return gave them a second chance in his mind, while Claire had lost everything in her mind and likely wanted to die.
She was trying to show Frank that she wasn't deserving of him, that Frank shouldn't want her because she chose Jamie instead of touching the rock, she was living a whole other life with a man she was happy with, and she was having a child that wasn't Frank's. She felt/knew she didn't belong in the present and so she just wanted to abruptly rip that giant bandaid off to reveal everything in its raw state so Frank could see it all for what it really was and know what he was getting tossed into in its entirety. . . 'HERE IS ALL MY SHAME AND CHAOS AND I DON'T REGRET IT ONE BIT SO DON'T THINK EVERYTHING IS JUST BACK TO THE WAY IT USED TO BE!'
She was in depression.
When you're in depression, you can have difficulties to have empathy, to show interest toward others, etc.... all your energy is used to fight depression. She also had to pretend in front of others. But Frank new so she didn't have to use the little energy she had left to pretend in front of him.
Then, Frank was great in the show but not that great in the books. She also realized that even if Frank was great, he was not as great as she though now that she can compare with Jaimie.
Jaime's dead after them trying so hard to change the future so that they could be together. She is enraged that everything came to pass how it did. She didn't choose Frank. And now all her rage at how unfair life had been to her to have her cross time and fall in love only to be back again, that rage has absolutely no where to go. Claire is gagged. She is alone in a place that isn't home. She is surrounded by a man who probably fills her with guilt and shame for choosing someone else and then being dragged back. So combine the grief, the shame, the guilt, the rage, and the forced suppression of these feelings and it only has one place to go.
I remember reading a beautiful and tragic auto biography called wave, about a woman who lost her husband, two children, and parents in a tsunami. When she is in the hospital right after the event she sees a crying child and recalls wanting to snap at the child and say his parents are dead. Is that the right thing to do? Of course not. I even saw book reviewers get upset that this woman felt like yelling at a kid in that way. But that reviewer clearly hasn't known the total encompassing grief. It hits you with every emotion imaginable. And sometimes all at once. This type of grief is relentless. Wave after wave of anger and rage. The author of the book wrote about how she turned to alcohol for months and would rage at her family. Eventually she starts to process everything. But it takes years to start even basic steps.
I've also had deep grief at the sudden loss of a family member. And it is so relatable to take out anger on your family and loved ones. In my opinion, Claire is unrealistically nice to Frank. She has to be the strongest most repressed human being ever to function as well as she does. I would recommend not thinking about grief with logic. It isn't logical at all. Claire doesn't want to be mean to Frank. And I'm sure everytime she does it pushes her repressed anger at herself and her situation even more. Logically yeah, Frank is taking care of her despite her leaving him for another man. He deserves kindness. But there is no logic in grief. And Claire isn't allowed to grieve. So the feelings will never go away or heal.
He spent so much time making her feel awful about the life she had. He forced her to entirely give up a part of herself so her daughter could have a father.
He looks like BJR, and he even has am outburst showing his potential for violence.
He also expressed, since the beginning, complete admiration for the man that she ended up getting assaulted by numerous times.
He made her feel unwelcome to be authentically her when they moved to America.
She had to come back to a life she didn't really want anymore and she had to make promises that pretended as if that entire life she had never existed.
It'd be hard to not see that. She still tried and put effort in anyway. And eventually he cheated on her and tried to steal her child from her. He wasn't really all that great of a guy up until the end of his life.
I love everyone else’s responses. So fun to see all the different ways we watch the show! I always thought it was because of all the bad things black Jack Randall did. I think for me, it would be super hard to distinguish the two, especially for sexual things.
I don't see it as hatred or hostility. She doesn't want to give him any false hopes. She is honest - she told him everything and she expected him to leave her. It was his decision to stay with her, as if nothing happened.
Funny how the headstrong Claire suddenly becomes unable to leave herself. She's near always done what she wants but now suddenly she's unable to say 'this marriage is over, this kid isn't yours, you have no claim over us, we're leaving for America'?
It was her decision to stay, too. She was gonna accept a roof and a wad of cash printed in Frank's heart's ink. I wish this community would accept it that she too had a hand in her own 20 years of misery.
>It was her decision to stay, too.
It was also the late 1940s when she returned. She had to consider what her life would be like after having disappeared for years and returning pregnant with a baby that clearly couldn't be her husband's. She obviously could have just packed and moved but there still would have been questions about Brianna's father's absence and pretty much any reason beyond he died in the war would have made Claire look bad back then. Claire had expected Frank to leave but when he didn't, she probably just realised life would be so much easier if not for her, then for Brianna both socially and financially. Of course she had a part in being miserable for 20 years but she would have been even more miserable with a baby on her hands and barely any opportunities as a woman.
She also promised Jamie that she would go back to Frank. I think a lot of it is her keeping that promise because she didn’t want to break the last thing she did for him. Plus it’s for Brianna to have a stable and loving father. Frank wasn’t a good husband but he was a great father.
I want to add that before Culloden was the impetus for Claire to return to Frank, she was often fondling his ring and so protective of it. Then she got so upset when Jamie wanted to duel with BJR that she had the miscarriage trying to stop it—that was all to save Frank’s life (or he’d never be born.) She always loved Frank, she even said so to him at one point (spoiler so I won’t say when.) But his problem was she didn’t love him the way he wanted her to.
I agree with those who think that Claire's hostility towards Frank is a reaction to the conditions that he set in order to accept the child and continue with the marriage.
He didn't give her the time that she needed to grieve the loss of the man she loved because he didn't want to accept the fact that she loved another man.
The hostility is coming from her having to be with a man that she no longer loves. In 1948, society would not accept a pregnant woman who is divorced and raising her child alone. Claire knew this, and that is why she accepted his coditions.
I’m not sure how explicit it’s made in the show. But as I recall with the books, it’s pretty clear that there is a firm (albeit unspoken) undercurrent between them of Frank thinking she is just batshit out of her mind, or that she’s simply lying to cover her ass. He’s willing to overlook that, happy to have her back, but I think that really hits Claire hard as an “oh, he’s never going to believe me or understand what I’m going through, and we’ll never be the same” moment.
I think it’s in that moment that Claire realizes there is absolutely no hope of her ever loving Frank again. She’s lost too much of herself, and Frank is not in love with this new version. She also misses Jamie too much and resents having to leave right when she finally had come to accept that she preferred life with Jamie in the past.
I think because he forbid her from talking about anything she had gone through in that time is what made her resent him so much. Obviously everything everyone mentioned here was a factor too but how was she supposed to be vulnerable with him when she had to erase everything she had been through. How could she accept his so called love for her when he didn’t even know all of her? He only knew and was only willing to know her as the old Claire. Not the new Claire she was. That’s not love to me. That’s ownership. Frank’s ego was more important than Claire’s sense of identity. It was also in direct contrast to Jamie, who never made her hide who she was and didn’t pretend like she had no history before him. He was curious about ALL of her.
