I have been asked for my opinion so often in emails, and have read a multitude of comments from readers, thinking they know my opinion on "Something We Have To Talk About" that instead of answering each of you in emails, I am doing so here.
From our (reader/writer) prospective, we are jolted, dropped, into this couple's life only after seemingly, everything has been said and done, and that, right when they have their greatest moment of confrontation. For us there was no going back into their history and pointing out their mistakes. Ever been there? Ever get shoved into someone else's argument, where you know nothing about, and each of them wants you to take their side?
Both of them have psychological problems, but in some ways, don't we all? We could spend hours debating pro and cons of their psychological deficiencies, but how relevant would that be? Each of them had obviously, through non-communication, isolated themselves into a corner.
For me was relevant only to portray a couple "in conflict", and that after fact, and both combative and in their isolated positions. Right and wrong in this story do not interest me "per say". (That they were a heterosexual couple is only because most readers will be sympathetic to, and do feel emotionally, heterosexual. My storyline could have easily have been about a gay couple, either FF or MM.)
In this story, only their conflict interests me. He thinks he is right. She thinks she is right. Neither one will change unless both of them get out of their isolated corners and listens to the other.
My POV makes my story title so important. Obviously, all through their marriage they talked. They talked at each other and never with each other, never listening to the other. Now they have reached that point in time, where past mistakes have consequences, hard, cold, bitter and brutal consequences. That's the moral of the story, and that makes any more sequels irrelevant. Because, chapter "It's All-Good" shows, the universality of "Something We Have To Talk About", and the thousands of differing real life outcomes.