“I did want to be a mother.

And I do need to act like one.

Where you were wrong was in what you imagined acting like a mother meant.

You imagined it meant continuing to do exactly what I had been doing: absorbing every ounce of labor and exhaustion and sleeplessness alone, quietly, without complaint, while you treated the family we built together like a voluntary hobby you could opt out of whenever it inconvenienced you.

That is not what a real mother does, Julian.