My phone is about to explode because my mother and mother-in-law are calling me all the time. The topic of every conversation is the same: “Forgive him, you fool, a woman should be smarter, do not destroy the family.” Looking back now, I realize there was nothing to destroy because there was no family.

I got married just over a year ago. Love blinded me, otherwise I can’t explain why I couldn’t see that my future husband was a womanizer and preferred to spend his free time with his friends. Nevertheless, I got married and took care of the house.

My husband did not participate in it, all household duties belonged to me, although he came home from work earlier. He usually spent weekends away from me. As he claimed, even great love can change if people spend too much time together. My husband needed rest.

I nodded, accepting his explanation and sincerely believing he was right. I’m quite an introverted person myself, I have a few friends, but I don’t see them very often, because each of them has a family and their own lives.

My mother and mother-in-law said that my husband was right, sometimes men need a break from their family, that’s the way it is. Their lives were the same. My mother combined the role of a housewife with professional work, while my mother-in-law was a housewife all her life, bringing up her son and daughter.

My friends, on the other hand, said that if my husband loved me, he would want to spend time with his beloved, not run away to his friends at the first opportunity. However, I trusted my mother and mother-in-law more because my friends were young and the older generation had life experience.

I got pregnant pretty quickly. My husband was happy to hear the news, but he didn’t really want to celebrate with me or even his parents, just with his friends. But that didn’t make me wonder why either, especially since my mother and mother-in-law both said it was a perfectly normal reaction.

– You have no idea how he will celebrate the birth of his child. Your father was brought to the maternity ward by his friends, all of them still drunk, my mother reminded me with a smile.

I felt lonely because even at home my husband preferred to sit in front of the computer or on the phone. But when I tried to talk to him about it, he started nagging that we’re at home together, so what are we supposed to do now, hold hands all the time and never take our eyes off each other?

Some time later, my mother-in-law found out about this situation and admonished me, saying that you can’t put so much pressure on men, because they express their emotions differently. Now a difficult time awaits him, because I will soon be on maternity leave, and he has to provide for his family. I thought she was right.

Throughout my pregnancy, my husband spent a total of seven evenings with me. I mean those evenings when he was actually with me, not somewhere around doing something else. After I went on maternity leave, my husband started coming home later, he was often drunk. He explained that in this way he relieved stress, because now he had to work more.

When I gave birth, my husband didn’t even come to the discharge. He didn’t even call. I also couldn’t reach him on the phone to tell him I had a son. I texted him. My parents, in-laws and friends came to the maternity hospital. My husband was not among them.

At home, my mother-in-law told me that my husband was now celebrating the birth of his son. Apparently he wanted to come, but he was drunk, so his mother-in-law told him that there was no point in coming in such a state. She said that when she sobered up, she would come right away. I was a little relieved because I didn’t know if he was okay.

But the husband did not come the next day or three days later. Instead, I got a message on social media from a girl who introduced herself as the sister of someone who thought she was my husband’s girlfriend. At first I didn’t believe in such nonsense, but she sent me pictures of my beloved kissing some girl in a bar.

The girl wrote that now they spend time together at the summer house of my husband’s friend. She told me everything because she can’t stand my husband, she knows he’s confusing both me and her sister, but there’s no point in talking to her, so she decided to tell me everything.

I asked her why she didn’t tell me earlier and she said she waited until I gave birth so that nothing would happen to the baby, because pregnant women shouldn’t be nervous. She sent me a few more photos, which made me understand that her sister was posting them somewhere on her social media profile. The photos were very telling.

Suddenly I understood everything. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I smelled perfume and saw my husband constantly texting someone and talking on the phone on the balcony. I just didn’t think about it at the time, thinking he wouldn’t lie to me. How was I so sure? I have no idea, I just loved him.

The lock was replaced on the same day. We lived in an apartment that my parents gave me when I was in college, an inheritance from my father. My husband was registered with his mother, so he could not get into the apartment in any way.

He returned two days later. He tried to open the door, knocked, rang and shouted, then drove to his parents. I sat rocking the baby and crying all the time. I got a call from my mother-in-law saying I was filing for divorce and wanted nothing to do with her son.

The mother-in-law came the same day to find out what had happened. I only let her in when I was sure she was alone. I showed her all the messages, pictures, told her everything. At first she tried to convince me that it was nonsense, that someone wanted to argue with my husband, but I thought otherwise.

When she realized she couldn’t convince me to do it, my mother-in-law started saying that we had a family and a child, and that if the man had cheated, no big deal, he was back. But it didn’t suit me. I will not allow anyone to behave like this towards me.

I politely escorted my mother-in-law to the exit, saying that I would not change my mind. When I have time, I’ll go file for divorce. They’ve been calling me ever since. My mother also tries to convince me that anything can happen, that I have to forgive because we are family.

I don’t want to forgive a man who played with another woman while his wife was having his baby. I don’t like the “a man can have fun, even cheat, but what matters is that he’s back” attitude.

They’re trying to convince me not to break up the family, but did we even have a family? I don’t think so. They don’t do that in the family.