**Diary Entry, 12th of May**
A year ago, I would’ve laughed if someone told me I’d leave Anthony. My husband of twelve years, the man I worshipped, the one all my girlfriends said, “You’ve hit the jackpot with him.” And they were right—he was everything to me. Kind, dependable, a devoted father. Our life seemed like a fairy tale. Now, I’m staying with my sister in Surrey, with our two boys, knowing it was the only way to survive.
When we married, we started small—a one-bed flat in London. Later, Anthony sold it, and we took out a mortgage on a spacious three-bed. We decorated, bought furniture, built a comfortable life. Two sons—nine and four. I worked at an arts centre, teaching children—not for the money, but because I loved it. Anthony brought in steady pay, was the heart of our family. We travelled, celebrated birthdays, lived truly happy.
Then it all changed in an instant.
One day, his office called—Anthony had collapsed. Ambulance, hospital, tests… A benign brain tumour, but advanced, neglected. The surgeons couldn’t operate gently; it was a gruelling procedure.
He survived. The doctors called it a miracle. But the Anthony I knew was gone. His face twisted from nerve damage, his hearing impaired. Worse were the changes within. He came home, and hell began.
He quit his job. Just said, “I’ve done my part. Now you feed us.”
I took on extra work, exhausted myself to the bone. He? Sat on the sofa all day, scrolling his phone, watching telly. No help, no effort. Just criticism. 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’d “broken” him. Then came the paranoia. Hours spent watching doomsday documentaries, hoarding tinned food, matches. Refused his meds, refused the doctor. I begged—he screamed I wanted to “lock him away,” that I had “lovers,” that “all of London” pitied him.
It was a waking nightmare. The house became a warzone, the boys afraid of 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 treatment, refused to fight, refused to be a husband, a father, a man.
Now his family calls me selfish. Say I abandoned him when he “needed help,” that I’d “lived off him” and fled when things turned hard. It stings. None of them saw me trembling when he roared at the boys, none stayed awake with me through the exhaustion, none shouldered the double shifts.
I wouldn’t have left if he’d seen a psychiatrist. If he’d accepted help. If he’d still been *him*. But I couldn’t let the boys live in fear. My duty was to protect them.
Sometimes I remember the old Anthony—his smile, his patience, the care in his eyes. It breaks me. But I look at my sons and know: I did right. I saved them. And myself. Even if it cost a shattered marriage and a broken heart.
**Lesson:** Love doesn’t mean suffering in silence. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is walk away.
