I get too anal about staying as close to reality as I can in a fanfic, unless it's an AU. Like, obviously my storyline is fiction, but I want all the other details to be realistic so the story as a whole seems realistic, if that makes sense. I don't have a problem writing out the girlfriends, but it's harder to do that with wives and children. I don't like to kill them off, nor do I like to deny their existence (if I'm going to do that, I just make it an AU), so it's all about finding situational ways to explain their absence if I don't want them there LOL. But I don't see myself ever writing another Brian romance, for example, unless it's AU.