Lyon-Brownless scandal: It’s bizarre to still be talking about someone’s ex like a piece of property

HOW long is long enough for a mate to wait before dating a mate’s ex? This question is absorbing social media in the wake of the Brownless-Lyon-Brownless “scandal” and what a demeaning question it is.

Red Ball. Billy Brownless and his wife Nikki, and Garry Lyon and his wife Melissa.

HOW long is long enough for a mate to wait before dating a mate’s ex?

This is a question absorbing social media in the wake of the Brownless-Lyon-Brownless “scandal” and what a demeaning question it is.

As if a woman is just her husband or ex-husband’s chattel with no identity, mind or independent existence of her own – like a second-hand car.

Spare me.

Billy and Nicky Brownless, Garry and Melissa Lyon.

In 2016 how bizarre to be talking about someone’s partner or ex like you would some inanimate piece of property of which the man who paid the bill is sole proprietor until he decides she can go to a new owner.

I’m not referring to Billy Brownless, whose ex-wife Nicky is alleged to have been involved with his now ex mate Garry Lyon.

I’m referring to how everyone else is discussing Nicky Brownless, or not discussing her because, after all, she’s just a prop in a more important drama.

It’s as if all the sympathy for the wronged man’s world of pain flows from the idea he had a possession he hadn’t finished with, stolen by someone he trusted.

Kind of like someone pinching your camel while you’re snoozing under a tree.

And we dare slag off oppressive cultures in which men are considered the keepers of women, the holders of their rights and arbiters of their freedoms.

The latest tale of a romance that smashed a friendship is a heartbreaker, no question, especially given so many people are affected and that they all have to play their trauma out in the public eye.

It’s hardly unheard of, by the way, for a partner of either gender to start something with an ex’s buddy.

“He/she took off with my best friend” is a sorry tale that comes around and round.

But what stands out about the way this one has been received is its treatment as a story of one man who did the unthinkable, “take” something belonging to a mate – who, by the way, just happens to be a human woman with agency of her own (you’d hope).

What’s more, no one has batted an eyelash about how dehumanising the talk about Nicky Brownless, the object, has been.

It’s as if she is an attractive antique the owner left dusty on a mantelpiece and someone else saw some value there and pocketed it on the way out.

It is touching that in all the mountain of social media angst this story is attracting the feelings of the two men have been the subject of great concern.

I am pleased that a certain amount of respect has been given to the idea a man with mental health issues deserves decent treatment.

But it’s been incredible to see the way the women and girls whose lives are also being discussed and dissected are regarded as no more than props in a grand opera of bro code-busting pain.

More details of who did what and when may emerge, but the point remains that no one ‘owns’ anyone.

If you start a relationship with a friend’s ex you are not ‘stealing’ something that belongs or belonged to him, it might be bad behaviour in the minds of many but it isn’t theft because a woman is not a thing.

FYI she has a say in it.

Though I think blame-spotting is pretty useless in any of these types of (not uncommon) marital debacles, for those who do like to hand it out then it and responsibility for the choices involved should also be equally shared.

That’s part of acknowledging the woman in any relationship is an equal player in her own life.

Not a comfy chair that vanished from your porch and turned up at your mate’s.

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