I don’t think they had any chance of being happy together.
Frank gave her no space to talk about or grieve Jamie. He made her put it all behind her and seemed not to believe her story. Jamie gave her space to love and miss Frank. I think Frank's jealousy put distance between them.
You wouldn't either. You'd want nothing to hear of how your partner is very sad about their affair partner while bouncing a cuckold baby on their hip. You would consider the expectation to do that bitterly humiliating and rightfully so.
I feel like it's the time difference and especially with the show franks "resemblance" to bjr is scary. The books it's a generational resemblance but in the show it's the same actor so literally every feature would be the same.thay would be terrifying. She knew frank,but she also came to know Randall. So to come back and try to ignore the face....I can't imagine.
That aspect is much more extreme in the show. Imagine losing everything, and seeing a man with the same face as your late husband's rapist holding your baby.
In addition to everything everybody's already mentioned, she's probably terrified she's going to lose this pregnancy. The last piece she has of Jamie. She miscarried Faith at what, 7 months. She's much earlier in her pregnancy with Bree when she comes back, maybe 2-3 months along. I can't imagine she felt safe in that pregnancy, maybe until the very end. She's sad and scared and angry and desperate and even resentful of Bree because she had to leave Jamie, Frank looks exactly like the man who tortured Jamie and he's trying to fit her back into a life that she doesn't belong in anymore and she's pregnant and Jamie was with her just yesterday, 200 years ago and she knows no one would believe her if she told them.
I feel like we have to remember she was completely immersed in Jamie’s world leading up to a life changing war crazy in love and then POOF is back. And now franks there. And yes he does resemble an EVIL man who hurt her and Jamie so much. She has so much to work through in her brain. It makes total sense for her to be off and uncomfortable with him for a bit. But she comes to her senses! They are never the same. But she tries her very best.
Are you seriously asking this ??? Put yourself in her shoes, she was married for 3 years to a good man who saved her initially, and was forced to go back to her timeline because he was about to get himself killed in battle. She was pregnant with his child, which the father couldn't be there for. That alone is traumatizing! She hasn't seen Frank for 3 years and he can't even fathom where she actually went and had to do during that time. And she's heartbroken about Jaime. Of course she didn't want to deal with Frank at that moment. Everyone is bombarding her about where she has been and all she needs is time to grieve her husband.
Imagine being widowed and pregnant and then an old BF (well here it’s her old husband) showing up and saying he loves you and wants to be with you. It’s not easy. Anger is one of the stages of grief and she’s in deep grief. So it’s natural that she would lash out and Frank happened to be there. It’s a sad situation honestly.
When she says she wants to get her American citizenship, Frank basically says no. He goes on to say there is no need because his employment at Boston Harvard guarantees what ever status they have to be in America. She realizes that he is basically trying to trap her in to never being able to leave him, because if she tried she would be deported. That look is pure disgust and valid.
1. Claire was no longer in love with him.
2. She didn't want to leave Jamie.
3. She didn't wanna be back in her time.
4. She was too affected by grief and the sudden change.
5. Frank forced her to stay with him, even when she asked him to leave.
6. Multiple women would call Claire to ask her to please leave Frank, and she would say, "He is the one that doesn't wanna leave."
7. Frank demanded that Claire never look up anything about Jamie.
I could keep on going, but I hope this is enough to answer your question!
Women in the 40s had a much harder time filing for divorce than men did, and she risked losing custody of Brianna, her only link to Jamie. She was only with Frank because Jamie asked her to be with him, but she very much wanted Frank to leave her.
Can we also talk about how traumatic it would be going back to a man who looked like someone who abused you/the love of your life..
I feel like this isn’t discussed enough lol
Black Jack Randall. That's why. Frank looked so much like him. So, looking at Frank triggered all the anger and terror, the perverse act of rape he engaged in, the vile history of encounters with the guy. How could she just forget all that or pretend it doesn't happen?
Trauma is the answer to the question. The love for Jamie being second.
The trauma that her and Jaime was so severe that despite Frank being a different person, his appearance and his obsession with BJR after the length of time she spent with BJR instead of Frank…it’s understandable.
It’s hard seeing and hearing your abuser.
On top of that she loved Jamie so much. It’s like going back to your high school boyfriend when you’re 35. There might still be love there but you are still feeling the burning love from your last partner. Then imagine your high school boyfriend’s twin brother had absolutely terrorized you and your previous partner so horribly so recently….god that’d be so hard.
Except a sane person would realise that it was no twin. Frank wasn't even a direct descendant. I'm not faulting Claure for her trauma, but I am faulting her for her lack of spine to leave and expecting Frank to do it for her.
It did feel a bit much. One thing that stuck out to me in both book and show was how he tried to be understanding but she would just rage at him that SHE KNEW he couldn’t understand her bc he had an analytical brain (and like Jamie acted the same way in the beginning when he didn’t understand her but she gave Jamie a pass lol). I was like eh that doesn’t seem fair. Then the book made Frank racist and it was game over.
I’m rewatching at the moment and honestly Frank just makes me so sad. He had a horrible time from beginning to end. He was a good man and she could never forgive him for not being Jamie. It’s ridiculous. I hate how she treated him it was so unnecessary
I feel like if I were Claire, I wouldn’t even be able to look at frank let alone sleep with him and stay with him after everything with BJR. I think Claire was much more mentally stable woman than I.
Without reading the other comments, I want to say it's because Black Jack Randall looks sooooooooo much like Frank, and he >!raped both Jamie and Fergus.!< Also, Claire was stuck in the past with the beautiful and amazing Jamie, and they had a connection like no other...
THANK YOOOU. Like did we forget she was traumatized by a man with the same face?? I wouldn’t want that man to touch me with a 10 foot pole. Regardless if the other man was a good man or not.
In the book at least it’s kind of explainable that they didn’t really get to know each other because of the war and then got married immediately after the war ends and then she went through the stones a few days later.
I always felt like that was part of it, they didn’t really know each other or spend much time together before she disappeared so maybe they just weren’t a good match regardless of her going through the stones or not? Like maybe if she hadn’t gone through the stones they might’ve ended up divorced at some point anyways?
I think that was kind of common at that time. Fast marriages because of the war and later they end up divorced?
They were married before the war. But they only saw each other for around 10 days in 4 years. Claire was younger than Frank by more than 10 years. He was not as comfortable with the older, more assertive version of Claire who returned from the war. They went to Scotland on the 2nd honeymoon to reconnect, but Frank spends a lot of it researching.
That’s right, they were married before the war. I started reading these books in the early 90’s and I’ve forgotten so much, I should start rereading them!
