“You stay home. Everything around this house is your job.”
I tried to explain how exhausted I was.
I tried different approaches over the months, gentle requests, direct statements, even a few tearful late-night pleas that went nowhere.
I tried to make him understand that raising three babies wasn’t something one person could handle alone.
But every conversation ended the same way.
Ryan would apologize, promise to do better, and then fall back into the exact same pattern within a matter of days, as though the conversation itself had never happened.
I kept the peace because I wanted our family to work.
I confided in my own mother once, during a rare phone call while all three babies napped simultaneously, admitting how exhausted and unsupported I felt.
“Have you told Ryan exactly how bad it’s gotten?” she asked.
“I’ve tried,” I said. “He always says I’m exaggerating, or that things will get easier once they’re older.”
“Things don’t get easier on their own,” my mother said. “They get easier when someone else actually helps carry the load.”
