Chapter 8 - My Marriage Before the Closet
This was the chapter I wanted to skip.
Because it would have been easier if Reid had become a villain overnight.
He hadn’t.
He packed Perry’s lunches.
Made terrible pancakes.
Knew which dinosaur was technically not a dinosaur.
Sat on the bathroom floor when Perry had stomach flu.
Loved him.
Loved me once very easily.
Then harder.
I loved him too.
We had stopped asking direct questions.
I accepted promotion without fully discussing travel.
Not because I needed permission.
Because marriage needed logistics.
I told him:
“It’s only two nights every other week.”
He heard:
“Your schedule is now secondary.”
He accepted managing-director consideration without telling me how much entertaining it involved.
I heard about it from coworkers.
We both began making unilateral decisions then calling the other inflexible.
That mattered.
Not as excuse for custody deception.
As marriage truth.
Then Reid said one night during counseling:
“I thought you would never agree to Perry staying with Mom because you hear any separation as abandonment.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“Because your father left when you were nine.”
There.
He had used my childhood to predict my consent.
Again.
Not ask.
Predict.
Then:
“Did you think I was unsafe?”
“No.”
“Unfit?”
“No.”
“Bad mother?”
“No.”
“Then why should our son’s primary residence be your mother’s?”
Reid looked down.
“Because I thought neither of us could give him consistency during the transition.”
“Then why not keep him with me and hire help?”
“You would say I was pushing care onto you.”
“Why not keep him with you?”
“Managing director.”
There.
Career.
His schedule.
My schedule.
Constance solved both.
May you like
Convenient adult solution.
Child cost.
