While I was drowning in diapers, dishes, and sleep deprivation during
maternity leave, my husband Trey came home every night to criticize the mess.
“You’re home all day,” he’d say. “What do you even do?” The final straw?
He called me lazy for using birthday money to buy a robot vacuum.He had
no idea what it took to keep a baby alive and a house semi-functional. So I stopped. I stopped cleaning,
stopped cooking, stopped doing anything but caring for our baby. In days,
the house spiraled into chaos.His shirts weren’t clean. The fridge was empty. His car keys mysteriously vanished,
and I cancelled his Uber. “People used to walk,” I told him with a smile.
By the end of the week, he broke. “I didn’t know how hard this was,” he
whispered after reading the two-page schedule of my daily tasks.
We started therapy. He’s finally showing up—cleaning, helping, parenting.
And the robot vacuum? Still rolling. My tiny, whirring badge of rebellion.
