**Diary Entry**
For a week now, our home has felt like a battlefield. Oliver and I barely speak, avoiding eye contact, limiting conversations to the bare essentials about our child—even then, only in clipped, lifeless phrases. And it all began with something so small, so accidental.
That morning, Oliver had left for work as usual. I was tidying up, our little one napping peacefully in his cot. Around ten, his phone—left on the side table—buzzed insistently. One message, then another. I only meant to silence it, not to wake the baby. But my eyes caught the chat name flashing on the screen: **”My Family.”**
It hit me like a bolt from the blue. *”My Family”*—yet I’d never heard of this group. Me, his wife, the mother of his child, wasn’t part of it? My stomach twisted. I won’t lie—curiosity got the better of me. I opened it. And instantly wished I hadn’t.
The chat was between Oliver, his parents, and his sister. Not a trace of me—except *as* the topic. Turns out, I was a hopeless housekeeper, a clueless mother, entirely unfit for their precious son and brother. His mother wrote that I fed our child the wrong things, at the wrong times, in the wrong way. That our home was a “pigsty,” that I always looked “drained, like I’d been down a coal mine.” His sister chimed in with nods and snide remarks, despite never having held a baby in her life.
But the worst part? Oliver’s silence. Not a single word in my defence. He liked their cruel comments, even added laughing emojis. The man I loved, the father of my child, let his family tear me apart. And I’d tried so hard—smiling through their jabs, nodding along to keep the peace, then quietly doing things my way. I wanted to belong.
When Oliver came home that evening, I couldn’t hold it in.
*”I saw the chat,”* I said, staring straight at him.
He went pale, then exploded.
*”You went through my phone? That’s private! How dare you?”*
He shouted, accused, seethed—never once asking how I felt. No remorse, no understanding.
Standing there, I barely recognised the man I’d vowed to spend my life with. The one I’d forgiven for late shifts, for his exhaustion and sharp words. I’d never hidden my phone from him—I had nothing to hide. But he did.
Now, we’re strangers under the same roof. He sleeps on the sofa, muttering about *broken trust*. But who broke it? Him or me? Because I’m the one who was betrayed—discussed, judged, dismissed like some temporary lodger in his life.
We’ve mentioned divorce—maybe in anger, maybe not. I don’t know what comes next.
But I’ve learnt this much: betrayal isn’t always an affair. Sometimes it’s silence when you should’ve spoken up. Sometimes it’s a thumbs-up beneath words that crush someone else’s heart.
Now, I just need to decide—can I ever trust him again? Or is it too late?