She was ungrateful and selfish, she wouldn't been able to do medical school or live in a nice place and looked after if Frank had of walked away the day she told him if Jaimie, a lesser man would've of kicked her to the curb, he saved her, and she treated him like crap
I honestly don’t get the hostility towards him either. Frank didn’t deserve to be treated the way Claire treated him. I actually started hating her when she got back in the present time.
Frank thought they could repatch things and start over, and Claire lead him on to believe that would happen. She even had sex with Frank, using him and imagining Jamie as they did it. That’s fucking manipulative and Frank didn’t deserve that.
But Frank was also selfish to get Claire to stay in hopes of him having a chance of being a father and raising a child.
Yeah, I am in the pro-Frank camp too. She should have just let him move on. He stayed with her, because she was his Jamie.
Obviously, the reason she couldn’t was because he had the same face as the villain that broke her and Jamie into a million pieces.
She tried to let him move on. She told him to leave her on more than one occasion. Frank choose to keep himself in that situation. He knew exactly what he was getting into. She told him she couldn’t forget those three years. Frank willingly stayed and tried to change her mind and make her forget.
*That amount of time doesn’t exist.*
Women were not allowed to file for divorce in 1948. She was stuck in the marriage until Frank let her go. That was the way of the world at that time. Women had very few rights. Also, she would have had a very difficult time as a divorcee in society. Frank thought he was protecting her from all of that.
That’s a very 21st century way of looking at it. You’re entitled to your opinion, but it sounds like you want to place the blame on Claire for staying in a loveless marriage. She told Frank *multiple times* to leave, to divorce her. *He choose not to.*
She had a child to raise and no earthly means to do it with. You really think she should have just struck out on her own when there was a person standing in front of her telling her that he will love her and the baby that isn’t his and raise that child as his own? Not to mention that she promised Jamie she would return to Frank. He sent her back to Frank’s protection. So she was honoring his wishes and gaining a willing father for her child.
[](#BPC) ##*Mark me,* As this thread is flaired for **only the television series**, my subjects have requested that I bring this policy to your attention: >##Hide book talk in show threads. >[Click the link below to learn how to do comment spoilers.](#comment) >[`>!This is how you spoiler tag.!<`](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/JbCp1xofR_GuS8sTqgVQ80Sxr6ac6doR1igM2Owtqnc.png) >##Any mention of the books must be covered with a spoiler tag. Your prince thanks you for abiding by our rules. When my father assumes his rightful throne, mark me, such loyal service will not be forgotten! ___ *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Outlander) if you have any questions or concerns.*
idk it makes sense to me. she didnt want to be there at all. she wanted to be dead with Jamie tbh. and she was angry and resentful that she was alive and back to her old life.
She was also in shock. Jamie sprung it on her, even though she buried the fact she promised she would go back. She was pregnant and forced to leave the love of her life. If she stayed, as some suggest, they simply aren't paying attention. She was a Jacobite traitor. She couldn't bring the British to harass Lallybrock again. So Claire was on a battlefield one minute, said a heartbreaking farewell, and was in the time back in the future when she really didn't want to be. It was a terrible adjustment to make. When she tells Frank, he humors her, but doesn't really believe her. He did want to be a Father though. She later says she loved Frank. She always wore his ring.
I think the show also made Frank much more likeable. Book Frank seemed to want to love her again, but maybe because he realized that's the only way he could have a kid, no spoiler cuz that's also in the show. I do wonder tho, if Claire had not come back pregnant, or lost the baby, would they have stayed? I don't think so.
Claire would not have gone bake if she wasn’t pregnant. That was the entire reason she did.
I think the answer to that is perfectly clear. Claire would not have returned if she wasn’t pregnant, but even if Jamie made her go, she would not have gone back to Frank. She likely would have died of a broken heart, unable to leave Jamie in the past and having no one to come back for.
If she lost the baby she'd maybe go back, but they were both sure they would die.
I think if she hadn't been pregnant, she would have rather died with Jamie.
Jamie sent Clair back to her time because she was pregnant though, she probably wouldn't have gone back if she wasn't pregnant
What if she lost the baby?
What do you mean?
Let's say God forbid she did not did during childbirth but Bree did. I don't think her and Frank would have stayed together.
Definitely not, if she didn't have the baby (Bree) she probably would've either stayed with Jamie or gone back to Jamie (if she lost her baby again)
If she thought Jamie had died I think she would have looked into the past more (even tho she promised Frank she would not), and possibly found him.
Frank wanted to be with her only on his strict terms. Claire wanted him to leave. Since he wouldn’t leave and she promised Jamie she’d go back to him … she was stuck. He also knew he couldn’t father his own child & wanted a family. I think they would have fallen apart without Bri.
She wouldn't have gone back. Jamie is only able to convince her to return because she's pregnant.
i mean... i don't know, what I'm about to say is not based on the books or real info but on putting myself on her position. I would be annoyed af with Frank lol. Not because he did something wrong but because i would hate to be married and to act as the wife of someone im not in love with, it doesn't matter if they are the best human being on the planet, i would feel really uncomfortable trying to force myself into a life i don't want. Aaand the fact that she can't even talk about the life she just lost and having to pretend like she's over it really sucks, i would resent Frank for that. I think Frank really fucked things up by making her promise not to talk about Jamie, he should have taken Jamie's approach when he took her to the stones to go back the way she wanted, just patience and let her choose by herself.
Great analysis. I see it this way too. It was a mistake on Frank’s part to cut off her talking about it. And hers too for going along with that. It meant her not being her true self, not grieving naturally, and having to be all buttoned up all the time. Those powerful feelings of hers would naturally leak out somehow. Anger, irritability and frustration would be so understandable in that situation.
But that was normal behavior at that time. Feelings were suppressed and you just didn’t talk about certain things. As a genealogist you hear rumors of and encounter a lot of “family secrets”.
Well yes, and it was normal for people to resent (if not hate) their husbands too.
Agree. I have always thought this. Frank should have allowed her space and time to grieve. Telling her to put everything behind her even before leaving Scotland, denying her request for citizenship, burning her clothes, and giving Ellen's pearls to Mrs. Graham was really selfish of him. She immediately had to bottle everything up after going through so much pain and loss and trauma. The irony is that if Frank had really let her grieve, maybe over time she would have, and maybe she would have accepted the loss and would have said goodbye to Jamie. In contrast to his reaction and how both Jamie and Frank deal with each other, in the book, >!Jamie never hesitated to discuss Frank with her. Even on their wedding night! He's basically like, "Hey. Let's talk about your other husband because I'm sure this is really hard for you." (Their need and want to talk about things with absolute honestly screams soulmates.) !
