Okay, so this will take a little explaining. This takes place in a story written RP-style (I am one of three authors), so let me point out I'm only playing one of the characters involved. My male character (M1) met, dated, and got engaged to his girlfriend (F1) in a fairly short amount of time. His most recently girlfriend (F2) then showed up and announced that she was pregnant (six months) (M1 has an adopted child and is acting as a parent towards F1's daughter, but has no biological children). M1, who's got a bit of a thing about his legacy (and wants the white-picket fence life) jumps to the occasion and wants to be involved in his child's life, etc. F2 then ends up moving in with M1 and F1, after which F1 and F2 start a relationship. M1 then proposes a three-way relationship with the two women. Shortly after this, F1 brings F2 to an abortion clinic for, well, an abortion, then come back and tell M1, who is devastated. However, for a number of reasons (he doesn't want to look bad/there's the kids involved/he wants to try and save the relationship/he just doesn't like leaving), M1 sticks around and acts like he's pretty much gotten over the abortion after a huge fight about it in which F1 pretty much tells him that it doesn't matter what he thinks. SOOOOO now it turns out that M1 just got brain surgery to remove a tumor that was making him act strangely for the entire plot. And I am, at the moment, clueless as to either how to make the relationship still work even though F1 and F2 pretty much spat on M1's feelings and M1 will not come around to the "bundle of cells" way of thinking or that it was necessary, or how to have M1 make a clean break without coming off as a complete and total asshole (which he has a tendency to come off as even when I don't necessarily intend to write him that way.) PLLLLLLEASE help me with my character's relationship/abortion problems. I have tried doing research on Post-Abortion Healing for Men, but most of the sites have a religious bent and my character is an atheist (and not particularly pro-life either, it's more the fact that it was HIS baby that he was willing to take care of and love and also that the baby had a good chance of being able to survive if they'd given him a crack at it - at least M1 thinks so).
I think you have more of a problem with the abortion taking place at all than how your character is going to deal with it. I don't see the "Bundle of Cells" mentality working here at all. If he found out that his ex was pregnant when she was six months, and then they had time to develop this twisted three way relationship she would have been far along. Even if it only took a few weeks, she would have been nearly seven months along. An abortion at that point would be a lot more than a quick procedure. The child would be fairly developed at that point. He is right, the child would have had a good chance at surviving at that point, especially with good neonatal care. You may want to research late pregnancy abortions if you haven't, because many places wont even do them. Maybe I can help you figure out his reaction if you tell us more about how her getting an abortion came about with her so far along. If i had to choose I would say break up, him staying in the relationship is "acting strangely" after everything that happened, which works with the tumor.
As per the abortion legality issues... Yeah, you're right. Her time of pregnancy was changed to six months in order to fit into the timeline of the rest of the story (originally it was four, then five months). I've brought up this fact with my co-authors (I have hated the abortion plotline from the get-go, but, hey, what can ya do? and also brought up that the state the story takes place in has no clinics that would performed abortions at that time period) but the co-author who writes F1 refuses to change anything and the other author agrees with her (and that since my character's not directly involved in those scenes, I have no say unless I could come up with "something better" and they didn't like my ideas *shrugs*), so there's nothing I can do Basically, F2 didn't want the baby from the get-go. She used her pregnancy as an attempt to get the MC back into her life, and once she discovered that he wanted the baby but not a relationship with her, she soured on it. She is also anorexic and the MC has been very concerned about her health and wary about pushing her into mental help even though she's been threatening suicide, etc. (he suggested forcibly committing her but her fiancee said it'd be a betrayal of her). The MC's fiancee and ex-girlfriend then had a long talk one night and the fiancee offered to help the ex-gf get an abortion, so they went out the next day (leaving MC with the kids and saying they were going "shopping") and came back and, whoosh, abortion (which, again, I find a bit unrealistic, but...).
That isn't in any way realistic, you are right. She would have been hospitalized, at least over night. A family member of mine had to have an abortion for medical reasons at 3 months and was in the hospital for two days. If they are willing to change the "going behind your characters back to cause problems" way of thinking you could always have her go into early labor and have a stillbirth. It would actually be logical seeing as she is anorexic. It is reasonable that her body just wouldn't be able to keep her and the baby alive. You may want to point out as well that they can still have the conflict they crave tied in with that by having your character blame the baby mama for "killing his child" by not taking care of herself, and have his fiancée side with her. You need to talk to your co-authors. If they aren't willing to make the story believable and uphold it's quality you might be better off writing without them.
Well, the whole abortion thing ties into a change in attitude for the one character (now that the MC's fiancee "let her choose" something, she's happier and trusts the fiancee, etc.). If we could have done early labor I would have preferred that as it'd at least have given the kid a fighting chance My one co-author had previously told me that she was going to kill of the ex-gf, have the baby be premature but live, and etc... but other co-author didn't want to kill off any characters and thus, this whole thing was developed (without my foreknowledge til the two told my MC and devastated him for life ). I am now trying to extricate him from their jaws as they will just keep guilting him and making him believe he is wrong in the whole thing for being angry at them (if he tries to talk to the gf about it, the fiancee lashes out at him and tells him to come to her if he needs to talk about it, but from what my MC has seen so far when he got upset at the initial conversation all she did was yell pro-choice slogans at him, basically... so why would he go to her to grieve when she's just going to give him a hard time? And yet she accuses him of "leaving her alone to grieve"... yeah.) The gf has no remorse/second thoughts about it at all and pretty much acts like "what did you want a baby for anyway?" and the fiancee went, basically, "Oh you can have another one..." So, yeah, now I am trying to get him away from his evil women so I can move on away from this hated plotline (it got to be such a huge battle that our friendship was suffering so I just let it go with them) and have my MC eventually find someone who will actually take his feelings on this into consideration (or not... he could always just end up single or date a guy, which he has done in the past... at least he wouldn't have to worry about a guy he's dating having an abortion O_O) [/semi-incoherent near 1AM babble]
Will the story be able to continue with the characters all split up? If there is any way I would say get your character away from them. If not, do something drastic with your character and refuse to change it until they are willing to work with you and include you in their decisions. It would be slightly ironic to have him commit suicide the way the ex is always threatening. Even if it is just a bargaining tool.
Yes, the story will still continue if the characters split up. My MC is a secondary major character (if that makes any sense) and F1 and F2 basically stem off from him - so the plot would still follow my character but not necessarily them. I am considering hooking my character up with another major character's ex-wife (whom I also play) which would 1) possibly get my character killed 2) really piss two of my co-author's other characters off... Which is always a possibility if no one else wants to be with my character I hope you don't mind, I added you to my MSN!
I don't mind at all, but I can't actually use my msn. I had to disable all my Internet Explorer cooking, including the ones that make MSN work. If you have AIM I could give you my screen name. Another bonus to having your MC be with a character you control is that they can't make all the decisions for you.
This seems like one very big pickle!! It almost sounds like your co-authors aren't really respecting you which is where it is stemming from!
