Request for a Sensitivity Read

This is simply a request to make sure the topics discussed here don’t come across as insulting or unsavory.

The scene here is a man talking about his divorce from a very toxic woman. They had a child and after the fact she claims he forced her to have the child against her will and him talking about the fallout from the entire thing to a friend. But it touches on toxic relationships, abuse, abortion, misogyny, and I just want to make sure it's approached in a tactful way because of how sensitive the topics are.

Excerpt:

I close my eyes and gather my thoughts for a minute before looking back up at Destin. His hand curls around mine, almost like he’s grounding me, and I surge forward, unraveling so much of what happened between Eviana and I. “I always had this idyllic image in my mind of the perfect life and I could never let it go. I don’t know why I was always so obsessed with it, but it was my goal, my personal endgame. All I ever really wanted was a loving family.”

“When I was a child, I grew up watching my dad instill this warmth and peace into our family. He held it together with his love and capability, the glue that bonded us. I was only twelve when he died and it broke us. My mom’s laughter was harder to come by. She wasn’t as peaceful or as free as she’d been when he was alive, and I created this image of being the man that my father had been. That if I could create that same semblance of family, that somehow it would make everything ok. But I got too lost in the image and failed to see I was hurting everyone more than healing them.”

“When I left for university I had intended to study theatre, but I got head hunted by a modeling agency and my mom kept telling me it was a bad idea, that the entertainment world was too cruel for someone like me. I would get swallowed up, but I thought I could handle it. I would make good money and be able to let my mom have a peaceful life. So I went in and learned the hard way that my mom was right about how poisonous the entertainment industry was, but I was stubborn and surged forward with it, thinking as long as I stayed clean, the poison couldn’t get into me.”

“Somehow I got lucky, and I flourished in it. I had this ridiculously simple journey along the path to stardom. It’s like everything landed in my lap. It made me ridiculously naïve to those that struggled and to the vicious crawl so many others suffer through to get to where I stood. I mean I saw it, but I didn’t experience any of it and the industry wasn’t the heart and soul of me like it was to others. For me, if I hadn’t of made it, I would have packed it in and gone back to school and my original plan. So it was hard for me to understand the perspectives of those who couldn’t see past the image of being a star.”

“I was at the top of my career when I met Eviana and she had a natural innocent look to her. She acted so kind and unfettered, which was rare in that world, and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. I put her face into that image. I realized quickly that she hadn’t been what she seemed to be, but I kept clinging to that image and kept trying to force her back into it instead of letting it go and moving on.”

“We’d been married for a couple of years and all we ever did was fight. She was always mad at me, always hostile. She thought I was some immoveable force that was preventing her from shining and I was torn between giving up my career to save a marriage to someone who wasn’t the person I thought I’d married just to hold on to that image, or to just file for divorce and let it go. And then one day while I was cleaning the house, I found a crumpled up note in the trash with a doctor’s appointment.”

“When I asked her about it she told me she was pregnant, and the appointment was to consider her options. Before we got married, we’d both said that having children was important to us, and I realize people change, but she still talked and acted like she wanted children so I was confused about seeking options.”

“She said she wanted kids, and that she wanted this child, but she wasn’t ready to hang her hat up to raise a child. So, I said that I would. If that was the only thing holding her back, then I’d retire and raise our child and she could still work. The industry was more important to her than it was to me, and having a family and raising children was more important to me than it was her, so it felt like a win-win scenario.”

“She acted like she was so happy when I told her that. She said she was relieved because she wanted our baby and if I retired then she could have her since it no longer meant the end of her career, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, this baby could save our marriage.”

“I didn’t stop to think of the consequences of having a child in a marriage that was already as distorted as Eviana and I’s was. And I was too naïve to understand that having a child to save a marriage simply puts an unfair weight onto an innocent baby. I would never take Cordi back for a moment, but that doesn’t change how unfathomably selfish I was about having her.”

“When Cordi was born, Eviana was cold and no matter how hard I tried, she never changed. She went from being excited about Cordi to making it seem like I’d forced her to have her. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Eviana had used having a baby as a power play to lock me down and force me into retirement. She made her move and didn’t bother to pretend to be that person I fell for anymore.”

“The Eviana I had met and fell in love with never existed, and now all I had was this carbon copy who no longer bothered to try to act like she was still that person. All the signs that she was cheating on me had been there for years. I just refused to acknowledge them. It was easier to pretend that they weren’t there than it was to face it. Until the scandal hit and then I had no choice.”

