You imagine your life in many different ways, but you never imagine that you could be a divorcee at thirty-two years of age. The reality of a failed marriage a year after making those vows hang over Jeff like a dark cloud. He was supposed to be celebrating his first wedding anniversary and the birth of their first child, but instead, he was laden with anger and sadness.
Mostly, he felt anger towards himself and his big heart. He loved Melly with everything he had. He saw so much in her and wished she would see herself through his eyes. When they met, Melly had been nursing a heartbreak. Her ex had messed with her self-esteem so much that she was surprised when Jeff told her wonderful things about herself. Even then, she thought he was lying. Men lie unprovoked. But Jeff saw something in her, so he kept affirming her until she began to believe it.
His immense love for Melly saw him propose to her eight months after they started dating. The moment she said “Yes,” was probably the happiest in their entire relationship. Their wedding would have been another peak had it not been marred with drama. At some point, the wedding was cancelled. However, Melly’s parents convinced Jeff that proceeding with the wedding was the most sensible thing to do. He should have noticed that Melly’s family pushing for the wedding more than Melly was somewhat odd, but they had always been good to him.
Melly had cheated on him with her ex—the ex who had done a number on her. It appeared Jeff’s love had not gotten rid of the ex’s grip on her. The cheating happened weeks after the engagement, as they were in the wedding planning process. Jeff was a mess when he caught wind of the betrayal. When asked, Melly cried without explaining why it had happened.
Jeff called off the wedding. He told Melly, who told her parents. He was looking for a way to break the news to his family when Melly’s family asked to speak to them. “Jeff, we are mortified by what our daughter has put you through,” said Melly’s mother. Jeff preferred to listen to them first.
“The decision rests with you but we urge you to find forgiveness in your heart for her. If possible, it is not our wish for you to halt the future plans at this point. You are our son and we would want you to continue being part of our family,” continued Melly’s mother.
At this point, she gave Melly a look. Melly knew that was her cue to beg for forgiveness. Her mother had explained what was at stake. She came from a respectable family, and cancelling wedding plans at the last minute due to their daughter’s infidelity was unacceptable. There was a greater shame to hide, but Jeff would realize that later.
After weeks of convincing, Jeff decided to proceed with the wedding. Melly was on her best behaviour. She reported all her movements so that he wouldn’t think that she was out with her ex. At some point, she love-bombed him so much. It was strange to Jeff, but he wasn’t complaining. Two months after the wedding, Melly announced that they were going to be parents.
Jeff was over the moon. He had wanted to be a father. They started shopping in the second trimester. Melly made sure they had finished shopping by month seven. She also suggested to him that they should have the baby shower earlier so that she doesn’t get too tired. The reasoning was sound, so Jeff organized one with the help of their friends. All was well in their world.
Then Jeff got a call while at work. Melly had gone into labour. “How?” He asked. “Isn’t it a little bit early?” As he headed to the hospital, he came to terms with the idea that his baby was born preterm. He fervently prayed for his wife and child. When he arrived at the hospital, Melly was in for surgery, so he waited. He Googled what kind of challenges they should expect with the early birth. The findings worried him, but he had to hide that fear as the man of the house. So, he took the opportunity to freak out on his own before joining the rest of the family.
“You have a son,” they told him. They had waited to know their gender after birth. He cried. It was also not lost on him that the child looked okay for a baby born weeks before the due date. Things went south from there. It soon became clear that the child wasn’t preterm. “How had the doctors missed this during their visits to the clinic?” Jeff wondered.
In the coming weeks, he realized that Melly was already pregnant by the time they got married. This discovery introduced another worry, “Was the child his?” The idea that Melly would have him raise someone else’s kid without telling him sounded too sinister. He soon realized that not only did Melly know, but her family were in on it, too. All the convincing was because they didn’t want their child to end up with her ex or raise a child alone.
When they discovered that she was pregnant, she wasn’t sure who the father was. They hoped against all odds that it was Jeff’s, but they couldn’t be sure until later in the pregnancy or after birth. Fate wasn’t on their side. The child’s father was the ex. Everything came tumbling down. On the night Jeff pieced together every lie and the extent to which they all had gone, he drank so much that he got into an accident.
The near-death experience made him realize that if he had died at that moment, he wouldn’t have left much behind. The moments of bonding with the child and his love for Melly had momentarily made him think that he could get past it, but the accident gave him a solid resolution. He was done with Melly. A failed marriage felt like a colossal mark of failure, but it had to be done.
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