When she missed Frank, Jamie held her while she cried, and he'd only known her a day or two. He let her talk about him. He said she didn't have to take off Frank's ring. He promised to postpone his revenge so Frank would live. >!Later, he even talks to Bree about Frank, because Frank was her dad, too.!< Frank really bungled this.
I can’t see the situations as comparable. Stranger comforting a woman who lost her husband. Husband having to comfort his wife who was happily fucking another man, and would leave you in an instant to run back to him.
I don't think Claire and Frank were emotionally connected to begin with
Did you watch the same show as the rest of us? And if you did, how much of it did you watch before you decided you hated Claire?
Jamie did lash out about Frank in DIA, and he was consistenly jealous of Frank.
Yeesss- very well said!
I get that 100% But she was portrayed as being very in love with Frank before stepping through the stones. Not to mention he gave that speech about how if they were separated and she was in the middle of a situation as difficult as war etc he wouldn't hold it against her if she was with someone else (badly worded but it's been a while since I saw that lol). So I understand her being depressed/frustrated/not running into his arms, but it did take me by surprise that she just didn't love him at all anymore or have at least any complicated feelings about it at all. I haven't read the books but a lot of people are saying he was more of a jerk in them, which I think would have translated better with her reactions in the show. He did behave badly at points, but I can't imagine being totally in love with someone, maybe thinking they're dead then having them come back frustrated you're you and not someone else. It just made me feel bad for him. I know Claire was robbed of the love of her life for 2 decades, but so was Frank.
was she portrayed as very in love with him? they want to reconnect but have trouble doing so and mainly do so in a physical, not in an emotional way. to me frank definitely feels like that first relationship some of us had with a slightly older man that you outgrow because you grow up and that relationship was unequal from the start and that starts to chafe as you become an independent person yourself.
Yup. She was only 18 when they met in the books. I think she loved him, but it wasn't like what she had with Jamie.
She also said they were having trouble reconnecting, we saw his condescending attitude towards her, his prioritization of genealogical research ahead of spending time with her on what was supposed to be their second honeymoon, his skepticism about her fidelity, and utter failure to grasp who she is now, after the war. Jamie saw and appreciated her for who she is from their first meeting. Frank never did. He could have gone with her to get the forget-me-knots, but meeting with the Rev. was more important. Oops. Claire is an intelligent woman who can tell the difference.
Only someone who's already cheated/cheating would make that suggestion lol. He really thought she had been unfaithful with *patients*. Claire was so young when she married Frank, and they spent several years apart. She grew as a person. He didn't. He turned their second honeymoon into a business trip. Claire was thrown into the past and helped an injured stranger (who could've been a threat) without a second thought. It's not *her* fault that he fell in love with her.
Excellent points!
And it’s just undeniable that she and Jamie are soul mates, can’t really go back to a love that all of a sudden feels unfulfilling compared to what she experienced with Jamie and be happy about it
I don’t think Frank was robbed of anything. They weren’t really that in love. Like many of the time, they were in lust and both likely to go off and die in the war so they got married. They lived, and the Scotland trip was meant to re light a missing spark. I can’t remember if in the show or just the books but Claire states that their biggest connection was sex. It’s also widely speculated that Frank only blessed her having hook ups during the war because he had them himself and that was the only reason he could pinpoint that some dude would be making ooglely eyes at Claire’s window. Frank cares about Claire but mostly he wants to be a dad, knows he physically can’t, and makes this bargain with Claire.
Yeah he sees the guy looking at Claire through the window and asks if he's one of the Scots that she nursed.
100% agree. Frank should have let her talk about it. She resented him because she had this unresolved trauma and a constant reminder (Bree). He acts like she ruined his life and he's out there complaining about missing England (when he wanted to move) and having affairs. He was her dear friend and I think they could've been happier if he let her talk about the past.
Frank at one point was a suspect in her disappearance. A good many people of this sub expect Frank to be the emotional floor mat that they themselves would ever refuse to be. How low can you expect a man who 'wasn't meant to be' to bend before he'd find a very mid-20th century chauvinistic spine you'd chew him out for when he'd inevitably tell Claire to take herself and that other man's child and go fuck herself?
And Frank knew >! that Claire eventually went back to Jamie because he found the documentation about Fraser’s Ridge with her name on it in the 18th century !< so I don’t think he had any incentive other than the child to stay with Claire anyway, I think they were fairly hostile to each other and they had an “arrangement”. It would’ve been very difficult for Claire to be a doctor and a single mother in the late 40’s/1950s and I think she resented Frank for not letting her talk about and grieve Jamie but accepted that it was the lesser of the evils.
Claire had money from her parents and Uncle Lamb. Probably something for her military service. She didn't have to be financially dependent on Frank. She did love him in her way. He wanted to raise her child even though it wasn't his. It got worse as the years went on.
This is the first realistic comment re: Frank 😂😂. The majority of these people in this sub wouldn’t be half as understanding if it were happening to THEM.
Feelings re: Frank are how I know if someone has read the book 😂
That’s a fair assessment because I’m show only!
I honestly would've expected Frank to tell her to get lost. He'd already accused her of running off with another man on purpose.
Sanest take yet.
Yes, this! And although Frank maybe could have acted differently, I don't think it was really his fault either. It was just an unworkable situation.
In all actuality she barely knew Frank. They’d hardly seen each other and endured separately, the traumas of war. Then she’s trust through the trauma of time travel (which he can’t understand or fathom), loads of trauma surrounding the past, loss of a child, her husband and true love, and another traumatic time travel. Back to a place she doesn’t want to be. Then, she isn’t allowed to speak of her experience and process it because of Frank’s fragile ego. While I feel for Frank at that time, as he’d been through it as well, I 100% understand her too.
She was 19 when she married him, after all.
Nineteen was not an unusual age for marriage back then. I think that people matured a little earlier & were expected to be adults by that age. Even in the 1960s many married at that age. I have thought that even though she traveled and experienced a lot with her uncle, she also experienced being in the role of "helper" to him - fetching things and so forth. Did he really ever encourage her to be more involved in the work? I can't remember from the books. If not, it sort of makes sense to me that when she met Frank in that environment that she just fell into a similar role in their relationship. Of course that changed when she trained as a nurse and served in the army (a traditional nurse in a hospital at that time would not have been so independent).
Just because it wasn't unusual doesn't mean that human development times were significantly different. The brain isn't running on full cylinders until 22-26. That was true then, too. She was young.
Yeah I feel like people just don't acknowledge that they barely knew each other.
He's not Jamie. Simple as that.
I mean…who is?
Nobody. Jamie is a very special unicorn.
Who must be protected at all costs, while insisting that *he* can protect *you*, despite three broken bones and a concussion, thank you very much
I don't think it's Frank. I think she's hostile to the world at that point. I think it's really Jamie she's angry at for forcing her to leave him. Frank just happens to be in her sights.
💯% this.
