so, as for the changes i’m making to delores, they’re a little more severe than what xia’s changed with lola, though ultimately i intend to keep her core personality intact.
to start with, sal is the first decent-ish man she ever dates. she was trapped in an abusive relationship with a man who was far too old to have any business talking to her in the first place prior, and so she’s very impressed with sal treating her like a human being. her grandfather was never abusive, but he very much made it clear what he felt her place was, and delores was too meek and anxious to object, or even think to object, so her life had been a series of going along with what others (primarily men) wanted of her.
even that aside, she does truly like sal, a lot, and enjoys being with him, but still felt he was moving the relationship too fast for her comfort. however, at this point in her life, she still finds it nearly impossible to assert herself, her wants, and boundaries, and says very little about it. it doesn’t become an issue until she accidentally becomes pregnant with cassandra.
delores always wanted to be a mother, someday, but she’s 22 years old and heavily involved in her ballet career, the one area of her life she really feels she has any independence and choice in. it’s something she wants to do, and getting pregnant robs her of that. she did consider getting an abortion, but ultimately couldn’t bring herself to do it. she and sal agree to be married, since they both feel that’s simply what people should do in this situation, but in no way is she ready to be married, much less have a child. she feels trapped in her own life, with no way to change its course, and its a course she isn’t remotely ready for.
she keeps all of her feelings on it to herself, and goes along with becoming a housewife, still feeling this is what she has to do. she suffers some postpartum depression, but it isn’t so bad that its unmanageable. she hides it, and works through it on her own, but she’s extremely unhappy.
for lack of a better word, she reaches a point of complacency over her life. she goes through the motions, and is in depressed in the sort of way that she doesn’t fully realize that she even is depressed. she’s able to function and care for her child and husband, and does have plenty of enjoyable moments that she’s able to ignore, or really, remain unaware of how she truly feels.
soon after, she gets pregnant with nick. this makes matters all the worse for her, because somewhere in her mind she had developed a thought of one child being more manageable, and maybe she could still do something else with her life. her postpartum depression returns, and it’s far more severe this time. she has thoughts of harming herself and her children, but her most recurring fantasy is simply stealing sal’s money and running away and adopting a new identity.
this time, sal can easily tell there’s something very wrong, and convinces delores to seek help. after speaking with a psychiatrist, she’s convinced to admit herself to a psychiatric hospital. she stays there for a few weeks, and it helps her tremendously. being away from the life she felt so stuck in really opens her eyes to how suffocated she was by it, in addition to the professional help she receives teaching her a lot of things about recognizing signs of depression she couldn’t before. she also realizes how she has never asserted her wants or needs, not truly.
going through such an intense depression, and then coming out of it, has a major change on her. when she returns home, she tells sal she can’t be a housewife anymore. she wants to have her own life. sal doesn’t fully understand what she means, thinking she was always free to go out shopping or spend time with other housewives, but she makes it clear that there will be times when he has to care for the children on his own, or hire some help. she doesn’t care which. she pursues a career as a ballet instructor, which she really enjoys, since she’s still very passionate about ballet.
things go smoothly for a while, but there is rising tension with sal’s feelings that delores will become like his own mother, who had severe postpartum depression and never bonded with him, and was neglectful and unloving. sal also becomes concerned that delores will or already is cheating on him, and begins feeling very insecure.
this results in a huge argument between them, in which delores confesses how she wasn’t ready for marriage and children. sal hates hearing that, and the argument doesn’t go well. still, they end up working things out, and things go back to how they were. there’s still some tension, but for the most part they’re getting along.
soon after, sal is arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. dolly very soon after finds out she’s pregnant, yet again. both things have her really thinking hard about her marriage. had things gone differently, had they met later, when she was more prepared for marriage and children, she realizes she would not have chosen sal, knowing he’s a career criminal. now, on top of that realization is a big reason why she wouldn’t have chosen him: the fact she could be left raising children alone, with a husband in prison.
at this time, her cousin, lourdes ( @bulletballet ) begins planting ideas in sal’s head, that delores will be unfaithful. sal has an attitude during his and delores’ visits and phone calls, which just pushes her further away. while she does have sal’s aunt around to help with the children, she still becomes extremely unhappy again in these years, especially with having to take maternity leave from work. on top of that, sal’s aunt pressures her to be more personally involved with her children. cassandra was also a teenager at the time, and a difficult one.
delores plans to divorce sal. she makes her arrangements, but waits until he’s out and settled back into the outside world before telling him. they get into a huge fight, and she leaves immediately to stay with lourdes. lola tells her lies about how sal cheated on her with a white woman, and she easily believes it, after all of sal’s accusations of her cheating on him, especially.
a part two will come later on tonight, because i have to get ready for work and this is way longer than i thought it would be.
