Six Months Pregnant, I Ate a Fish; Husband Reported Me

I was six months pregnant, and I'd already quit my job to stay home and rest until the baby came.

With no income of my own, I had to depend on my husband.

But he called me lazy and useless.

He demanded I do the housework every day if I wanted to eat.

The problem was, my belly kept getting bigger and my legs swelled up, and there was housework I simply couldn't do.

So he used that as an excuse to withhold my meals.

When I was so hungry I nearly passed out.

I waited until he was gone and quietly took the fish out of the fridge, stewed it, and ate.

When he found out, he raged at me and called me a "thief."

I figured he'd curse a couple of times to let off steam and leave it at that.

I never imagined he'd actually call the police!

I stared at him, unable to believe it, tears streaming down my face.

"I was so hungry."

"Even if I don't eat, the baby has to..."

He looked at me, his eyes cold. "Taking something without asking is stealing."

"Didn't your parents teach you that?"

"Finn Delgado, please, don't call the police..."

"Too late!"

"This time you're getting a lesson you won't forget."

"Because today you dare to steal a fish."

"Tomorrow you'll dare to steal money!"

...

By the time the officers showed up at the door.

My eyes were red and raw from crying.

"Finn, I was wrong."

"I'll never sneak food again, I swear."

The officers looked at me with pity in their eyes.

Then one reminded my husband, "Mr. Delgado, your wife is pregnant."

He raised an eyebrow. "So what?"

"All this over a fish. Is it really worth it?"

"She's your wife."

"And she's carrying your child."

He curled his lip like none of it mattered. "So what? Sure, the baby's mine, but isn't it hers too?"

"You"

The officer was left with nothing to say.

"Stealing is stealing."

"I don't care if she's my wife."

"You do your job and take her in."

"Just don't get in the way of my gaming."

With that, he turned and headed for the bedroom.

He'd just reached the doorway when he stopped.

Then he looked back at the officers.

"Oh, right. When you take her away."

"Don't forget to put the cuffs on."

"She needs a lesson she'll take seriously, after all, or she won't learn."

And soon enough.

Once my husband watched with his own eyes as the officers snapped the cuffs on my wrists.

He nodded, thoroughly pleased. "That's more like it."

"You take her down to the station and feed her for a few days."

"Saves me some money."

"Two birds, one stone."

The officers stared at this man playing the part of a "husband," disbelief on their faces.

They'd handled plenty of bizarre, jaw-dropping calls before.

But this one, today.

Broke every mold they thought they knew.

After I was taken away.

One of the officers let out a long sigh, then unlocked my cuffs.

"Ms. Henson, it's not that we want to pry."

"But a man like your husband."

"What's the point of staying with him?"

Watching the city scenery slide past the window, the pedestrians flashing by in a hurry.

A flicker of pain crossed my eyes.

"The thing is..."

"He used to be really good to me."

The officer couldn't help asking, "A man with no conscience like thathow good could he really have been?"

I didn't answer. I just kept crying.

Finn really had been good to me once.

Every month he handed over his whole paycheck.

I never wasted a cent of it.

I put it away for him.

Most of my own paycheck went in too.

I kept thinking that one day, if the chance came, he could start some small business of his own.

But once I got pregnant.

Everything changed.

He stopped handing over his paycheck, and cursed me for sitting at home doing nothing when there was nothing wrong with my hands or feet.

Then it got worse.

Even the food I ate, he counted down to the smallest detail.

What I could eat each day, how much I could eat.

He wouldn't let me take a cab when I went out, said I couldn't earn a single cent and only knew how to spend.

Once I walked to the hospital for a prenatal checkup.

A motorbike came shooting out of an alley and nearly ran me down.

I told him about it.

I wanted him to understand how dangerous it was for me to go to my checkups like that.

I was hoping he'd give me a little money so I could take a cab.

Instead he called me a drama queen.

Said I was blind, a motorbike that big coming out of an alley.

How could I not see it? Couldn't I get out of the way?

I didn't argue with him.

I just felt wronged, and my heart ached.

The tears wouldn't stop.

When he saw me crying, he called me a jinx, said I cried all day and dragged his luck down with me, that it was my fault his manager was always chewing him out.

Nothing I did ever pleased him.

Every day he was either picking a fight with me.

Or cursing at me.

To this day I still can't quite understand.

What the reason was.

That turned him into someone so different.

The afternoon of the second day after I was taken to the station.

My in-laws heard and rushed over, hiring a lawyer to bail me out.

Coming out of the station.

On the way home.

They spent the whole ride cursing their own son for having no conscience.

Once we got home.

Finn had the day off and wasn't at work. He'd ordered himself takeout and was eating while he played his game.

He looked up and saw us.

He frowned. "Mom, Dad, why did you go and bail her out?"

"You little punk, has that game rotted your brain?"

"She's your wife, and she's carrying your child."

"Over a piece of fish."

"You called the cops on her?"

Finn looked completely indifferent. He curled his lip. "Mom, Dad, this is between me and my wife. I'm teaching her how to be a decent, law-abiding person."

"What if the baby's born and grows up learning to steal like her?"

"So stay out of it. I know what I'm doing."

"If there's nothing else, you two should go."

Finn waved a hand, shooing his own parents out.

His mother was shaking with rage, her eyes red. "Finn, what has gotten into you?"

"She's your wife."

"How can you treat her like this?"

"If you break her heart, she'll leave you. Will you wake up already?"

