Jaycee Woods

I confess that I enjoy reading my drafted short stories as a prep for editing. Recently, I read my draft novella with the working title, “DINK Breakup.” DINK is the slang acronym for Dual-Income-No-Kids.

Emily and Martin have been in a 20 year relationship beginning in high school. They live together without being married and have had no children.

The conflict begins as Martin has been withdrawn while reexamining his life. Emily insists that he talk about it with her instead of processing it internally. Mistake on her part as it exposes two festering wounds in their relationship that she hasn’t wanted to talk about. First that he wanted kids, but she didn’t. Second, that she aborted their son when she was 18 without consulting him. Usually issues about reproduction are discussed as if only the female perspective is important, so this part of the story gives voice to a male perspective.

Without middle ground between their desires, Emily makes the mistake of suggesting that they breakup if he is so unhappy without kids. This is what Martin has struggled to not consider, but after she says it then that option becomes real to him. She overreacts by accusing him of never really loving her if he can’t accept not having biological kids. As this conflict remains unreconcilable, Martin asks the fundamental question, “What does Emily contribute to his future?” Yes, I had him ask the “what do you bring to the table?” question, not on a first date but after a 20 year relationship. Emily had no answer.

Respecting that he had been thinking about this issue for a while, but she had not, Martin stated that he was going to leave for a week, so she has time to come up with an answer. When he returns, she has no answer and has descended into a psychological breakdown. As Martin is moving out, his friend Tom seeing Emily crying on the floor says, “She looks like a tick that was pulled out of a dog.” At the end of their relationship, Martin told Emily that she still had all the material possessions that were important to her and she only lost sharing his future. While #NotAll, at start of this story, Emily had been a materialistic parasite using Martin to create her chosen life.

The rest of the story is about Emily going to the psych ward and her recovery. Martin exits the story happily in a new relationship with Tom’s little sister and having prospects to become a dad. In the end, Emily has a nice redemption arc.