I lost my husband to her. Everything else was taken by me.
When I first learned I was pregnant, I thought it would make Michael and I closer. Although things had become a little bland after five years of marriage, I assumed that was simply life and not a sign of a lack of love. I pictured us sharing midnight munchies, painting the nursery, and perusing baby name books while we felt the baby’s kick. I believed that a new chapter was about to begin. One that is brimming with healing, joy, and hope.
However, Michael started to distance himself from me, the pregnancy, and everything else as my belly expanded.
It seemed subtle at first. Fewer farewell kisses. Work for a little longer. Reduced interest in nursery colors or ultrasound pictures. I attributed it to nerves. It’s true that men don’t always understand this things.
I therefore turned to Anna, my best friend of more than ten years, who was the one person who always had my back. Together, we had experienced everything: stressful college courses, nasty ex-partners, and late-night pizza therapy sessions. I expressed to her how isolated I felt, even with Michael seated directly beside me, and how distant he had grown. I gave it everything I had.
I was overthinking it, she said. that I had hormones. said Michael was “just getting used to things.”
She was mistaken.
Something inside of me crumbled when we lost the baby, yet I managed to stay upright. I wanted to process the grief and grieve with Michael. He didn’t cry, though. I wasn’t held by him. He didn’t even act as though he cared. With vacant eyes, he simply gazed at me and uttered:
“I’m no longer happy.”
Then he went away.
Not a bag. No justification. Simply gone.
I initially blamed the loss. Perhaps the agony was unbearable. Perhaps he simply didn’t know how to handle it. However, I knew when Anna stopped answering my texts, blocked me on all platforms, and disappeared like a nighttime ghost.
It wasn’t sorrow.
They were the ones.
Then one day it appeared—on Instagram. A picture of a happy person. Anna wearing a hoodie. Michael was gripping her waist. The caption? A cliche regarding “new beginnings.” A new beginning constructed on the ruins of my existence.
I had never felt such a deep sense of betrayal. In one harsh season, I had lost a husband, a kid, and my best friend. However, I didn’t let it to ruin me.
Rather, I became intelligent.
I accepted the texts. The dates. The chronology of their liaison. I gave my lawyer everything, and as the divorce process progressed, I saw Michael’s face go white. Adultery still carries weight in my state, and boy, did it carry a lot of weight.
After everything was said and done, I left with the house, a sizable payment, and the icy, silent satisfaction that comes from knowing that I had taken care of myself when no one else had.
Then?
I made a new one.
individually. daily.
Rather, I became intelligent.
I accepted the texts. The dates. The chronology of their liaison. I gave my lawyer everything, and as the divorce process progressed, I saw Michael’s face go white. Adultery still carries weight in my state, and boy, did it carry a lot of weight.
After everything was said and done, I left with the house, a sizable payment, and the icy, silent satisfaction that comes from knowing that I had taken care of myself when no one else had.
Then?
I made a new one.
individually. daily.
Three years later, the gas station arrived. On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, I was filling up my car when I heard the crying—not baby-wailing-crying, but full-body, I-can’t-take-it-anymore crying. I turned and froze, and there they were, Michael and Anna, standing next to a sputtering old car with a flat tire, a screaming baby in the backseat, and tension between them crackling like a storm. They were older, heavier, and more exhausted; Michael appeared to have gone weeks without sleeping, and Anna’s hair was in an untidy.
He swiped a card, declined, tried again, declined. They were now arguing in low, resentful, blame-laced voices, and I couldn’t help but stare. Then, in a moment I will never forget, Anna mumbled, “I think Helena got the better end of the deal.” She was unaware that I was present, but I heard her, and she was correct.
Because I not only survived what they did to me, but I flourished as a result. I gave them the kind of life they could only imagine. A quiet house. a harmonious partnership. Truth, not treachery, is the foundation of a family.
The better part of the bargain went to me.
But more crucially?
I’m back.
And that was the true triumph.