When my husband first asked to start a family, he made a promise that touched my heart: he would stay home with our child so I wouldn’t have to give up the career I had worked so hard to build. It felt like the perfect balance—love, ambition, and shared responsibility. But once our son was born, the reality didn’t match the promise.
Nick and I were together for five wonderful years before we got married. He worked in sales and I was building a career as a lawyer at a competitive firm. We supported each other. I was proud of how we made things work, even when I started earning more than him. That never seemed to bother him.
Then came the topic of children—specifically, a son. Nick lit up every time he talked about fatherhood. He imagined teaching our child to ride a bike, tossing a baseball in the backyard, being the kind of dad he wished he’d had. I was unsure, mostly because I wasn’t ready to walk away from my career. That’s when he looked at me and said the words that stayed with me: “If we have a baby, I’ll be the one to stay home. You keep doing what you love.”
I believed him. And for a while, I thought everything would go exactly as planned.
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