The double life of my child’s father

“Our daughter Vera was born in May, and in September her father got married. Another. While I was being sewn up after giving birth, he applied with her to the registry office. Even during pregnancy, I began to guess that my man was lying. Although there was nothing to complain about.

When I said that I was pregnant, he rushed to me with a rose in the middle of the night, knelt in front of me in the corridor of a communal apartment, kissed my hands. It’s a strange feeling — when they kiss your hands, and you feel that everything is terrible. Intuition? Reading nonverbal cues? Paranoia? I didn’t understand what was happening. What could I say to my man? What to ask? “Listen, do you really love me?” But he kept talking about love. «I don’t think something is right?» But he assured me everything was fine.

He constantly said: “Give birth to a girl, I want a daughter, she will have eyes like yours, hair, then you will give birth to a second one.” I could not get pregnant for a long time, we quarreled because of this, he thought that I was doing abortions. And I wanted a child. I remember how I went to the pharmacy for tests, how I trampled tests with one strip … And I remember the night I got pregnant. When this happens, from the very first minute you turn into the most defenseless creature on Earth. I felt bad.

I didn’t think about the other, but I felt his lies, I knew there was something terrible. I physically couldn’t hear his voice. Therefore, she decided to break off relations during pregnancy, believed herself and kicked him out. That was hard.

I gave birth on the May holidays, the next day the nurse demanded that one of my relatives take my jacket from the emergency room. There were no relatives. The neighbors in the communal apartment left for the weekend. The nurse scolded me. What kind of relationship is there in a family if there is no one to pick up the jacket?

No, he didn’t leave me without help. He transferred money, went in a couple of times, took Vera in his arms, played with her. Once he said, they say, since everything turned out like this and I live separately, I can marry anyone I want. He will be glad. Later he announced that he was married. I was surprised, but I thought that it happens, sudden love struck me like a Finnish knife. I spent two years on maternity leave: he gave money. Then I found first a part-time job, and then a job. Everything seemed to be fine.

Vera was three years old when I stopped breastfeeding. She endured it easily, and my body rebelled. At first I almost stopped sleeping. The body also did not want to take food, I ate prunes and tea.

Problems? None! After all, losing weight is good. Less sleep means more time to work. In fact, I got more and more tired. And she couldn’t stay in one place. Nervous tension required an outlet, I walked around the room, jumped on the playground, rocked on the horizontal bar, but I could not stand or sit at all.

Depression? I thought everything was fine. I earn money, provide for myself and my daughter, changed housing to a more decent one, lost weight, go to dances … True, I had to quit dancing: communication with people became unbearably difficult, I could hardly maintain even short dialogues.

Then I forced myself to go to a psychiatrist. I tried to explain that I do not sleep and do not eat. The doctor said that sleep can be adjusted with the help of antidepressants. I had three jobs and a child who needed to be taken to kindergarten. I said that I would take the pills if they didn’t have severe side effects.

The psychiatrist was amazed: “Are you doing me a favor?” I ran out of the office. Rolled down the stairs. I found myself on an unfamiliar street and tried to reason logically: I feel bad, and there is no way to fix it.

My legs moved with difficulty, then they completely refused to move, and I sat down right on the asphalt. It’s depression, I realized. It’s sick and I’m sick. But my daughter has no one but me. So, you need to be treated. It was the summer of 2017. I cured depression.

And then my daughter’s father suddenly admitted that he had another woman from the very beginning of our relationship. All two years, when I loved him, there were three of us: he, I and the second woman, who later became his wife. “I wanted to know how big of a bastard I could be,” he said.

It was December 31, 2019. He brought gifts for me and my daughter. We were standing on the Tuchkov Bridge, and the bridge slipped from under my feet. I used to hold on. She said that it was I who failed to love, to understand, she was very sad about this. Of course, pictures flashed in my head about how, after giving birth, stitches are applied to me without anesthesia, and he is with someone … but I mentally scattered these pictures, explained to myself: it also happens that after two weeks people run to marriage registry.

When we parted, I managed to get together, not to drown, to swim out. Having learned that her beloved was married, she also resisted. The most terrible blow was precisely this: to find out that there was a lie from the very beginning. I stopped eating and sleeping again. I lost weight to the state of a skeleton, I could not even walk, I lay in a bed.

I didn’t just give birth to a man who did not want to be a father, refused to love himself and rejected the love that a child could give him. I’ve been betrayed. The depression began again, even more severe. I wanted to scream, but with a child it was impossible. I lay and read aloud to Vera books about Harry Potter. The daughter sat down next to the pillow and said: “Mom, if you die, it’s not scary, all your love will remain inside me and will protect me like Harry Potter.”

Have I managed to get out of this darkness? Partly. At least now I’m walking. But this story is too recent to be forgotten. When my daughter was born, I looked at this baby and thought that we were forever connected with this person. No matter what happens, he will not stop being her father. And this betrayal was … how to say so … For example, a child is forever. Betrayal is also for good. Because of all this, I have very little power that I can give to another person.

I understood two things about myself: children should come from love. And you need to choose someone with whom you are not afraid and not ashamed. But then I didn’t know how and didn’t know that it was possible. And she really wanted to be a mother, even if she was alone. During pregnancy, I was most afraid not even of poverty, but of the fact that I would not be able to love my daughter. The fact that now we will move towards each other, but I will not find love in my heart.

I love Vera very much. If nothing hurt me, my love would be, maybe no more. But brighter.