Context: Your patient today is Dr. Valente, a top practitioner and doctor in the country. He urgently requested your help after having a fight with his wife. After hearing him out, you almost wish his wife could hear it as well... Maybe it would have been different...

Setting: Dr. Steven's office

Tags:[M4AF][["Two" Listeners][Remorseful Neglectful Husband Speaker][Therapist Listener][Neglected Wife Listener]["Ghost" Listener][Confession][Argument/Fight][Sad][Revelations][TW: Offscreen Suicide Attempt/Neglect/Mentions of Abuse/General Hard Angst]

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Note: I know YouTube is a bitch about certain words so feel free to edit as needed

[Scene opens in a therapist’s office]

[SFX: A clock ticking against a generally calm environment]

[You peer over your clipboard at the older gentleman sitting across from you. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks exhausted]

“Thank you for squeezing me into your schedule, Dr. Stevens.”

[Pause?]

[He shuts his eyes, breath shaky]

“Yes… I apologize for being pushy about it, but… my home life has had a bit of a shake-up and… I need help…”

[The man before you is Dr. Valente, a renowned practitioner. Handsome, well-spoken, and a bit dense, at times. Seeing him this broken is an odd experience]

[Pause?]

[He takes a shaky breath]

“...My wife and I had a bad fight… and I fear she’s given up on me…”

[Pause?]

“...I was at home, getting ready for work. She approached me and asked about a sore subject… One that we’d been fighting about for years on end, and I lost my temper… It’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made…”

[Pause?]

“...Even knowing you’re my therapist, I still feel like you’ll be judging me harshly for this one. Which, I know, no judgment here… But, she asked about going back to school. We have newborn twins and she’s a stay-at-home mother. I’ve told her, over and over, that I can’t put my career on hold, I’m the sole breadwinner, but she keeps coming at me like there’s a way to negotiate things. I just…”

[Pause…?]

“...I told her that she shouldn’t have asked for kids if she didn’t want to help raise them, and that I wouldn’t have my sons be abandoned like I was just because she was holding a grudge against me for things I couldn’t control…”

[...]

[He looks down, deeply troubled]

“...I regretted it the instant the words left my mouth… The second I saw her eyes widen… Those beautiful lips formed a thin line as she fought back tears… and that weak, defeated, ‘sorry’ she managed before walking away…”

[Pause?]

“...I don’t know why I blew up… I was just so sick of the arguing, of her questioning why I won’t do this or that for her when we can totally afford it…”

[Pause?]

[He sighs again, eyes down]

“...When I started medical school, it was to become a doctor, and a damned good one. My… Dad needed care at the time. He only had a few years left to live… I could work and study or I could take care of my father and have no income for a few years… My wife offered to be his caretaker while I finished school… She only asked that, when the time came and Dad had passed, I help her get her educational goals going… He passed three years ago and there’s just been no damned time! I need her at home with our newborns!”

[Pause?]

“A nanny is an option, sure, but my parents missed my entire childhood because they were hard workers. I don’t want that for our sons… I know she wants to go. I know she’s tired… God knows I know that, but I have no idea how to take care of the boys and no time to learn…”

[...]

“...I know it’s unfair to her… I love my wife, but it’s not exactly like she’s faultless… The house isn’t always the cleanest… The kids are always taken care of. I’m always taken care of, so I… fuck, I know I have very little reason to complain…”

[Pause?]

“Of course, I tell her I appreciate her!”

[Pause?]

“Do I tell her with my actions…? I… I take her out when I can… I buy her all the luxuries she never got growing up, I get along great with her father… better than she does, really… and up until that fight, our intimacy was great!”

[Pause?]

“Elaborate on my relationship with her father? I mean… Hank’s a good guy but he’s pretty open that he didn’t originally want a daughter. It’s not great of him to joke about it but she’s still pretty sensitive… She tries hard to make him proud and it’s not an easy task. He was a top surgeon in the country before retiring, so we bond over that.”

[...Pause]

“She does want to go to medical school too, yeah. Why?”

[...]

“...Well, yes… Having a father who values that experience judge you for being a stay-at-home mother is… Oh.”

[...]

[He rubs his face, swearing quietly under his breath]

“...Fuck me… And I’m rubbing it in her face… Oh, my God, I deserve every stereotypical rolling pin to the head that has ever existed!”

[Pause?]

“No… When I asked her before she said she’s glad me and her father get on… She knows my father was never around…”

[Pause…]

“...I’ll apologize to her… I would, anyway, if she’d listen to me…”

[Pause??]

“I’ve tried talking to her, over and over… She stares right through me, gives the briefest answers she can, or just murmurs, ‘No thank you’. She’s not eating as much, she hasn’t smiled, and now the older kids are asking me why mommy is so sad… I even asked if she’d join me here and it was the same! A sad, quiet, ‘No thank you’...”

[Pause…]

“...I wasn’t the best when she was pregnant, no… We argued a lot over so many small, insignificant things… I love her, though, I swear on it!”

[Pause…]

[SFX: Some notes being taken]

[While you jot down notes, he asks a very painful, immensely sad question, quiet as the little boy he once was:

“Doctor? ...Am I … abusive…?”

[You peer at him over your clipboard and his expression is heartbreaking]

[...Pause.]

“I thought I wasn’t… I thought I knew what abuse looked like, but I’d get these moments of panic and anger any time she’d ask me to help with the kids and I just thought it was the stress and…”

[The cold, clinical veneer shatters and you watch this incredibly wealthy, well-established man break down sobbing]

[Pause…]

“I do want to be a good husband and father! With everything in me, I want my wife back!”

[He hides his face in his hands and just sobs as you slide him the tissue box]

[SFX: The tissue box being used/the clock ticking]

[Pause…]

“...Please… How do I get her to sit down with me and talk?? I’m terrified, she has a history of… ahem, apologies, I didn’t ask her if it was OK to share her details, so I’ll refrain. Point is…despite all of that, my wife is one of the most kind, selfless people on the planet, and I will do anything to make her smile again!”

[Pause]

[He listens, still sobbing silently as you try and give him a path]

“Yes… Yes, that’s brilliant! Offer to take the kids more or even parenting classes so I can build her way back up to school, of course…”

[Pause?]

“How do I feel about it…? Terrified… but hopeful… She’s such an incredible mother that I worry I’ll mess our poor boys up with my admittedly beginner skills… But I’ve made her wait long enough and it’s gone too far, now. I needed this reality check before it was too late and I lost her.”

[SFX: His phone buzzing]

“Pardon, one moment.”

[He takes his phone out and glances at it. The annoyance in his expression slowly turns to pale dread]

[Pause…?]

“...s-she’s in the hospital…”

[...?]

[He breathlessly stands, almost zombie-like as he gathers his things]

“...Self-inflicted wounds…. She tried to kill herself.”

[...]

“...I have to go, now.”

[You assure him you understand as he hurries from your office, out to his car, and then quickly speeds off. You feel yourself go numb as the uncertainty sets in… The not knowing. You wonder if the poor woman hearing her husband’s words might have made a difference. You wish, somehow, she could have…]

[SFX: Fade out on him hurrying out of your office/racing off in his car]

[To be continued]

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Note: This is why you don't challenge me to write slice-of-life angst.

Second note: I'm going to drop this, not elaborate, and go to bed, lol <3