But something shifted in Mark about a year after our youngest was born. He started making little comments about money. At first, it was subtle—things like, “Must be nice not having to wake up early for work,” or “Wish I could just stay home all day.”

I brushed them off, thinking he was joking. But the jokes turned sharper. “You don’t understand how stressful my job is,” he’d say. “You get to sit around with the kids while I keep a roof over our heads.”

Sit around? That stung. Anyone who’s ever spent a single day with three kids knows it’s anything but sitting around. Still, I bit my tongue, telling myself he was just tired, stressed, maybe not thinking clearly.