Debrief - v0.7.1

Hello Patrons,

Hope everyone's enjoying the progress of A Perfect Marriage. The story arc’s playing out before our eyes, and you most likely felt a shift in this recent update.

Why the shift?

Anna decided to be swift in her resolve. After Marcel’s phone call, she’d had enough of feeling foolish and betrayed, especially when her emotions carried over into her work lunch with Hank. Even though she has some doubts - whether small or large - that David truly betrayed her, she hates feeling weak and unsure.

She also hates being indecisive and flakey, and her father's voice in her head is always telling her to be tough and resilient, so she's reached a point where she's not going to let herself get hung up on the uncertainty of her marriage. She resolves to be tough and move forward with the flow of things, instead of being stuck with grief and anxiety. She believes it’s justifiable based on the evidence, and that the truth will show itself eventually.

In truth, she's torn up inside. She views this as a weakness she must overcome quickly. So much of her life has been about exhibiting success and accomplishment, so in these anxious times, her subconscious mechanism with coping isn’t to embrace the anxiety, but rather fool herself into believing she has everything under control and that the setbacks in her marriage aren’t defeating her. She does this by being decisive and not looking back. This explains why she’s turning the page and letting the chips fall where they may, even at the risk of her marriage.

Is Anna flawed? Of course she has flaws like everyone else. She means well, but there's insecurities deep inside of her that have bubbled up to the surface due to Kendra’s plot, creating an existential crisis about who she is, who she should be, and who she wants to be.

She's always wanted to be a successful attorney and a loving wife and mother of a big family, one day proving that a woman can balance career and family at the highest level. It's what her father would've wanted for her too.

But there's also a side of her deep under the surface that wants to rebel against who she *should* be… that wants to feel uninhibited and unencumbered by all the pressure she's felt her entire life. The few moments in the past where she’s “let go” of control in her life and disobeyed her father’s warnings, particularly in her college days, were extremely therapeutic for her. She longs for those feelings of freedom.

However, despite the urges, she's always been too scared to open that door. It’s human nature to not want to lose control. And for her, letting go means she’d be opening the door to her darker tendencies, which includes some very naughty desires. Currently, she still doesn't want to bring out her darker side, but given that you can influence her, it’s possible.

As for David, we've also seen him make a decision on how he's moving forward with Anna and his marriage, based on how you've influenced him. Just like Anna, you cannot make David something he’s not, and his ultimate desire is to be with Anna one way or another, but you can influence his approach as explained in the walkthrough I posted. And just because he wants to be with Anna now doesn’t mean he’ll always want to be, depending on what happens.

He's not a dope who is clueless of everything. He's just kind of in shock and is a bit frozen. In his mind, he thinks this will all go away quickly. He knows he’s innocent, so he can’t possibly fathom Anna would think otherwise. He has a false confidence that he’ll be absolved soon.

You have to give him a bit of a break. He greatly underestimates the plot against him. How could he not? It’s not like he knows Janet is anywhere near him, nor could he assume she’d be involved. For all he knows, it was a sloppy blackmail plot by a stranger posing as Alexia that went awry.

And as for Chris, for all David knows, Anna’s still repulsed by him despite being friendly with him, and she’d never consider his overtures. Even if Chris was the person plotting to ruin his marriage in order to win Anna, David would say with certainty it’d be a failure.

There’s also a denial deep inside him due to his pride. Any thought that Anna would fall for Chris gets squashed by his pride because he simply can’t accept that reality. Yes, David is flawed too. He’d rather live in the reality that Anna is too good for Chris, even if it might not be true. Ignorance is bliss.

Perhaps David’s biggest flaw is that he greatly underestimates the woman he married. He knows she's a hot-blooded woman who has always loved sex and has always been easily turned on, and he knows she's too trusting of others, but he doesn’t grasp how razor thin the margin of error is right now that could lead her down a dark path where those attributes could turn against him.

His father once warned him about marrying such a beautiful and desirable woman that gets along well with men. Darren knew that men would be after his son's wife, and he knew if his son wasn't on top of his game, there could be a steep falloff. To think, he concluded that without even considering Anna’s hidden lusty side he didn’t know existed!

So not only is David having to deal with an attack on his marriage, but he’s dealing with a wife who attracts men like a light attracts moths, and who tends to get extremely horny, especially now that her body’s telling her to mate and make another baby. Yikes. He’s in a very tough spot, and the margins of error during this delicate time are razor thin.

With all that said, where are things headed?

Again, the walkthrough can lay out the paths forward as they stand at the moment. The general idea is that there are some traits and approaches you've crafted for both Anna and David, and now you'll be living in the results of those. There'll be some more decisions here and there, but largely, at this point in the story we're going to move towards conclusions instead of the building and data-gathering phases.

I’ll put out a Q&A to Gold patrons to address more specific questions, and I’ll post the results for all Patrons once done.

My summer vacation ends tomorrow, and I’ll be looking forward to getting back to work on APM. Thanks for your patience. Summer is always a tough time for me because of family duties, but things should get much more productive soon.

I plan to add a gallery and character page as soon as I’m in a good place to tinker with it.

As for the million dollar question- When will the next update be ready? First off, I don’t know. Still a lot of work to do. But even if I knew, I’m not going to say anything because I’ve learned that’s a recipe for disaster. As soon as it’s ready, you’ll know. But until then, I’m going to refrain from predicting or hoping for a release date. I can update you on progress, and I’ll continue to release sneak peeks and other content here and there, of course. You always have the option to only support me upon releases. I’d encourage that if you’ve felt cheated by me in the past.

The APM train rolls on. I want to create more AVN’s too after APM that you can enjoy as well, so I’m eager to move forward, not be lazy and let this drag on. I’m doing this for those of you who enjoy it, myself among them. I want us to love it. That’s my hope. I’m not trying to win awards, I’m not trying to please everyone, and I don’t care about ratings/critics. I only hope most - if not all - fans of APM continue to find it greatly satisfying!

Thanks everyone!