And when I finally discovered what Michael had been hiding, I understood why he had spent nearly two decades making me feel ashamed of something I had never done.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
To understand how I ended up sitting in a doctor’s office with trembling hands and tears running down my face, you need to know what my marriage looked like before everything began to fall apart.
I met Michael when I was nineteen.
He was twenty-three, charming, confident, and the kind of man who remembered little details about people. On our third date, he brought me the strawberry cake I had mentioned liking during our first conversation.
I thought I had found someone who truly listened to me.
We married two years later.
Our wedding was small, but I remember feeling like the happiest woman in the world. My mother cried when she hugged me goodbye, and Michael promised her that he would spend the rest of his life protecting me.
