When I overheard my husband tell his friend he was only staying married to avoid child support payments, I knew exactly what I had to do. By the time I was finished with him, he’d learn that keeping me around to dodge financial responsibility was the most expensive mistake of his life
Being a mom to three kids has always been the best part of my life.Emma is 12 now, and she’s constantly rolling her eyes at everything Peter and I say. Jake, my little athlete, is ten, and my eight-year-old, Sarah, still crawls into bed with me when she has nightmares.
I’ve spent years building a life around these kids.
School pickups, soccer practice, dance recitals, and helping with homework until my eyes cross. I love every chaotic minute of it. They’re my world, and I’d do anything to protect them.For 15 years, I thought Peter felt the same way. Sure, our marriage wasn’t perfect. What marriage is after a decade and a half?
But I believed we were in it together.I worked hard to make our life comfortable.My marketing business took off about five years ago, and suddenly, I was bringing in more money than Peter ever had at his sales job. I watched him struggle with that and saw how it bruised his ego when I had to cover the mortgage or pay for family vacations.
“You don’t have to feel bad about it,” I’d tell him when I caught him looking defeated over the bills. “We’re a team. What’s mine is yours.”He’d smile, but I could see the resentment growing behind his eyes. Still, I thought love would be enough. I thought our kids would be enough.I wasn’t planning to eavesdrop that Tuesday afternoon
I was coming down the stairs to grab some files from my home office when I heard Peter on the phone in the kitchen. His voice carried that relaxed, buddy-buddy tone he used when talking to his best friend Mike.“Man, I don’t even feel anything for her anymore,” he was saying, and I froze on the staircase. “If it were up to me, I’d have left her a long time ago and started living with someone younger. But I just can’t afford child support, you know what I mean?”
My hands started shaking.He continued, laughing like he was telling the world’s funniest joke. “Three kids, dude. You know how much that would cost me every month? Plus, she makes bank with that business of hers. I’d be broke and alone. This way, I get to have my cake and eat it too, if you catch my drift.”I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.
15 years of marriage, three beautiful children… and he was treating our family like a financial arrangement.I stood there for another few minutes, listening to him complain about how boring I’d become and how I was always focused on the kids and work.