Question and possible suggestion:

Is the letter writer and the fiancee running an addon to track dots and cooldowns, like ForteXorcist?

Shadow priests are one of the most complex classes to play in terms of DPS priority rotations. Some classes are in the "easy to learn, hard to master" category, like ret paladins, assassination rogues, arms warriors. Some are easy to learn, relatively easy to master, like arcane mages and fury warriors.

Then there are the ZOMGWTFBBQWHOTHEHELLTHOUGHTOFTHISBARBARICROTATION classes. You, my dear letter-writer, are playing one such class. To do competitive DPS, you absolutely MUST have addons to track your DoT's, buffs, AND cooldowns. Shadow Priest DPS is very deep, rich, engaging, and difficult to play well. You have to want to specially customize your UI, to work on your rotation on dummies, to work to reach those haste plateaus.

If you (or your fiancee) are not the kind of person to sit there and do some of that heavy lifting, then maybe Shadow Priest DPS is not for you. It's certainly not for everyone, there is a reason there are so few of them out there - it's friggin hard to play well. And when you can lol2buttonspam an arcane mage to outdps a shadow priest in equivalent gear, well, you can see why mages are so popular.

If you are willing to do that heavy lifting, then I would say stick with it, persist, keep pushing, you'll get there eventually. But I would ask that you be honest with yourself, a lot of people play wow as a diversion, they don't find it fun working on their UI and hitting a dummy, tweaking your rotation and how you track everything for max dps. If your fiancee is in that casual category, I would seriously consider switching to another class. Mages, for example, might be much more simple than shadow priests, but they are still hella fun.

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