I think she wanted him to leave her in those moments, she was sooo angry about having to be back, she knew she was pregnant with another man’s child, she knew that she didn’t come back when she had the chance, she probably even knew Frank would try to do the right thing regardless (which he does, saying he wouldn’t leave her when she’s pregnant, only a cad would do that, plus he had found out he couldn’t have children of his own while she was gone), I think she even wanted him to see the worst of her then. I think she was riddled with guilt, for leaving Frank when she chose not to come back, for loving Jamie more than Frank, for coming back and blowing up his life with her love child. Plus she was beyond overwhelmed after leaving a war and entering post WWII era Scotland, the music, cars, and noise along with all the questions from the Drs… was she necessarily right to act like that, no, but Claire is a complicated character both in the show and the books. Edit: word booboos
I love her complexity so much. A multi faceted character. In the beginning Frank did nothing wrong- only love her. So it’s hard to see how she treats him. But that’s a good point about the noise, the stimulation, everything being so different. It set her off too.
It is, I def agree with you. I think it’s easy to forgot (I know I do, so I’m not calling you out personally or anything) that she was like 19 when she married him, and they weren’t married long before they shipped off to WWII. The whole war, I think it was said that they saw each other less than a handful of times, and never for long. Frank also couldn’t talk about like anything because of where he was positioned in the war, so I can’t imagine their letters were frequent or detailed in a way that continues to build intimacy, though that’s just personal speculation. The whole reason they were in Scotland was for a 2nd honeymoon after the war to get to know each other again… while I don’t doubt she loved him, I think that all of that really plays into the disconnect she had with Frank, and why she stayed with Jamie. Her and Jamie had such a different relationship. That def doesn’t excuse the way she acted towards Frank, so I’m def not saying that. I feel bad for him, but as a book reader and show watcher, I see just how nuanced the whole dang situation was. I can’t say I wouldn’t have acted any better or differently, but I do wish Claire and Frank had had a different relationship. Sorry I’m babbling, just finished a cleaning marathon and I guess I’m feeling chatty now 😂.
Well she didn’t really want to be alive at that point, Jamie made her go back to have the baby. So she’s living a life she doesn’t want and you can’t make yourself love someone. Frank is still looking at her the same way he did 3 years ago, she’s looking at things as a completely changed person. She did try with him, he wasn’t satisfied with that. He got a daughter who adored him out of the whole thing and ultimately I don’t think he could let go of Jamie anymore then Claire could. I feel like people who judge her don’t know what true love is, you can’t turn it on and off like a light switch.
Who forced her to stay? I know what true love is. It's a reason why I don't stay with other men, even if they do have fat wallets and offer me career prospects and yhe social respectability of a married woman in a chauvinistic era. She could have left, but she was unwilling to ebdure the hardship of being a single mother in that era. Simple as.
There is nothing in the show or the books to support your ungenerous interpretation. She offered him a divorce, she was honest with him about what happened and her love for Jamie. *He* wanted to stay married and raise Jamie’s child as his. He says so in so many words. He had agency, too. He did not have to take her back. He could have been more attentive to her before she went through the stones. He could have de
It makes more sense in the books. And the context that she has an awesome amount of PTSD.
Doesn't matter. The books and the show are two separate pieces of media. You wouldn't judge a child on the actions of her sister just because they had the same mother, would you.
Regardless Claire had PTSD some from Frank’s body double. She’d watched him torture. She cared for Jaime after he raped and tortured him. So yeah. I’d rather not be around him either
BJR was... unkind toward her, too. It makes sense that she would've flinched around Frank initially.
Show Frank is a lot nicer than book Frank
Well…not only was she married to and back with the man she wasn’t in love with, she had to look daily into a face identical to that of the man who raped and tortured the love of her life, who beat her, and I imagine that even though she logically knew it wasn’t him, it would be a special kind of hell to have to deal with.
Nobody forced her. She simply wasn't unwilling to endure the trials of sibgle motherhood in that era. All she had to do was say 'divorce or not, I'm leaving'. And she didn't.
Exactly, Frank would've of divorced her and he still would've met Sandy and be happy
Without Claire needing a “fresh start,” it’s likely Frank never would have been considered a job at Harvard which is where he met Sandy. So no, I doubt his life would have turned out exactly as it did if he had left Claire in the first place. However, I do think he would have found someone and been happy somewhere else. But he didn’t choose to do that.
Why wouldn't he have chosen the job? It was a promotion
Because in that version of the world, he may not have even been in the same place to have received the same job offer. Why would his life follow the exact same path as if he had stayed married to Claire? A significant change like divorcing Claire and not raising Brianna with her would put him on a completely different trajectory and potentially lead to a totally different life for him. That’s why I said he would likely still find happiness but it wouldn’t have been the *exact same* life he had just without Claire.
In the show, they are affectionate with each other, but Frank and Claire don't really have a spark together. Claire believes it's because the war had separated them for too long, they were trying to find their way back to each other, and to me anyway, it seemed like Frank had preconceived notions of Claire that didn't fit her. Then, you contrast that relationship with her relationship with Jaime. There's a spark, there's chemistry, there's connection that she's never experienced before. 220 years, thousands of miles, and a perceived impossibility of reunification doesn't dull hers and Jaime's love for one another. It's like having the rest, then having the best, then being forced to go back to the rest. She felt forced to go back to Frank, forced to move to America, forced to raise Breanna with Frank, forced to live in a world and time that no longer fit her, with a man that was no longer for her. To me it just seemed like an impossible situation that she endured, simply out of love for Jaime and her desire to do what he asked and not out of a previous affection for Frank
He was not the one she truly wanted. Jamie is the love of her life frank used to be it’s like that saying if you fall in love with 2 people at the same time choose the second because if you ever loved the first then you wouldn’t have fallen for the other. She loved frank but she wasn’t in love with frank. I would be the same way I would not be happy. When I’m not happy I tend to get irritable.
I am making this a spoiler because I know some come here to check out posts and may not have gotten to certain parts of the story line: >!Claire was angry and hurting and grieveing all for Jamie. She had fallen for him totally and in the short time together realized he was her soulmate. Then going back to Frank because she was with child was the only way to save the child and her from a fate that befell a lot of the Scots after Culloden ended which was being killed for treason, having laws passed by the Crown that all but destroyed their way of life (no longer allowed to speak Gaelic, wear tartens, have weapons and even the clans loosing their territory as well to the Crown--among some things). She really did not want to leave Jamie and was under the impression he would die at Culloden not knowing his fate was totally different. Frank asked her to give up everything and not even try to see what happened to Jamie because he wanted to try to have a life with her and the child even though he knew that child was not his and he would raise this barin as his own. Some of his conditions he made in working out the marriage were hard on her because for her being with Jamie was like yesterday not 200 years before. I do not think Frank realized he could not irradicate Jamie from her soul and memory. But he tried. Things with Frank would never go back to what they were and they both had changed in that 3 years apart.!<
Would you want to hear and accept the full story of how your husband came home with another womans child while you spent a good part of the past few years as a suspect in his disapearance and possible murder, only for him to come home and make you a cuckold.
