He told me he was going to be her birth partner. My coffee cup nearly shattered in my hand. I stared at him across the kitchen table, the morning sun streaming through the window, suddenly feeling cold.
“Excuse me?” I managed, my voice thin. Did I hear him right?
He repeated it, calm as you please. “She asked me. She has no one else. Her family’s all out of state, and she’s a single mom. She needs support.”
Support. Support? My blood ran cold. This wasn’t just “support.” This was birth. This was the most intimate, raw, terrifying, and beautiful moment a woman goes through. It’s for a partner. For a husband. For family. Not for a married man whose wife is sitting right there, listening to him volunteer for this… this betrayal.
“You’re married,” I said, the words sharp, cutting the air between us. “You’re my husband. You are not on call for single moms. Especially not her.”
He sighed, that slow, exasperated sigh he uses when he thinks I’m being unreasonable. “Don’t be like that. She’s my best friend. She’s terrified. I’m just going to be a comforting presence. What’s the big deal?”
The big deal? THE BIG DEAL?! My mind screamed. I could feel the heat rising in my face, a furious blush. What’s the big deal is that it’s an emotional boundary stomped into the dirt. What’s the big deal is that he’s prioritizing her intimacy over ours. What’s the big deal is that he’s acting like her husband. He’s acting like he’s hers.
We argued. Oh, we argued. For days, it simmered, then exploded. He called me selfish. He said I had no empathy. He said I was being cruel to a woman in a vulnerable position. He just doesn’t understand, I thought, gripping my hands so tight my nails dug into my palms. He doesn’t get it at all.
“She’s alone!” he’d yelled, his own frustration boiling over. “She needs someone to hold her hand, to advocate for her, to remind her she can do it! Who else is going to do that?”
“Her family! A doula! A female friend!” I’d shot back, my voice trembling with suppressed rage and a fear I couldn’t articulate. “Not my husband! Not the man who should be saving that kind of intimate, life-altering presence for our family, for our children!”
He paused then, his anger dimming slightly, replaced by a softer, almost pleading look. “She’s like a sister to me. And you know how much I care about you. This doesn’t change anything.”
Oh, it changed everything. It felt like a crack had opened in the very foundation of our trust. He loves her, doesn’t he? More than he’s letting on? Is there a history I don’t know about? The insidious thoughts crept in, poisoning my every waking moment. His insistence, his absolute conviction that he must be there, gnawed at me. Why was this so important to him? Why was my discomfort, my pain, so easily dismissed?
I knew how it looked. I knew the world would see me as the jealous, cold-hearted wife. The woman denying a desperate friend the comfort she needed. But they don’t know the whole story. They don’t know the storm raging inside me. They don’t know the sickening dread that washes over me every time he talks about her upcoming birth.
Last night, I gave him an ultimatum. My voice was quiet, but it was firm, unwavering. “You choose. Me, and our life, our future, our boundaries. Or her, and this… this boundary-breaking act that I cannot, will not, accept.”
He looked at me, his eyes full of hurt, but also a stubborn resolve. “You just don’t understand, do you?” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “This is different. It’s not what you think.”
Different. The word hit me like a physical blow. It echoed in my head, reverberating through years, through decades. Different. Not what you think.
My breath hitched. My vision blurred. He doesn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know. How could he? I never told anyone. I buried it so deep, I almost convinced myself it never happened.
But it did happen. And his absolute certainty, his desire to be there for her, for her baby, when she has “no one,” rips open an old, festering wound I thought had healed.
Because what he doesn’t know, what no one knows, is that I’ve been there. Alone. Just like her. He doesn’t know what it’s like to lay on that cold table, squeezing a nurse’s hand so hard her knuckles turned white, while the man who swore he loved you was nowhere to be found. He doesn’t know about the tears, the silent screams, the ache in my arms when they handed me a tiny, perfect bundle and then… took her away.
He doesn’t know about the baby I had, alone, the baby I had to give away for adoption, because I had no one, and I was too young, and too scared. Every time he talks about being her support, her rock, all I can see is the ghost of that moment, and the raw, gaping wound in my own soul. I can’t let him be there for her, because it means confronting the fact that no one was there for me. And what if he found out? What if he realized why I’m really fighting him on this? My husband wants to be a birth partner for his BFF, and I can’t let him, because the truth is… I’ve been a mother before. And I did it all alone.
