Pregnant and overworked, Valerie is barely holding her marriage together. When a betrayal pushes her past her limit, an unexpected ally steps in. As lines blur between love and endurance, Valerie is forced to ask herself the hardest question of all: What do you do when loyalty becomes its own kind of loss?
If someone had told me that pregnancy would feel like both a blessing and a betrayal, I don’t know if I would have believed them. And yet, there I was, 35 years old, six months pregnant, the size of a mini-planet, and trying to decide if my marriage was worth salvaging. Mark hadn’t worked since 2023.
At first, I supported the break. He’d been laid off and said he needed “a little time” to reset. I was okay with that.
I adored him. And we were a team. Besides, I had a stable job with decent maternity benefits.
We’d be okay. Even then, a part of me wondered how long I could keep carrying both of us on my back before something inside me cracked. But then “a little time” turned into over a year—a year of me working full-time, watching our savings shrink while Mark kept saying he needed “just a bit more time to figure things out.”
The pregnancy came later, and with it a new kind of exhaustion.
I’m talking about swollen ankles, sore hips, constant pressure in my lower back, and cravings that made absolutely no sense. One night, it was peanut butter on toast at midnight. The next, it was strawberries dipped in cream cheese.
And I kept a pack of saltines in my desk drawer because someone at work swore they helped with morning sickness. They didn’t. And while I was giving up everything, from dinner dates to my favorite lavender oat milk lattes, Mark refused to let go of his most precious ritual: a weekly massage with a woman named Tasha who, according to him, “just knew his body.”
Each session cost $250.
Every single week. That was $1,000 a month on massages. One evening, I looked at our grocery list and felt my chest tighten.
I had to cross off half of what I’d planned. Meanwhile, Mark booked his next massage like it was a prescription he couldn’t skip. “Mark,” I said as I sat on the living room floor, sorting through a pile of baby clothes I’d picked up at a secondhand sale.
My back ached from standing too long, and my ankles looked like someone had stuffed tennis balls under my skin. “Honey, I can’t pay for your massages anymore. We need the money for the baby.”
He didn’t even look up from his phone.
“I’m used to her, Valerie,” he said, his thumb still scrolling. “She knows my body. I can’t just switch to some cheap place.
It’s not the same.”
I held up a onesie with tiny yellow ducks and folded it with shaky hands. “We’re barely staying afloat, Mark,” I began. “You haven’t even tried to find a job in months.
I’m budgeting every cent while you’re dropping four figures a month for… relief.”
Mark let out a sigh, as if I was the exhausting one. “I’ll find the money myself then, Val,” he said as he stood up to leave the room.
“Don’t stress your pretty little head.”
I sat there, surrounded by baby clothes and unpaid bills, and I wanted to believe my husband. Maybe I needed to. I told myself that the confrontation had been enough.
That he had heard me. But despite everything I said, despite how much I needed him to change, it wasn’t enough. A week later, I went to Target for more nursery essentials.
This time, I needed to get diapers, a crib sheet, and some baby wipes. It was nothing extravagant. I added a pale blue onesie with stitched clouds across the front, and I almost cried in the aisle.
It was so small, and for the first time, it made everything feel overwhelmingly real. At the register, the cashier smiled and scanned my items. “This onesie is beautiful, ma’am,” she said, smiling.
“Thanks,” I said. “I think so too. Even if it does make me question the entire nursery theme now.
Clouds would have been a good fit.”
She laughed and held the card machine out for me. I inserted my card. Declined.
I tried again. Declined. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“But…”
My face flushed. People behind me shifted impatiently. One woman sighed audibly.
“Come on,” she muttered. “We don’t have all day.”
“I’ll just… I’ll come back,” I mumbled, leaving everything behind.
My hands shook as I got to the car. A new wave of nausea hit me, too. I sank into the seat and opened my banking app, trying to figure out where the money had gone.
And there was the notification: $1,000 gone. And I didn’t need to guess where it went. I already knew.
When I got home, I found Mark in the kitchen, eating cereal like nothing had happened. The lights were low, the TV droning in the background, and the smell of milk and sugar made my stomach turn. I hadn’t eaten since lunch.
My cravings were all over the place that day: sweet corn, cinnamon toast, and an orange I never got around to peeling. “You used my card,” I said, standing in the doorway. “Again.”
Mark looked up and smirked like a teenager caught sneaking in past curfew.
“Yeah,” he said casually. “I knew you’d freak out, Val. So I didn’t tell you.
You’re being so dramatic over this.”
“Dramatic?” I demanded, stepping into the kitchen. “I couldn’t even buy diapers today, Mark. I stood there at the register while my card got declined in front of a stranger.
You stole from me.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed deeply, as if he was dealing with a petulant toddler. “Stop playing the victim. I’m about to be a dad too.
It’s stressful, Valerie. You have no idea what it’s like for me! I have needs.
You keep dismissing me like I’m not even human.”
The words stung because I did know stress; I carried it in my swollen ankles, in my sleepless nights, and in the steady thump of a baby who had no idea how fragile his parents already were. “I’m carrying the baby, Mark!” I said, my voice close to shouting. “My needs are prenatal vitamins and a safe place for our child to sleep.
Yours are—what—scented oils and hot stones?”
“I’m not paying you back, if that’s what you’re trying to get at,” he said. “We’re married now. Your money is my money, and that’s how this works.”
I stared at him, trying to find some sign that he understood how deeply he had crossed a line.
“My money has kept this household running while you ‘figured things out.’ What you did wasn’t just selfish, Mark. It was theft… not just from me, but from our unborn child.”
He shrugged and walked away, like the conversation was happily over.
