I Didn’t Raise Him for Another Woman

During the pregnancy, he kept going out with his buddies. I didn’t say anything, because his mere presence got on my nerves: his smell, his laziness, his nonchalance about things like putting the baby’s furniture together, his voice. The atmosphere was electric. A few days before I gave birth, our roommate left. The delivery went like a first delivery. When we got home, he complained that he couldn’t sleep with the baby in the room. So I asked him to leave the room. That’s how we started sleeping in separate rooms. At the end of his paternity leave, I saw him come home late one night, then two, then late every Friday night. That’s when the fights broke out, because he didn’t understand that he couldn’t go to the bar every night with his buddies anymore. His answer, in all his great maturity: he was the first dad in his crew, and he didn’t want to miss out on moments with his friends. As if missing moments with his first child didn’t bother him. Or as if I wasn’t tired, exhausted, without his help. His work trips got longer. He could leave in the morning and come back the same day, but instead, he preferred to leave the day before and come back one or two days later, to visit. Don’t get me wrong, I never once thought he was cheating. But our son wasn’t even six months old, and it hurt to see that our couple wasn’t working anymore.