S3, Account 4: Danai
I told him. I told him before we got married that I didn’t want kids immediately. He didn’t listen. He was constantly finding ways to circumvent my contraception and avoid using a condom. I didn’t want her then. I considered getting a termination, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it. I still loved him, I wanted my marriage to work, and I knew doing that would destroy it forever. I also naively considered that once she arrived, maybe I’d feel differently. But that never happened. As soon as she was born and placed on my chest, I knew I’d made a gamble that wouldn’t pay off. It felt like someone had just put a noose around my neck and tightened it, and I just wanted to sprint from that ward, from that hospital and be free again. I’d made a foolish bargain. But I still tried to be a good parent. I tried because she didn’t ask to be here. We brought her here and we’re responsible for her.
I know she’s a blessing, but I really struggle to see that when my husband tells me my priority should be looking after her and not developing one of my business ideas. I start thinking “If not for you, this wouldn’t be an issue”. I know it’s misplaced resentment. I’m not a monster…but I can’t help feeling it. I look at her and I see all my dreams, my ambitions, plans I had for our family, trickling away with every year she grows. He could have waited. We could have waited! That was the plan. But he decided his will was greater. All it took was a few drinks, me forgetting to prompt him to use protection (I came off the pill because it was turning me into a hormonal wreck, something I know delighted him and probably advanced his plans), and bish bash bosh, 3 months later there was no return. Oh how I cried. With my heart and soul…..as he danced around our apartment in delight. I have never felt such visceral rage in my life.
I love my daughter, but I resent the inconvenience of her arrival, and I don’t think staying here will help me move past this. My husband becomes more stubborn every day, and now I’m tired of attending therapy, tired of appealing to his non-existent sense of compromise, and tired of seeing my daughter plead like a dog almost every day, for my attention and approval. I don’t even understand it when her father spends so much less time with her than I do. He barely acknowledges her presence most of the time; he comes home when she’s already asleep and if he doesn’t, he uses tiredness as an excuse to avoid interaction. Has this man ever even read her a bedtime story? So it flabbergasts me how I have ended up the focus of her relentless pursuit.
It scares and sickens me what we have made her become. I wanted better for her — confidence, self-worth, strength, and I can’t take this fragile flower clinging and craving me so desperately. I think it’s time I made a decision that will splinter us before it mends us. But if Esme is to grow up to be the whole, beautiful and rounded woman I will for her to be, I have to do this. I have to find another way to love her, because this is not working.
Originally posted: June 29, 2021