**Diary Entry**
A year ago, I would have laughed if someone told me I’d leave Anthony. My husband of twelve years, the man I worshipped—the one all my girlfriends said I was “lucky to have.” He truly was everything to me. Kind, dependable, a devoted father. Our life was like a fairy tale. Now, I live with my sister in Surrey, my two boys in tow, knowing this was the only way to survive.
When we married, we started small, like most couples. We bought a one-bed flat, then Anthony sold it, and we took out a mortgage on a spacious three-bed terrace. We decorated, bought proper furniture, built a comfortable life. Two sons—nine and four. I taught art at a local primary, not for the money but because I loved it. Anthony brought in a steady income, the heart of our family. We travelled, threw birthday parties, lived fully.
Then, in a heartbeat, it all changed.
One day, I got a call from his office—Anthony had collapsed. Ambulance, hospital, tests… A benign brain tumour, but advanced, neglected. The surgeons couldn’t operate gently; it was major neurosurgery.
He survived. The doctors called it a miracle. But the Anthony I knew never came home. His face was slack from nerve damage, his hearing damaged. Worse were the changes inside. He returned, and hell began.
He quit his job. Just like that. “I’ve done my time. You feed us now.”
I took on extra work, exhausted myself to the bone. He? Lay on the sofa all day, scrolling his phone, watching telly. No help, no effort. Just complaints. And shouting. So much shouting.
He lashed out—at me, at the boys. Even the four-year-old. Blamed us for his illness. Said we “broke” him.
Then came the delusions. Hours spent watching doomsday programmes, hoarding tinned beans, matches, salt. Refusing medication, refusing doctors. I begged—he screamed that I wanted to “lock him away,” that I had “lovers,” that “all of London” was gossiping about me.
I lived in a nightmare. The house became a battleground; the boys feared their own father. I couldn’t leave them in that. So, I left. Took them to my sister’s.
Divorce was inevitable. Not because he was ill—but because he refused help. Refused to fight. Refused to be a husband, a father, a decent man.
Now, his family calls me selfish. Says I abandoned him when he needed me most. That I “had it easy” until things got hard. It stings. Because no one saw the nights I lay awake, shaking. No one heard the terror in my sons’ voices. No one helped when I was drowning under two jobs.
I wouldn’t have left if he’d seen a psychiatrist. If he’d tried. If he’d still been *him*. But I couldn’t let my boys grow up in fear. My duty was to protect them.
Sometimes, I remember the old Anthony—his smile, his patience, the warmth in his eyes. It breaks me. But I look at my boys and know: I did right. I saved them. And myself. Even if it cost me my marriage and a shattered heart.
