My Husband Cheated 3 Weeks Postpartum Because Witnessing Birth “Traumatized” Him. He Sells Surgical Equipment For A Living. How Should I Handle His Big Presentation Tomorrow

The Divorce Proceedings

I spend those three days taking care of our daughter, documenting everything I can find about his affair with Megan, and researching divorce attorneys in our area. I screenshot every cruel text he sent me about my body. I save every message where he talks about being at Megan’s place while I was home alone with the baby. I print out his credit card statements showing hotel charges and restaurant bills during times he told me he was working late. The evidence folder on my laptop grows to 43 pages.

On Monday morning I call Dawn Hassan’s office. Her assistant gets me an appointment for that afternoon because they had a cancellation. I bring the baby with me along with my printed evidence folder and a timeline I created showing Blake’s absence from parenting duties.

Dawn’s office is in a professional building downtown, all glass windows and modern furniture. She’s in her late 40s with short gray hair and sharp eyes that miss nothing. She takes one look at my four-month-old daughter sleeping in her carrier and offers me coffee before we start.

I walked her through everything. The affair starting three weeks postpartum. Blake’s comments about my body disgusting him. Him moving me to the guest room. His gifts of gym memberships and diet pills. The way he brought Megan around our friends while claiming to be traumatized by watching childbirth. Dawn takes notes on her laptop, her expression getting harder with each new detail.

When I show her the text between Blake and Megan where they discuss how gross my postpartum body is, Dawn actually swears under her breath. She asks if I have more documentation, and I hand her the 43-page folder. She flips through it slowly, stopping on certain pages to read more carefully.

Dawn looks up from the folder and tells me I have an incredibly strong case. Blake admitted to the affair in writing. He abandoned his parenting duties completely, which I documented with the timeline showing he hasn’t done a single night feeding or diaper change in four months. The emotional abuse is clear from his texts and the witness statements I got from two friends who heard him talk about being disgusted by my body. She says we have significant leverage for custody, child support, and asset division.

Then she tells me I should file immediately while Blake is still off balance from losing his promotion and before he has time to hide assets or create a counter-narrative. I ask how quickly we can move, and she says she can have papers ready by end of business today if I want to proceed. I sign the retainer agreement right there in her office.

Dawn makes calls to get the divorce petition prepared while I’m still sitting across from her desk. She asks detailed questions about our finances, our home, Blake’s income from his sales job. I answer everything from memory because I’ve been managing our household finances since the baby was born. Blake just deposits his paycheck and assumes I handle the rest.

Dawn’s assistant brings in papers for me to review and sign. The petition lists adultery, abandonment, and cruel treatment as grounds. It requests primary physical custody with Blake getting supervised visitation until he demonstrates actual parenting ability. It asks for child support calculated on his full salary. It demands a favorable asset split due to his fault in the marriage breakdown.

I file for divorce on Monday afternoon. The clerk stamps the papers and gives me a case number. Dawn says the process server will deliver Blake’s copies on Tuesday morning. She recommends I prepare for him to react badly when he gets served. I go home and move all of Blake’s important documents to my lawyer’s office for safekeeping. I change the locks on the house because technically it’s my separate property from before the marriage. I set up the guest room as my permanent bedroom and move all of Blake’s clothes into garbage bags in the garage. Then I wait.

The Backlash

Tuesday morning at 9:30 my phone starts ringing. Blake calls me three times in a row. I don’t answer. He leaves a voicemail that’s just him yelling about how I’m a vindictive witch who’s trying to ruin his life. He calls again 10 minutes later. This voicemail is him saying I’m overreacting to his honesty, and the calls keep coming.

By 11:00 he’s called me 15 times. The voicemails get progressively more unhinged. He says I’m destroying both their lives over his honesty and my sensitivity about my body. He claims Megan is crying because I’m trying to punish her for supporting him through his trauma. He threatens to fight me for full custody because I’m clearly unstable. He says his parents will testify that I’m an unfit mother. The last voicemail is just him breathing heavily into the phone before hanging up.

Dawn calls me Tuesday afternoon to say Blake’s lawyer contacted her office. She’s sending them a letter that outlines all our evidence: the text between Blake and Megan discussing his disgust with my postpartum body, the credit card statements proving the affair, the timeline showing his complete absence from parenting, and the witness statements from friends who heard his cruel comments. We’re asking for primary custody based on his abandonment. We’re asking for child support based on his income. We’re asking for a favorable asset division because he committed adultery and emotional abuse. Dawn says Blake’s lawyer sounded surprised by how much evidence we have. She thinks they expected me to file on generic irreconcilable differences without proof of fault.

Blake’s mother calls me on Wednesday. She starts the conversation by saying: “Boys will be boys and all men struggle with fidelity sometimes. You should be more understanding of Blake’s needs and less focused on punishing him.”

She says: “You’re being too harsh by filing for divorce instead of trying to work things out. Blake made a mistake but he’s still a good father and provider.”

His father gets on the line and suggests marriage counseling. He knows a good Christian counselor who helps couples get past infidelity. They can have Blake back home by the weekend if I just drop the divorce and agree to work on the marriage.

I take a breath and tell them their son cheated on me three weeks after I gave birth to his child while I was bleeding and trying to keep their granddaughter alive on no sleep. Blake was at his girlfriend’s apartment talking about how disgusting my body looked. He told me watching childbirth ruined his attraction to me and he couldn’t stand to sleep in the same room with me. He hasn’t changed a single diaper or done a single night feeding in four months. He gave me diet pills for our anniversary and a book about winning your husband back for my birthday. He brought his girlfriend around our friends while claiming he was traumatized by witnessing medical procedures, even though he watches surgeries for his job without any problem.

The phone line goes completely silent. Then Blake’s father says they’ll call back later and hangs up. They don’t call back.

Jenny texts me Thursday with an update from Blake’s workplace. The gossip is spreading fast about why his wife filed for divorce right after he lost that big promotion. People are asking questions and connecting dots. Someone heard about the awkward Q&A moment with Jenny’s question about his personal experience with childbirth. Someone else heard Blake’s been staying at Megan’s apartment since his wife kicked him out. The sales team is putting together that Blake cheated on his postpartum wife, got called out publicly for his hypocrisy about respecting birth, lost his promotion, and now his wife is divorcing him.

Jenny says Blake’s professional reputation is tanking because the Whisper Network is doing exactly what Whisper Networks do: they’re sharing information and drawing conclusions Blake definitely doesn’t want them drawing.