Terms and Conditions

Iris’s and Declan’s stories reveal both the effects of familial trauma and the possibility of growth in the aftermath. Family trauma often becomes cyclical; unaddressed childhood trauma can lead someone to inflict similar trauma on their children since they had an abusive model of parenthood. Terms and Conditions illustrates the potential both for continuing the dysfunction and abuse learned in childhood and for halting the cycle through personal growth and trusting relationships.

The physical and emotional abuse Declan suffered at Seth’s hands, and the emotional abuse Iris suffered from her father (and the physical abuse of her mother) left deep trauma for both. Both threw themselves into work as adults as a response. Declan is driven to take over the company from his father and prove his success as a future CEO. Iris, having struggled her entire childhood with dyslexia and being told she was a failure, eagerly jumps into her position as Declan’s assistant. Both also keep themselves at a distance from romantic relationships since such relationships were at the heart of their families’ abusive patterns. Their fathers’ abuse taught them that love can lead to pain and that having power means using it to intimidate others. Declan and Iris have different positionalities relative to this abuse model: Declan fears becoming an abuser, while Iris fears becoming a victim. Both have to realize that their childhood traumas do not define who they are and that others’ hurtful behavior toward them does not make them bad or unworthy.

As the novel builds toward its climax, Declan particularly struggles with the cyclical nature of trauma. Declan blames Iris for her plan’s failure, subconsciously knowing that this will hurt her the most. Declan is unlike Seth in that he is aware of his actions: “To think you’ve tried so hard to prevent yourself from becoming like him, only to realize you’re an exact copy” (397). Even though he gave into his anger and repeated his father’s abuse in this way, Declan works hard to stop the cycle. He fights against his father’s emotional abuse when Seth calls him weak, telling him, “I spent plenty of years thinking I was pathetic because I couldn’t fight you back, but I eventually realized the only weak man here is the one staring right at me” (230). The combination of his lifelong determination and being faced with his own mistakes helps Declan believe that he can be different.

Iris fights her desire for Declan for much of the novel, using her lifelong coping mechanism of avoiding relationships to avoid being hurt. When Declan first professes his love, Iris thinks, “You might get hurt” (341). But in the face of her connection with Declan and his ability to make her feel protected and loved, she realizes, “I might miss out on something special because I’m too afraid of the what ifs. […] Even if it means getting hurt, I’d rather try and fail than never try at all” (341). Later, when Declan hurts her at Dreamland, she tries to flee again, feeling as if Declan has proved her original distrust to be right. After speaking with her mother, Iris realizes that marriage and trust mean giving Declan a “fair chance to learn from his mistakes and become a better man in light of them” (452).

Both Declan and Iris spend much of their adult lives believing they have stopped the cycle of abuse by avoiding relationships. The romance genre convention of forced proximity makes it impossible for them to avoid each other, and in that proximity, they discover not only their sexual attraction but also their love for each other. Due to the genre’s conventions, the couple’s happy ending is foreordained, but the characters must complete a journey of self-discovery in which each faces their family’s history of abuse before that happy ending is possible. This is a conscientious use of the happy-ending trope because it implies that a couple can’t be truly happy if one or both have unaddressed abusive tendencies.