Before we had our son, he always rolled his eyes when people said stay-at-home parenting was hard. “How hard can it be? Feed the baby, clean, nap when they nap.” I remember how proud he was of his ‘logic’, how superior he felt knowing exactly how it all worked. We used to laugh about it, but a part of me always bristled. Then our son arrived. The fog of sleep deprivation hit me like a physical blow. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, my body felt like a perpetual milk machine, my mind a ceaseless monitor. There was no “nap when they nap” when the laundry piled up, when the dishes waited, when the minute the baby closed his eyes, my body screamed for a shower that I knew wouldn’t happen.
The days blurred into one long, exhausting hum. The only company was a tiny, demanding human who couldn’t communicate beyond cries. The isolation was a physical ache. I’d spend hours staring at the walls, craving adult conversation, craving silence, craving a moment where I wasn’t responsible for another breathing soul.
He’d come home from work, sigh at the messy living room, ask about dinner. “Rough day?” he’d say, but it wasn’t a question. It was a judgment. I’d try to explain, my voice thin with fatigue, but he’d cut me off. “Just nap when he naps, it’s not rocket science.” Each word was a tiny hammer blow to my already shattered spirit. Did he even see me? Did he see the desperation in my eyes, the tremor in my hands?
The arguments started, or rather, my whispered pleas met his defensive walls. I tried to explain the loneliness, the endlessness, the way my identity had dissolved into motherhood. He’d retreat to his phone, or his video games. “You don’t understand how stressful my job is,” he’d counter. Then he started staying out later. “Work,” he’d say. “Deadline.”
A cold dread began to bloom in the pit of my stomach. He’d smell different sometimes. A sweet, unfamiliar scent, quickly masked by his aftershave. His phone became a sacred object, always face down, always muted. My gut screamed, but I buried it under another layer of exhaustion and self-doubt. Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe I was the problem.
One night, he “worked late” again. Our son was finally asleep after an hour of relentless crying. The house was silent, too silent. My hands trembled as I picked up his phone. I knew his password. My heart was POUNDING, a frantic drum against my ribs. I went straight to the gallery, searching for… I didn’t know what.
And there it was. Not messages with another woman. Worse. A picture. A bright, colourful birthday cake with five candles. His arm was around a beautiful woman I didn’t know, and between them, a little girl, maybe five or six, beaming up at him. The caption, from the woman’s account, simple and devastating: “Best dad ever. So lucky to have you.” MY GOD. A whole other life. He wasn’t tired because of our life. He was tired from living TWO of them. And “nap when they nap”? He was probably “napping” in a different bed, with a different family, where he wasn’t the tired, burdened father, but someone else’s hero.
