When I met him, I thought I found my forever. We planned a life, bought a home, picked baby names, dreamed in color. I was terrified and excited when I first saw the positive test. He held me and said, “We’re going to be such good parents.” I believed him with my whole heart.

But when my belly grew, when I was exhausted and swollen and terrified of becoming a mother, his attention drifted. He started working late. Hiding his phone. Guarding it like it held his oxygen.

When I found out he had been talking to his ex — I thought I could handle it. Emotional cheating, he said, not physical. I wanted to believe him so badly that I convinced myself I was just hormonal, insecure. New moms are vulnerable, right? That’s what he told me.

Then the baby came. Sleepless nights, stitches that wouldn’t heal, hormones that soaked my pillow every night. My body felt foreign, my mind felt fragile. I was drowning and he was supposed to be the one lifeline I could hold on to.

Instead, I found out it had been physical all along. While I was crying in the dark feeding our newborn, he was giving affection to someone else. While I was bleeding and shaking and learning how to keep a tiny human alive, he was out remembering who he used to be with her.

He apologized. He swore it was over. He cried, begged, pleaded. And I — so desperate to keep my family together — agreed to therapy. Because that’s what good wives do, right? They fight for their family.

Things seemed better. For a while, he was present again. Holding the baby. Asking about my day. Smiling like he remembered I existed.