While I Was Secretly Showering Another Woman With Gifts, My Exhausted Wife Stayed Home Caring For Our Newborn
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Chapter 6 / 9
Chapter 7 - THE RECONSTRUCTION
I quit my job. It was tied to too many memories, too many lies. I took a position in a non-profit organization focused on supporting struggling families—a small way to try and make amends for the father and husband I had failed to be.
I stopped looking for Elise. I stopped calling her parents. I started working on myself. I went to therapy. I faced the deep-seated narcissism that had led me to seek validation from Vanessa instead of investing in my own family. It was a slow, agonizing process of unlearning my own ego.
Every year, on Clara’s birthday, I sent an anonymous donation to a local women’s shelter in Colorado, hoping that it might somehow reach a woman like Elise, who needed a second chance.