Like I hadn’t just found out the man I married could betray me without blinking. For the first time, I wondered if I was really fighting to save a marriage or just the memory of one. That night, the phone rang.
It was Linda, my mother-in-law. “Sweetheart,” she said, her voice brisk, like she was holding something back. “Is it true?
He used your card for massages?”
“How did you know?” I asked, genuinely surprised that Mark had told his mother. “He called me. He was trying to gain sympathy, of course.
But… he’s about to learn, my Val. He told on himself without even realizing it, thinking he’d earn pity instead of accountability,” she said.
“I promise you, I did not raise my son to be this pathetic. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”
I didn’t ask how. Linda wasn’t the type to make empty promises.
Three days later, Mark came home drenched in sweat and dust. His shirt clung to him, his hair stuck to his forehead, and he smelled of sunscreen and exhaustion. He dropped his tool belt on the floor with a loud thud and collapsed onto the couch, groaning like he’d just marched across the Sahara.
I looked up from my laptop, half-eaten apple slices beside me on the armrest. The baby had been kicking all day, and my stomach was grumbling, but I hadn’t had the energy to cook. “What happened?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“My mom sent me to help with one of her friend’s construction jobs,” he grumbled, wiping his face with the bottom of his shirt. “She said they needed an extra pair of hands as soon as possible. Lord, Valerie.
I’m dying.”
“You’ve been home for over a year, Mark,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Three days of work won’t kill you.”
“I can’t believe she made me do that,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “It was brutal.
They better pay me what they promised. I’m going to need a massage.”
I didn’t bother saying anything. Linda stopped by later that evening.
She walked in holding a sealed envelope and a chocolate cake. She didn’t even glance at Mark. Instead, she made a beeline for me.
“Here you go, honey,” she said, placing both in my hands. “The envelope is for the baby, and the cake is for both of you. But I won’t object to having a slice.”
“Wait!
What!” Mark said loudly, bolting upright on the couch. “Mom! That’s my paycheck!”
“No, son,” she said, turning to face him fully.
“That’s not your paycheck. That’s a repayment. You took money from your wife.
Now, this evens everything out.”
“You’re kidding,” he said, his jaw dropping. “I worked so hard for that.”
“Sure, Mark,” Linda said. “And Val has worked to keep a roof over your head while you threw away her money.
And she’s been carrying a baby, while you’ve given her nothing but stress. This is called accountability.”
For the first time in months, I felt like someone else had stepped into the ring with me, and I wasn’t fighting for two all by myself. “You can’t just give it to her like that!” Mark shouted, his fists clenched at his sides.
Linda stood tall. “Count yourself lucky,” she said. “I considered making you work another weekend.
Maybe next time you’ll think twice.”
Mark stormed out of the room, muttering under his breath. The door slammed like punctuation at the end of an argument he didn’t win. I looked down at the envelope—exactly $1,000, just like my mother-in-law said.
I placed it in the top drawer of the nursery dresser, next to a folded onesie and a jar of belly butter, sworn to fix stretch marks I hadn’t touched in days. “Linda?” I called. “Want that cup of tea and cake now?”
“Oh, honey,” she smiled.
“You know me too well.”
Later that night, I stood in the nursery, running my fingers over the soft cotton of a little hat shaped like a lamb. Mark still hadn’t said a word to me. The house was quiet in that tense, suffocating way that silence can harden into a wall.
I thought I’d feel triumphant. I thought the envelope in my drawer would taste like justice. But all I felt was tired.
And maybe a little sad. Mark didn’t apologize. He didn’t come to have some tea and cake with Linda and me.
He didn’t even try. Instead, he sulked around the house like he was the one who’d been wronged. The next morning, over coffee, he finally spoke.
“I think it was messed up that you told my mom,” he said. I didn’t answer right away. I sipped my tea and let the bitterness settle on my tongue.
“She humiliated me,” he added. “I didn’t tell her what happened,” I said. “She told me that you did when you wanted her sympathy.
I just told her about how my card was declined at the store. So… I think you humiliated yourself.”
The irony wasn’t lost on me—he’d handed me his own rope, and now all I had to do was watch him tangle himself in it.
“You always act like you’re so perfect, Val,” he said, shaking his head. “Like I’m just some useless extra in your life.”
“I never said that you were useless, Mark. But you made a choice.
And I’m allowed to be upset when that choice costs our child.”
He didn’t respond. He looked down, tapping his fingers against the table. “I’m not your mother,” I said finally.
“I won’t coddle you. And I won’t clean up after you.”
He pushed his chair back and left the kitchen. A few days later, I got a text from Linda.
“If you need a break, come stay here for a weekend, honey. I’ll take care of you.”
I stared at the message for a long time, my thumb hovering over the screen. I hadn’t cried since the Target incident, but something about those words—”I’ll take care of you”—made my eyes sting.
It had been so long since someone said that to me without expecting something in return. That Saturday, I went. Linda met me at the door with a hug, the kind that didn’t feel forced or awkward, but safe.
She didn’t say much. She just looked at me, touched my face gently like I was her own daughter, and smiled. “I made that ginger tea you like.
With a splash of lemon this time. It’s better for the heartburn,” she said. Later that evening, we sat outside on her patio, watching the sky turn dusky pink.
She handed me a blanket and a plate of salted crackers. “I told Mark he’s got to grow up,” she said after a while. “I’m not proud of how he turned out in some ways.
But I want you to know… what he did to you? That’s not who I raised.”
I nodded, unsure what to say.
“You’ve been patient,” she added. “Too patient. And I’ve seen women your age—heck, women my age—settle for less.