“Everything was ugly. I tried so hard to filter things to protect Cordi, but Eviana would never cooperate. I would argue in whispers and she would fight in screams. She told Cordi she’d never wanted her. That she’d wanted to abort her but I forced her to have her. She told me that Cordi hadn’t been the first pregnancy. I don’t know how many of my children she aborted before Cordi, or even if she was lying just to hurt me, but it fucking destroyed me.”

“She said she’d left the appointment notice for me to find because she knew I would beg for mercy and then she could name her terms and make me retire because she thought I overshadowed her. She told me she was only ever with me because she knew marrying me would help elevate her career. And then she was pissed because even once her career elevated, her name still came attached as being the Kaleo Lakeford’s wife. She’d never been faithful, she’d never even loved me. But in all fairness, I’d never loved her either. Just the idea of her and what she represented in my head.”

“And I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I really do. That’s why the communication was so important, in me saying what I wanted and her saying what she wanted. She said she wanted kids, she’d never said a word or implied that her feelings on that subject had changed. We talked, we agreed, but now all of a sudden I’m this person who forced her to have a child against her will.”

“And I question it all the time. I go back and replay every single conversation we had, trying to find if there is a moment where I said or did something to twist her arm into doing what I wanted her to do. I don’t trust myself anymore. Did I force her to have a child? I don’t think I did. I thought we talked, I thought we agreed, but maybe we didn’t, maybe I missed something, and I really am this horrible person who forced her to have Cordi against her will for my own benefit.”

“And then you add that in with all the signs I ignored, all the steps I took to protect an idea that never existed in reality, and because of that my Cordi paid the price. The things she’s seen. The things she’s been told. The abuse she’s witnessed over the years. She’s seen things no one should ever have to see, let alone a seven-year-old child. So for that, I am as much to blame as Eviana is for Cordi’s pain.”

“If I’d just walked away from Eviana in the beginning, my child wouldn’t have to hurt now. But then I wouldn’t have Cordi if I hadn’t done what I’d done. I know it was a selfish and even misogynistic thing to do, but I can’t completely regret it, which makes me a selfish person Destin. I’m a bad man, a bad son and a bad father,” my voice wavers with the painful conviction of the truth in my words.

Destin surges forward and pulls me into him, crushing me into his chest as the dam breaks and my tears start to fall. His hand runs through my hair and his soothing voice booms from his chest straight through me. “Shh. You are none of those things,” he says, before pulling me out of his embrace and capturing my face in his hands, holding my gaze as the tears still fall.

“We all make mistakes and some are worse than others, but I still can’t see you as the villain. I see what you are trying to say, but it seems to me as though she manipulated you from the beginning and you fell for it because you are an easy mark. You think people are better than they are and you pay a price for it. I saw you get used time and time again through high school and now from Eviana,” he says, brushing his thumbs along my cheekbones to wipe away the tears I’d cried.

“But what does it say about me that she knew I was the type of person she’d be able to use having a child as a way to manipulate me?” I rant out.

Destin shakes his head. “It speaks more about her that she was willing to stoop that low. All you wanted was a family and she dangled it in front of you like a dog with a bone. If she really didn’t want you to fight her against having Cordi, then she would have never have baited you like she did. You didn’t force her to have a child against her will, it was a tactic that you fell for hook, line, and sinker. Says nothing about you, and everything about her.”

“And all you’ve done since you’ve had Cordi is fight for what’s best for her. It’s not your fault that Eviana is a shit human being. She purposely acted out a role to reel you in and then manipulated you once she had you. You aren’t the bad guy. You fought with everything you had to keep the walls standing and you fought to give Cordi the life and the family you thought she deserved. You are still doing the best for her by bringing her here and getting her away from all that toxicity.”

“This is a time for healing, not self-deprecation. Look at how much that child dotes on you. Even at the worst of times, you’ve always shown her unconditional love. Yes, Eviana tore her down, but you have always been there to build her back up. You are patient, doting, compassionate, and open with her, and she’s completely smitten with you through and through. No matter what your sins are, being a bad father is nowhere on that list for you,” he says emphatically.

And something inside of me loosens up, like his words unweave a band that’s been wrapped around my chest. Like I can breathe for the first time in months. His words give me hope, they give me strength, and they give me a comfort I haven’t felt in longer than I care to remember. Destin doesn’t let go of my face, and I close my eyes as I melt into the warmth of his caress.