I Came Home from a Trip to Find Our House Being Destroyed by My Husband and Kids — It Was the Last Straw

Not enough food?” I asked, my voice eerily calm, despite how I felt on the inside. I wanted to scream.

I didn’t wait for a response. I didn’t even go outside to see my kids, Ava and Max. Grabbing my still-packed suitcase, I turned around to leave.

“I’m leaving, Brandon, and I won’t be back until this house is the way I left it. Clean, organized, with a stocked fridge and sorted laundry. Okay?”

Brandon looked at me, puzzled and then concerned, as I headed out the front door, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to stop me at all. He didn’t call me back and promise that he would sort the house out while I took a bubble bath.

He let me leave.

I drove straight to my parents’ house, the one place that still felt like a sanctuary despite me having outgrown it.

When I arrived, my mother opened the door before I could even knock, her expression shifting from surprise to concern at the sight of my tear-streaked face and the suitcase trailing behind me.

“Jo, what in the world happened?” she asked, pulling me into a tight embrace.

I stepped inside my childhood home, the smell of pot roast filling the air. This was a home. This is what I wanted to walk into.

Not the chaos that my husband had let the house escape into. My dad came into the hallway, and I walked into the living room I knew well.

“You look like you’ve been through a storm,” he said, taking my suitcase and hugging me.

I sighed, sinking into the couch. The comfort of being home, in a space where everything was as it should be, made the disparity even more painful.

“I might as well have been,” I replied, trying to muster a smile.

“Tell us,” my mother urged.

“I left everything organized for Brandon,” I began, my voice shaking as I recounted the preparations I had made before my trip. “Meals, kids’ schedules, clean clothes—everything he needed to just step in and take over for the week.”

My mom sat beside me, her hand reaching out to cover mine. Dad’s chair creaked as he leaned forward, his typical joviality replaced by a growing frown.

“And when I got back today,” I continued, my tears of frustration streaming down my face. “It was like I’d never spent all those hours planning. The house was a mess, nothing was where it should be, and Brandon? He actually complained there wasn’t enough food prepared.”

“That’s ridiculous!” my father’s voice was unusually sharp. “After everything you do?”