I was doing everything I could to hold our family together.
Between a demanding job, a newborn daughter named Onica, a young son named Bradley, and the constant demands of a household, every day felt like a race I could never quite finish.
My husband, Carl, had been unemployed for some time.
I hoped that losing his job had simply left him discouraged.
Instead of helping, however, he spent much of his day on the couch scrolling through his phone, while I moved from work meetings to feeding the baby, pumping milk, washing laundry, and trying to keep life running for everyone else.
The hardest part was not the exhaustion.
It was hearing him criticize my postpartum body while comparing me to Alice, the wife of his brother, Steve.
He spoke about her energy, her appearance, and her fitness as though my recent pregnancy and recovery simply did not exist.
At first, I told myself he was speaking out of frustration rather than conviction.
I wanted to believe things would improve.
But repeated words have a way of revealing deeper attitudes.