I let it slide for a while. I know the game he’s playing; stay just busy enough, and maybe I’ll forget we were meant to talk.
Nice try, Daniel.
But the school run is in an hour, and if I don’t grab him now, we’ll be knee-deep in coats, snacks, and complaints about whose turn it is to sit in the front before we know it.
So I march over and stand directly in front of him. He glances up, eyes darting around like he’s searching for an emergency exit.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s have our chat.”
He exhales dramatically, like I’ve just asked him to dig a hole with his bare hands. But he knows resistance is futile, so he reluctantly closes his laptop and follows me into the dining room.
It’s only when we sit down at the table, on opposite ends, miles apart like we’re about to negotiate a business merger in the boardroom, that we both burst out laughing.
“Feels a bit formal, doesn’t it?” Dan says, adjusting his seat like he’s preparing to present quarterly earnings.
“Yeah, well,” I smirk. “We’re here to lay our cards on the table.”
He nods, suddenly looking very sheepish.
There’s a pause. An awkward silence. I fold my hands, trying to keep a straight face.
“So,” I begin, “I think we should really open up about what’s been making us drift apart and how we can get back on track.”
Dan shifts in his seat. “Right. Yeah.”
Another pause. He scratches his chin. Looks anywhere but at me.
Oh, this is going to be fun.
I exhale and lean forward, resting my arms on the table.
"Okay, I’ll go first."
Dan shifts in his seat like he’s bracing for impact.
"I feel like I’m single parenting," I say, watching his reaction carefully. "I do everything; the school admin, the appointments, the food shop, the cleaning, the endless life admin. If I wasn’t constantly keeping everything running, it would all fall apart."
Dan’s jaw tightens. "That’s not fair," he says quickly. "I do try to help, but whenever I do, it’s never good enough for you. I loadthe dishwasher, and you rearrange it. I dress the kids, and you say they look ridiculous. I clean, and you say I’ve missed bits. So yeah, after a while, I just… stop trying."
I let out a frustrated sigh. "I hate when you do this."
"Do what?"
"Get defensive. I’m not attacking you, I’m trying to explain how I feel." She takes a breath, willing herself to stay calm. "Look, instead of interrupting each other, why don’t we both say our part, properly, and actually listen?"
Dan hesitates, but eventually nods. "Alright. You go first."
I straighten up. "Okay. Here’s the thing…"
I take a deep breath, but the moment I open my mouth, my voice cracks. I swallow hard, pressing my fingertips into the table, trying to hold it together. But it’s like a dam breaking, once I starts, I can’t stop.
“I don’t think you understand just how hard I’m finding all of this,” I say, my voice trembling. “I feel like I don’t exist as a person anymore. I’m just… Mum. The default parent. The one who carries the mental load. The one who remembers everything. The school dress-up days, who needs new shoes, when the next dentist appointment is. I’m the one who gets up in the night, who sacrifices work, who has to build her life around everyone else’s needs.”
My breathing deepens as the tears spill over. I roughly wipe them away, but they keep coming.
“I wanted to be a journalist, Dan. That was my dream. And it was taken away from me the second I got pregnant with Oscar. They said it was ‘redundancy,’ but we both know it was because I was a woman in a male-dominated office who had the audacity to have a baby. And when I tried to go back there was nothing available in town and when I applied for flexible jobs in the city, nothing worked around the childcare we could afford. So I settled for copywriting. And I’m okay with it, I am, but itwasn’t my dream. And now, I don’t even know if I have dreams anymore.”
I let out a shaky breath, staring down at the table, my vision blurred with tears.
