**Diary Entry**
For a week now, our home has felt like a warzone. Oliver and I don’t speak, don’t look at each other, and only discuss our son in clipped, emotionless words. And it all started with something so small—a careless moment.
That morning, Oliver left for work as usual. I was tidying up while our little boy napped in his cot. Around ten, his phone, left on the bedside table, buzzed. Once, twice, three times—I moved to silence it, not wanting to wake our son. But my eyes caught the chat name flashing on the screen: *”The Family.”*
It hit me like a bolt of lightning. *”The Family”*—why had I never heard of this group? Me, his wife, the mother of his child, wasn’t part of it? My chest tightened. I gave in to curiosity. I opened it. And instantly regretted it.
The chat was Oliver, his parents, and his sister. No mention of me—except *as* the topic. They painted me as a hopeless homemaker, an incompetent mother, entirely wrong for their son and brother. His mother complained that I fed our child the wrong food, at the wrong times, in the wrong way. That our house was a “tip,” that I looked “permanently exhausted, like I’d been down a coal mine.” His sister chimed in smugly, though she’d never so much as held a baby.
But the worst part? Oliver’s silence. Not a single word in my defence. He *liked* their jabs, added laughing emojis to his mum’s cruel remarks. The man I loved, the father of my child, let his family tear me apart. And I’d tried so hard—nodded, smiled, bit my tongue to keep peace, only to quietly do things my way later.
When Oliver came home, I couldn’t stay quiet.
*”I saw the chat,”* I said, staring straight at him.
He paled. But instead of apologising, he snapped:
*”You went through my phone?! That’s private! How dare you?”*
He shouted, blamed, raged—not one word about how *I* felt. No remorse. No empathy.
Standing there, I barely recognised the man I’d vowed to spend my life with. The one I’d forgiven for late shifts, his bad moods, his tiredness. I’d never hidden my phone—I had nothing to hide. But he—clearly—did.
Now, we barely speak. He sleeps on the sofa. Claims *trust is broken.* But broken by whom? Him—or me? Because I’m the one who feels betrayed. Judged, mocked, erased. Like I’m not his wife, not family—just some temporary lodger in *their* world.
I don’t know what happens next. Divorce has been mentioned—in anger, or maybe in truth.
But one thing’s certain: betrayal isn’t always an affair. Sometimes, it’s silence when you should’ve spoken. A ‘like’ beneath words that crush someone else’s heart.
Now? I just need to know—can I ever trust him again? Or is it already too late?