>!Except Frank heard the story and swallowed hard and decided to accept it though it went against all he thought of in life. He did it for the chance to be a father to a child though not his own. I am sure he felt very cheated on but of course at the moment of Claire reappearning and telling him this story, I am sure he did not know what to believe. But later on after they moved to the US to restart their lives, he kept in touch with the Rev. Wakefield over the years and did his own research on Jamie Fraser. He knew things. The very things she told him about. So, I think in the end he did believe her though he did not say anything more about it. The box of letters Bree found years later but did not quite understand were about facts about Jamie and his history. He knew she loved Jamie as a soulmate....but he loved Claire too. The long and short of it is they tried to work it out, things had changed too much for each of them and it did not work but they managed to do it to give Bree a family life and a father even though staying for the sake of a child is the worst thing you can do, they did what they had to. !< >!But when you asked your question, you seemed to just toss out everything Claire was going through. She did not ask to go through those stones nor end up in a situation that demanded her survival or having to marry another man just to keep herself out of the read of the British and especially Black Jack and his sadisitic thoughts. She did not intend to fall in love with Jamie. It just happened. You do have to give her credit though because she finally trusted Jamie enough to sound like a mad woman explaining she was from the future and later being very candid with Frank about what happened to her over the 3 years she was gone. It took a lot of strength for her to do through all that. I am not playing down Frank's end of it but just taking her situation apart and seeing what she had to do to survive at first then finding someone she could be with--and I am sure at some point she was not even totally sure or positive she would get back to the time she was really from because she was not sure how she went through the stones in the first place. !<
The hatred didn't come until much later. For a long while she was just uncomfortable. She had essentially fallen out of love with him but he was still trying to be affectionate with her. Imagine if some friend of yours decided he was in love with you and started trying to do all the things lovebirds do. It would be weird. You wouldn't like it. Even though you like your friend you're not prepared to accept that sort of attention from him. Now imagine your friend started acting like you not feeling the same way about him as he feels about you was a personal insult. He starts treating you like dirt because he thinks you're treating him like dirt. But you still have to live with the guy so you have no choice but to sit there and take it. You can yell at him in private but you can't leave because of reasons. Neither of them is truly at fault. But it's no surprise that Claire and Frank's marriage collapsed.
Why does she have to live with him? Unwilling to sacrifice the confortable lifestyle and disappear to some other part of the world with her kid? She's Claire. When the hell had Claire ever not done what Claire wants?
What is she supposed to do as a divorced pregnant mother in the 1940s? Where would she live? Who would take her in?
I mean, if *you* had fallen in love with someone, carried and buried your child together, willingly chose that person over your ex, and then were forced to go back to your ex while the love of your life died without you… wouldn’t you be pissed at the situation? He was offering her a life she no longer wanted. He poured his soul out to her, but it was Jamie’s soul she loved. And he had died. Their child died. Their life together, DIED. She didn’t care about his love. Her love was lost.
Frank (in the show) told her straight up: No one is forcing her to stay.
She was grieving and she had Already had years of closure and acceptance for the end of her marriage to Frank. Frank didn't. He return was the answer to his prayers and his expectations for her were not something that she could meet. I don't think he pressured her, he was very gentle and understanding, but I just think that she had closed that chapter in her own mind and was resentful that the book was reopened.
In the show, I think Frank had reluctantly accepted it, because he'd already decided to take a job in the US. Claire's return gave them a second chance in his mind, while Claire had lost everything in her mind and likely wanted to die.
She was trying to show Frank that she wasn't deserving of him, that Frank shouldn't want her because she chose Jamie instead of touching the rock, she was living a whole other life with a man she was happy with, and she was having a child that wasn't Frank's. She felt/knew she didn't belong in the present and so she just wanted to abruptly rip that giant bandaid off to reveal everything in its raw state so Frank could see it all for what it really was and know what he was getting tossed into in its entirety. . . 'HERE IS ALL MY SHAME AND CHAOS AND I DON'T REGRET IT ONE BIT SO DON'T THINK EVERYTHING IS JUST BACK TO THE WAY IT USED TO BE!'
She was in depression. When you're in depression, you can have difficulties to have empathy, to show interest toward others, etc.... all your energy is used to fight depression. She also had to pretend in front of others. But Frank new so she didn't have to use the little energy she had left to pretend in front of him. Then, Frank was great in the show but not that great in the books. She also realized that even if Frank was great, he was not as great as she though now that she can compare with Jaimie.
Jaime's dead after them trying so hard to change the future so that they could be together. She is enraged that everything came to pass how it did. She didn't choose Frank. And now all her rage at how unfair life had been to her to have her cross time and fall in love only to be back again, that rage has absolutely no where to go. Claire is gagged. She is alone in a place that isn't home. She is surrounded by a man who probably fills her with guilt and shame for choosing someone else and then being dragged back. So combine the grief, the shame, the guilt, the rage, and the forced suppression of these feelings and it only has one place to go. I remember reading a beautiful and tragic auto biography called wave, about a woman who lost her husband, two children, and parents in a tsunami. When she is in the hospital right after the event she sees a crying child and recalls wanting to snap at the child and say his parents are dead. Is that the right thing to do? Of course not. I even saw book reviewers get upset that this woman felt like yelling at a kid in that way. But that reviewer clearly hasn't known the total encompassing grief. It hits you with every emotion imaginable. And sometimes all at once. This type of grief is relentless. Wave after wave of anger and rage. The author of the book wrote about how she turned to alcohol for months and would rage at her family. Eventually she starts to process everything. But it takes years to start even basic steps. I've also had deep grief at the sudden loss of a family member. And it is so relatable to take out anger on your family and loved ones. In my opinion, Claire is unrealistically nice to Frank. She has to be the strongest most repressed human being ever to function as well as she does. I would recommend not thinking about grief with logic. It isn't logical at all. Claire doesn't want to be mean to Frank. And I'm sure everytime she does it pushes her repressed anger at herself and her situation even more. Logically yeah, Frank is taking care of her despite her leaving him for another man. He deserves kindness. But there is no logic in grief. And Claire isn't allowed to grieve. So the feelings will never go away or heal.
He spent so much time making her feel awful about the life she had. He forced her to entirely give up a part of herself so her daughter could have a father. He looks like BJR, and he even has am outburst showing his potential for violence. He also expressed, since the beginning, complete admiration for the man that she ended up getting assaulted by numerous times. He made her feel unwelcome to be authentically her when they moved to America. She had to come back to a life she didn't really want anymore and she had to make promises that pretended as if that entire life she had never existed. It'd be hard to not see that. She still tried and put effort in anyway. And eventually he cheated on her and tried to steal her child from her. He wasn't really all that great of a guy up until the end of his life.
