When I married a surgeon, I might have romanticized the profession more than the reality of building a life with someone who is always on call and working extreme shifts. But while I understood that my husband’s job was demanding, I did not expect him to be a negligent father.

Since we have been living together, my husband, David, has shown me that he thinks he’s very important because of his job. He acts like he’s too special to deal with family stuff because he’s always busy and stressed from work. When he’s home, even the happy sounds of our daughters bother him.

At this point, I believe David thinks his job is enough to make him a good husband and father because he fails to see the need to put that same effort into our family. The most painful part is that he does not even see how this affects our daughters.

Luckily, my father has been my rock. He has been here to help. He does a lot for us. He’s the one who’s changed their diapers, taught them to ride a bike, attended their plays and dance recitals, helped with homework, and even dressed as Santa. Dad organizes the Easter egg hunts and hosts the tea parties. My husband has considered himself too important and seems fine to have missed out on all these moments.

Even though my husband doesn’t do much at home, he gets upset that the kids are closer to their grandpa than to him. He doesn’t want to help my dad with money problems, either. Instead, he wants my dad to go away to the countryside even though we have the means to help him.

I think it is even more cruel that he believes that my father deserves to be sent to the countryside when he could not only live comfortably with us but actually build a relationship with his grandchildren.

We had many conversations around this, and some have turned into arguments, but I have tried to explain to him how much my father helps and why we need him. Although the conversations never ended with a solid conclusion, the decision never got to the point of kicking my father out.

But one day, my husband miraculously came home early, and the kids were playing outside with my father. He arrived thinking the girls would jump at him, but they gave him no reaction. For the first time in years, I think that was the moment that made David realize the impact of his absence in our daughters’ lives.

That was not the only confrontation he had about the kind of father he was. When the kids finally came to greet him, they came with drawings they had made. The girls had drawn their family, and instead of adding my husband, they included their grandfather and wrote “we love mommy and grandpa,” which was a big slap in the face for David.

My husband got really angry at me and, most of all, at my father. He immediately started shouting, telling me that the girls did not see him as a father because their grandfather had taken over. I was not trying to have this argument again, especially in front of my dad or my children, so I kept telling him to keep his voice down.

But that did not work. In the process of me telling him to keep it down and him getting louder, he ended up saying, “You have to kick your dad out of our house because he turns our daughters against me.”

He was certain that had my father not been at home with us, the kids would not have even thought of making such drawings or wouldn’t have told me they “loved their Grandpa more.” I tried to explain that it was not that they loved him more; they just got used to how involved he was in their life.

David was not trying to listen to anything I was saying. It seemed like the sight of my father with the girls made him angrier, so he blurted out, “If you don’t make him get away from here, I’ll do it myself and will never allow him to see them ever again.”

I could not comprehend that David thought he could manipulate the situation and threaten to kick my father out of my kids’ lives. Things have never been the same since that explosion, and I decided to leave our house.

I do not think it’s fair that I’m stuck in the middle, trying to keep my family happy. I want my kids to have their grandpa around because he’s so good to them. But I also cannot deal with what my husband wants only when it suits him.

It has been difficult to process this, but to be honest, my husband has not changed a bit. He only got angry at that moment to stroke his ego, but his work is still what defines him, and I believe my children deserve better.

I wanted to raise them in a two-parent household filled with love, but now I think a divorce might be the only way I can give them a peaceful home. I never wanted this. I tried so hard to keep this all together so we didn’t wind up here. But I failed. David and I failed our children.

The girls, dad, and I moved out and have been living with my sister while we wait for our new home. I am looking at the brighter side, and I am very grateful to have my amazing father as a father figure in their lives.

Click here to read how this woman found the most disturbing text on her husband’s phone.

It’s really breaking my heart to recount what happened, but I am writing this with the hope of getting advice on a way forward. I have been married to my husband, Paul, for 20 years. Over the years, our marriage has become stale for a number of reasons.

We both worked a lot, and as much as I hate to make it about my appearance, I do think I have aged poorly through the years. Regardless, we have managed to keep our beautiful family together.

We have two children whom I love with all my heart. Our son, Eric, is in his early twenties, and our daughter, Mary, is in her late teens. Despite the ups and downs of marriage, I look at these two and see them as the greatest achievement of this marriage, and they give me hope to keep going.

There are many things that I have turned a blind eye to with my husband. After almost two decades and a clear disconnect between us, I knew he was cheating, but for the most part, I tried to suppress my feelings.

One time I found a thong in our room, and he explained that it might belong to our daughter, which makes no sense. I have noticed his behavior change and found a few concerning videos on his laptop; again, I decided to pretend I did not see anything.

Our son, Eric, has been with his first love and high school sweetheart, Amy, for a few years now. He absolutely adores her, and we as a family love her too. But the other day, I saw a notification pop up on my husband’s phone from Amy.

I was interested to see what she had to say to him, but what I did not expect was to see an inappropriate message clearly indicating that they had a romantic relationship. I could not believe my eyes. I froze in place, not knowing what to do with this information, and spent the day trying to convince myself that what I saw was not real.

Now that I knew who he was cheating on me with, I started to dig deeper and realized that he had saved some of Amy’s pictures on his computer. None of them were concerning; she was fully clothed in all of them, but they definitely confirmed my suspicions.

But I did not stop there. I waited for an opportunity to go through his phone, and what I saw just continued to break my heart into pieces. I went through their messages and saw the most horrific things said about me. My husband was so vile, calling me fat, ugly, and old, while Amy just laughed the comments off.

I wish I hadn’t looked. I knew Paul and I’s marriage hadn’t aged well, but I hoped that as his wife of 20 years and the mother of his children, he would at least respect me enough to not insult me in that way.

The more I sat with this issue, the more my mind started racing. His infidelity was not just about him betraying me, but he stabbed his own son in the back. I really thought I knew the kind of man I married, but now I wish our paths had never crossed.

As I look back to the times Amy was at our house, I realize that his behavior around her had been weird, but I never thought it was anything to worry about. The layers of this situation leave me paralyzed by the fear and dread of how this is going to pan out.