Looking back, I realize I missed all the red flags. Could I have known things would turn as they did? I guess yes, but I was blindsided by love and convinced myself over and over again that things would turn up for the better, but I just lied to myself.
I was thirty-four weeks pregnant, and that was supposed to be the best period of my life. You know, with all the excitement and the anticipation of welcoming a child. But then one night, right in the middle of the night, my baby started kicking my ribs so hard that I just couldn’t sleep and spent most of the night in the bathroom and trying to get to a position that would be at least a bit comfortable.
The entire time, my husband, Ryan groaned and pulled a pillow over his head, totally annoyed by my existence.
He had been extremely bitter and nasty all the time, whining about the bills and how restless I was. The last time I had tried apologizing to him, he went ballistic and told me to sort things out since he was busy with work and needed to sleep more. I hadn’t even mentioned that my physician had warned me about how high my blood pressure was due to my lack of sleep.
At exactly 3:04 a.m., Ryan suddenly bolted upright, snatched the keys to my car, and tossed them at me. “The car has recliner seats,” he said. “Since you’re on your maternity leave and I’m paying the rent, you can camp out in the car for a couple of weeks, so I can catch some sleep.” Exhausted, humiliated, and gasping for breath, I didn’t even fight him. Instead, I grabbed my pregnancy pillow, walked down three flights of stairs in the suffocating August heat, and curled up in the backseat of my Honda Civic.
That became our “secret nightmare” schedule. Every evening at 10 p.m., I had to go down to the car, and by 6:30 a.m. the next day, he would text me to come upstairs. Not an apology or anything. I kept it all hidden from everyone, even lying to my OB-GYN about it when she desperately asked if there was anything wrong at home. In the meantime, Ryan was just a normal husband in the morning, whistling and making breakfast for himself as though he didn’t force his heavily pregnant wife to sleep at the parking lot.
Things exploded in the early hours of last Friday morning. I noticed some headlights shining through and somebody tapping at my window. It turned out to be my mother-in-law, Dana, who had tried calling Ryan to talk about the baby shower but grew anxious that she could not reach him and had come over to find me crying in the back seat of my car.
I blurted everything out. Dana stiffened up, looking up at the black windows of our apartment in total disbelief of what her son was capable of doing to the woman carrying his child. She asked me to hold tight, rushed somewhere and fifteen minutes later returned dragging something wrapped in brown paper. “It’s time you learned how to parent,” she said, yanking me out of the car.
We marched up those three flights of stairs. When Ryan opened the door, his sleepy smile vanished. Dana made him unwrap the package, which turned out to be a folding camping cot. She flatly told him that he’d be sleeping on it in the hallway from now on, and I was taking the bed.
Once Ryan threatened that he could not allow her to run things in his own apartment, Dana revealed that she had actually been sending him money for the past two years to take care of our rent since he did not earn enough; he was just pretending in front of me. She stated that once I slept in the car again, no more money was coming from her side.
Ryan tried to charm his mother, but that didn’t really wok, so he threw a tantrum, just like toddlers do, and honestly, it was embarrassing to even look at him. But Dana ignored him and just threw some sheets on him. I did the same. I just pretended he wasn’t there and walked right past him without saying a single word. I then got in the bed and was glad I could finally get some rest myself.
He lasted three nights on that hallway cot before he finally broke down and gave me a real apology. He even agreed to marriage counseling, which Dana booked for us. Six weeks later, I delivered a healthy baby girl with my incredible mother-in-law holding my hand. And after that, I promised myself I would never apologize for taking up space again.
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Bored Daddy
Love and Peace