I was wrong.
My daughters are still babies.
They don’t understand marriage yet.
They don’t understand sacrifice or responsibility or the weight of a sentence spoken in anger.
But someday, they will.
And when that day comes, I want them to know that love should never require one person to erase herself.
I want them to know that asking for help isn’t weakness.
That motherhood isn’t punishment.
That partnership means showing up even when you’re tired.
And that nobody gets to walk away from the responsibilities they helped create and then call the person left behind selfish for struggling.
Brandon left for four days because he believed he deserved peace and quiet.
When he came home, he found a different woman waiting for him.
Not a woman who had stopped loving him.
