Emily left me with our newborn baby.
Natasha and I had been married for ten years. We worked side by side in a Cambridge laboratory, spending nearly every hour together. When she told me she was pregnant, I was over the moon. I had longed for a child—so much that words couldn’t capture my joy.
But my wife was, above all, a career woman. Motherhood was never her dream. Natasha yearned for a senior position and financial success. When the pregnancy left her feeling ill, she had to step away from her work. That was when she realised—the baby would ruin her career.
Our little girl arrived right on time. Almost instantly, Natasha was swallowed by postnatal depression. She despised the child. She wanted to abandon her at the hospital and erase her from memory. She screamed through the maternity ward that our daughter had stolen a year of her life, leaving her obsolete.
As they say, things only got worse. When I was promoted, Natasha flew into a rage. She refused to even hold our daughter, let alone feed her. I hired a therapist—I knew this wouldn’t end well. The sedatives helped, but only briefly. She accused me of wasting her youth while climbing the corporate ladder on her back. Worse still, she insisted the promotion should have been hers, not mine.
When I was sent to Munich to oversee a new branch, I begged her to come with us. She refused. Instead, she filed for divorce and walked out. I left the country with our baby. Later, my mother joined us; someone had to care for the child. Natasha returned to her old job and still fights, to this day, to prove she deserved my position.
Yes, she’s brilliant and driven—but family was never for her. One day, she’ll realise happiness isn’t found in a job title. By then, it’ll be too late.