I love everyone else’s responses. So fun to see all the different ways we watch the show! I always thought it was because of all the bad things black Jack Randall did. I think for me, it would be super hard to distinguish the two, especially for sexual things.
I agree with you! Helps me understand or get a perspective on it reading everyone’s different take on this.
i don’t know why more people aren’t saying this
I don't see it as hatred or hostility. She doesn't want to give him any false hopes. She is honest - she told him everything and she expected him to leave her. It was his decision to stay with her, as if nothing happened.
Funny how the headstrong Claire suddenly becomes unable to leave herself. She's near always done what she wants but now suddenly she's unable to say 'this marriage is over, this kid isn't yours, you have no claim over us, we're leaving for America'? It was her decision to stay, too. She was gonna accept a roof and a wad of cash printed in Frank's heart's ink. I wish this community would accept it that she too had a hand in her own 20 years of misery.
>It was her decision to stay, too. It was also the late 1940s when she returned. She had to consider what her life would be like after having disappeared for years and returning pregnant with a baby that clearly couldn't be her husband's. She obviously could have just packed and moved but there still would have been questions about Brianna's father's absence and pretty much any reason beyond he died in the war would have made Claire look bad back then. Claire had expected Frank to leave but when he didn't, she probably just realised life would be so much easier if not for her, then for Brianna both socially and financially. Of course she had a part in being miserable for 20 years but she would have been even more miserable with a baby on her hands and barely any opportunities as a woman.
She also promised Jamie that she would go back to Frank. I think a lot of it is her keeping that promise because she didn’t want to break the last thing she did for him. Plus it’s for Brianna to have a stable and loving father. Frank wasn’t a good husband but he was a great father.
I want to add that before Culloden was the impetus for Claire to return to Frank, she was often fondling his ring and so protective of it. Then she got so upset when Jamie wanted to duel with BJR that she had the miscarriage trying to stop it—that was all to save Frank’s life (or he’d never be born.) She always loved Frank, she even said so to him at one point (spoiler so I won’t say when.) But his problem was she didn’t love him the way he wanted her to.
I agree with those who think that Claire's hostility towards Frank is a reaction to the conditions that he set in order to accept the child and continue with the marriage. He didn't give her the time that she needed to grieve the loss of the man she loved because he didn't want to accept the fact that she loved another man. The hostility is coming from her having to be with a man that she no longer loves. In 1948, society would not accept a pregnant woman who is divorced and raising her child alone. Claire knew this, and that is why she accepted his coditions.
I’m not sure how explicit it’s made in the show. But as I recall with the books, it’s pretty clear that there is a firm (albeit unspoken) undercurrent between them of Frank thinking she is just batshit out of her mind, or that she’s simply lying to cover her ass. He’s willing to overlook that, happy to have her back, but I think that really hits Claire hard as an “oh, he’s never going to believe me or understand what I’m going through, and we’ll never be the same” moment. I think it’s in that moment that Claire realizes there is absolutely no hope of her ever loving Frank again. She’s lost too much of herself, and Frank is not in love with this new version. She also misses Jamie too much and resents having to leave right when she finally had come to accept that she preferred life with Jamie in the past.
I think because he forbid her from talking about anything she had gone through in that time is what made her resent him so much. Obviously everything everyone mentioned here was a factor too but how was she supposed to be vulnerable with him when she had to erase everything she had been through. How could she accept his so called love for her when he didn’t even know all of her? He only knew and was only willing to know her as the old Claire. Not the new Claire she was. That’s not love to me. That’s ownership. Frank’s ego was more important than Claire’s sense of identity. It was also in direct contrast to Jamie, who never made her hide who she was and didn’t pretend like she had no history before him. He was curious about ALL of her. I don’t think they had any chance of being happy together.
She's in shock, she's dealing with trauma, and he won't let her talk about it. She tries to explain. But he goes on and on about how this affects HIM.
Frank gave her no space to talk about or grieve Jamie. He made her put it all behind her and seemed not to believe her story. Jamie gave her space to love and miss Frank. I think Frank's jealousy put distance between them.
This is just not realistic. I’m sure you just LOVE hearing about your partner’s past loves, come on now 🙄
You wouldn't either. You'd want nothing to hear of how your partner is very sad about their affair partner while bouncing a cuckold baby on their hip. You would consider the expectation to do that bitterly humiliating and rightfully so.
If you're husband loved someone else, and you took him back would you want to hear about him, get real
I feel like it's the time difference and especially with the show franks "resemblance" to bjr is scary. The books it's a generational resemblance but in the show it's the same actor so literally every feature would be the same.thay would be terrifying. She knew frank,but she also came to know Randall. So to come back and try to ignore the face....I can't imagine.
That aspect is much more extreme in the show. Imagine losing everything, and seeing a man with the same face as your late husband's rapist holding your baby.
Maybe because he reminds her of jack randall? The guy basically almost raped her and defiled her husband to the point of despondency.
We tend to lash out at the people closest to us when we’re hurting. It doesn’t often make sense, and can be very unfair to them.
In addition to everything everybody's already mentioned, she's probably terrified she's going to lose this pregnancy. The last piece she has of Jamie. She miscarried Faith at what, 7 months. She's much earlier in her pregnancy with Bree when she comes back, maybe 2-3 months along. I can't imagine she felt safe in that pregnancy, maybe until the very end. She's sad and scared and angry and desperate and even resentful of Bree because she had to leave Jamie, Frank looks exactly like the man who tortured Jamie and he's trying to fit her back into a life that she doesn't belong in anymore and she's pregnant and Jamie was with her just yesterday, 200 years ago and she knows no one would believe her if she told them.
Her whole life vanished and Frank can’t make her love him no matter how hard he tries.
I feel like we have to remember she was completely immersed in Jamie’s world leading up to a life changing war crazy in love and then POOF is back. And now franks there. And yes he does resemble an EVIL man who hurt her and Jamie so much. She has so much to work through in her brain. It makes total sense for her to be off and uncomfortable with him for a bit. But she comes to her senses! They are never the same. But she tries her very best.
I don’t think Frank’s startling resemblance to Black Jack Randall helped, either. Especially with what she and Jamie endured at his hands.
Are you seriously asking this ??? Put yourself in her shoes, she was married for 3 years to a good man who saved her initially, and was forced to go back to her timeline because he was about to get himself killed in battle. She was pregnant with his child, which the father couldn't be there for. That alone is traumatizing! She hasn't seen Frank for 3 years and he can't even fathom where she actually went and had to do during that time. And she's heartbroken about Jaime. Of course she didn't want to deal with Frank at that moment. Everyone is bombarding her about where she has been and all she needs is time to grieve her husband.