Finn shrugged, unbothered.

"Oh, come on, it's fine."

"She has no one but me to depend on now."

"Go ahead, ask her."

"Would she dare leave me?"

His parents watched their son behave like this, disappointment written all over their faces.

But all they could really do was stand by me.

Beyond that, there was nothing they could do to help.

After dinner.

They left, but not before warning their son to treat me better.

Finn agreed to everything.

Not long after his parents were gone.

He dropped the act completely.

"Go scrub the toilet clean."

"I missed the bowl when I peed just now."

Seeing me stand there without moving.

His brow furrowed. "Are you deaf? Didn't you hear what I said?"

"You want to go hungry again?"

I bit my lip and said, my voice trembling, "Finn, can't you just treat me a little better?"

"You think I'm not working because I'm lazy?"

"Look at me... how am I supposed to earn money?"

I looked down at my swollen belly.

Tears kept swimming in my eyes.

All I'd wanted was for him to understand how hard this was for me.

After all, a pregnant woman goes through no small amount of suffering.

But he was exactly the same as before.

Not a trace of pity for me.

The same couldn't-care-less look on his face.

As if he was already certain I could never leave him.

"If you've got time to run your mouth, that toilet could've been done already."

"So get moving."

Seeing that he still showed not the slightest hint of remorse.

My heart gave up on this man completely.

Without a word I turned and went to the bathroom.

Scrubbing the toilet with my big belly.

That night in bed.

He rolled over and wrapped his arm around me.

Before, it had never felt like anything.

But tonight a wave of disgust went through me.

I was almost sick to my stomach!

In that moment.

I understood clearly that toward this man.

I'd already recoiled, rejected him from the bottom of my heart.

To avoid being too close to him.

After that I used the excuse that pregnant women are light sleepers.

And refused to share a bed with him.

Later.

I really couldn't stand the humiliation of holding out my hand to him for money.

So I asked the girls in our group chat.

Whether there was any work a pregnant woman could do.

The girls had always assumed I was at home enjoying a happy, easy pregnancy.

When they heard I was looking for a job, sharp as they were.

They immediately guessed the reason behind it.

One of them called to tell me her cousin ran a restaurant.

And he happened to need someone at the front desk to keep the books.

Once her cousin learned my situation.

He hired me on the spot, no fuss.

With an extra thousand dollars a month, too.

I hadn't been working there half a month.

When Finn noticed something was off.

He frowned and asked me, "You've been leaving early and coming back late every day lately."

"What have you been doing?"

"You got someone on the side?"

Facing Finn's suspicion and interrogation.

I told him the truth.

"A friend helped me find a job. I work at a restaurant."

"You're kidding me?"

Finn didn't believe a word of it. "In the shape you're in now, what boss would dare take you on?"

"Believe it or don't, your choice."

Finn really didn't believe me.

To check whether it was true.

He even took a day off on purpose and secretly followed me.

Only when he confirmed I really was working at a restaurant.

Did he finally believe what I'd said.

My friend's cousin, meaning my boss.

Seeing that I was pregnant, he went out of his way to buy me some supplements out of his own pocket.

Right as I was thanking him.

Finn suddenly stormed into the restaurant and grabbed him by the collar.

Then without a word, he drove a fist hard into him.

"You bastard, you dare hit on my wife?"

The owner went down under Finn's fist, blood running from his nose.

Finn wound up to hit him again.

The other staff rushed in and grabbed him before he could.

"Let go of me!"

"I'll kill this bastard."

I ran over and shoved Finn back.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, protecting your lover already? That was fast."

There was no reasoning with him.

"Stop throwing filth around," I snapped. "He's my close friend's cousin. There is nothing between us, nothing improper at all."

"You think I'm an idiot?"

"He hired you, looking the way you do now."

"He even bought you all that stuff."

"And you're telling me he's got no interest in you."

"Who's going to believe that?"

He stopped for a second.

Then Finn rounded on the staff and roared, "Every one of you, get the hell out of my way."

"I'm going to kill him!"

One of the workers went to call the police.

But the owner stopped him.

"No need for that."

He got up off the floor, took the tissue someone handed him, and wiped the blood from his nose.

Only then did he look at Finn, whose whole face was twisted with rage.

"Look, man, I think you've got the wrong idea about me."

"Everything I've done for your wife is just an owner looking out for an employee."

"And, of course, because she's my cousin's close friend."

He paused.

Then he said something loaded. "But your wife's a good woman. If a man treats her badly, you can't blame someone else for wanting her."

The words were a fuse, and they lit Finn's temper all the way up.

"So you admit you want my wife?"

"If she were willing," he said.

"I really would consider it."

I stared at the owner, stunned.

He gave me a small smile. "You really are a good woman. You just had bad luck, and ended up with the wrong man."

"You son of a bitch."

"You're asking to die!"

Finn's eyes went bloodshot in an instant, and he lunged like a madman.

But there were too many of them, and one man couldn't hold his own.

In the end they threw him out of the restaurant.

Afraid he'd keep making a scene, I had no choice but to ask the owner for the rest of the day off.

Then I went home with him.

Once we were home.

Finn tore through the place, smashing things, cursing me for having no shame as a wife.

I watched him rage in silence.

Only when he'd burned it all out.

Did I say, flatly, "Finn Delgado, I want a divorce."

Finn froze.

Like he'd just heard something out of a fairy tale.

He stared at me, disbelief all over his face.

"Who gave you the nerve to divorce me?"