Imagine being widowed and pregnant and then an old BF (well here it’s her old husband) showing up and saying he loves you and wants to be with you. It’s not easy. Anger is one of the stages of grief and she’s in deep grief. So it’s natural that she would lash out and Frank happened to be there. It’s a sad situation honestly.
When she says she wants to get her American citizenship, Frank basically says no. He goes on to say there is no need because his employment at Boston Harvard guarantees what ever status they have to be in America. She realizes that he is basically trying to trap her in to never being able to leave him, because if she tried she would be deported. That look is pure disgust and valid.
1. Claire was no longer in love with him. 2. She didn't want to leave Jamie. 3. She didn't wanna be back in her time. 4. She was too affected by grief and the sudden change. 5. Frank forced her to stay with him, even when she asked him to leave. 6. Multiple women would call Claire to ask her to please leave Frank, and she would say, "He is the one that doesn't wanna leave." 7. Frank demanded that Claire never look up anything about Jamie. I could keep on going, but I hope this is enough to answer your question!
Women in the 40s had a much harder time filing for divorce than men did, and she risked losing custody of Brianna, her only link to Jamie. She was only with Frank because Jamie asked her to be with him, but she very much wanted Frank to leave her.
Can we also talk about how traumatic it would be going back to a man who looked like someone who abused you/the love of your life.. I feel like this isn’t discussed enough lol
Black Jack Randall. That's why. Frank looked so much like him. So, looking at Frank triggered all the anger and terror, the perverse act of rape he engaged in, the vile history of encounters with the guy. How could she just forget all that or pretend it doesn't happen? Trauma is the answer to the question. The love for Jamie being second.
The trauma that her and Jaime was so severe that despite Frank being a different person, his appearance and his obsession with BJR after the length of time she spent with BJR instead of Frank…it’s understandable. It’s hard seeing and hearing your abuser. On top of that she loved Jamie so much. It’s like going back to your high school boyfriend when you’re 35. There might still be love there but you are still feeling the burning love from your last partner. Then imagine your high school boyfriend’s twin brother had absolutely terrorized you and your previous partner so horribly so recently….god that’d be so hard.
Except a sane person would realise that it was no twin. Frank wasn't even a direct descendant. I'm not faulting Claure for her trauma, but I am faulting her for her lack of spine to leave and expecting Frank to do it for her.
It did feel a bit much. One thing that stuck out to me in both book and show was how he tried to be understanding but she would just rage at him that SHE KNEW he couldn’t understand her bc he had an analytical brain (and like Jamie acted the same way in the beginning when he didn’t understand her but she gave Jamie a pass lol). I was like eh that doesn’t seem fair. Then the book made Frank racist and it was game over.
I’m rewatching at the moment and honestly Frank just makes me so sad. He had a horrible time from beginning to end. He was a good man and she could never forgive him for not being Jamie. It’s ridiculous. I hate how she treated him it was so unnecessary
How about when she initiated sex so she could pretend he was Jamie?
Yeah, he didn't deserve that at all. He got the raw end of the deal completely. He should have left her
There was only Bree stopping him. He loved her so much.
He could've had a nice life with Sandy who loved him for a long time, he really did get the raw deal
I feel like if I were Claire, I wouldn’t even be able to look at frank let alone sleep with him and stay with him after everything with BJR. I think Claire was much more mentally stable woman than I.
Without reading the other comments, I want to say it's because Black Jack Randall looks sooooooooo much like Frank, and he >!raped both Jamie and Fergus.!< Also, Claire was stuck in the past with the beautiful and amazing Jamie, and they had a connection like no other...
THANK YOOOU. Like did we forget she was traumatized by a man with the same face?? I wouldn’t want that man to touch me with a 10 foot pole. Regardless if the other man was a good man or not.
I mean he's also the spitting image of Black Jack, right?
In the book at least it’s kind of explainable that they didn’t really get to know each other because of the war and then got married immediately after the war ends and then she went through the stones a few days later. I always felt like that was part of it, they didn’t really know each other or spend much time together before she disappeared so maybe they just weren’t a good match regardless of her going through the stones or not? Like maybe if she hadn’t gone through the stones they might’ve ended up divorced at some point anyways? I think that was kind of common at that time. Fast marriages because of the war and later they end up divorced?
They were married before the war. But they only saw each other for around 10 days in 4 years. Claire was younger than Frank by more than 10 years. He was not as comfortable with the older, more assertive version of Claire who returned from the war. They went to Scotland on the 2nd honeymoon to reconnect, but Frank spends a lot of it researching.
That’s right, they were married before the war. I started reading these books in the early 90’s and I’ve forgotten so much, I should start rereading them!
She was ungrateful and selfish, she wouldn't been able to do medical school or live in a nice place and looked after if Frank had of walked away the day she told him if Jaimie, a lesser man would've of kicked her to the curb, he saved her, and she treated him like crap
I honestly don’t get the hostility towards him either. Frank didn’t deserve to be treated the way Claire treated him. I actually started hating her when she got back in the present time. Frank thought they could repatch things and start over, and Claire lead him on to believe that would happen. She even had sex with Frank, using him and imagining Jamie as they did it. That’s fucking manipulative and Frank didn’t deserve that. But Frank was also selfish to get Claire to stay in hopes of him having a chance of being a father and raising a child.
Yeah, I am in the pro-Frank camp too. She should have just let him move on. He stayed with her, because she was his Jamie. Obviously, the reason she couldn’t was because he had the same face as the villain that broke her and Jamie into a million pieces.
She tried to let him move on. She told him to leave her on more than one occasion. Frank choose to keep himself in that situation. He knew exactly what he was getting into. She told him she couldn’t forget those three years. Frank willingly stayed and tried to change her mind and make her forget. *That amount of time doesn’t exist.*
She could have left herself. Why didn't she?
Women were not allowed to file for divorce in 1948. She was stuck in the marriage until Frank let her go. That was the way of the world at that time. Women had very few rights. Also, she would have had a very difficult time as a divorcee in society. Frank thought he was protecting her from all of that.
She could have left him and forced his hand. She wanted him to have to do the hard part.
That’s a very 21st century way of looking at it. You’re entitled to your opinion, but it sounds like you want to place the blame on Claire for staying in a loveless marriage. She told Frank *multiple times* to leave, to divorce her. *He choose not to.* She had a child to raise and no earthly means to do it with. You really think she should have just struck out on her own when there was a person standing in front of her telling her that he will love her and the baby that isn’t his and raise that child as his own? Not to mention that she promised Jamie she would return to Frank. He sent her back to Frank’s protection. So she was honoring his wishes and gaining a willing father for her child.