She was holding a bottle of Method glass cleaner and a bag of Goldfish crackers when I said it. I didn’t plan to. It just came out like a cough you can’t swallow back.

We were standing next to the car, arguing about nothing—laundry, I think?—but it had that old edge to it. The kind that creeps in when you’ve been quietly drowning in the same invisible routine for twenty years.

I said, “Sometimes I think we should’ve just… not had kids.”
She laughed. Thought I was joking. I didn’t laugh back.
Then her whole body stiffened, like someone flipped the air conditioner on in her bones.

It wasn’t about our kids being bad. They’re good. One’s in college, the other barely speaks but gets straight A’s.
It’s that I haven’t felt like myself in almost two decades.
I used to paint. I used to sleep. I used to want things.

Now I just get up, work, pay, fix, and repeat. And I guess I always thought it would feel worth it.
But lately, it feels like I disappeared.

She stood there staring at me like I’d just ripped off her skin.
Then she whispered, “You’re horrible,” and got in the car.

I haven’t told her the worst part yet—
That sometimes when the house is quiet and I can hear myself think again, I feel… free.

And that scared the hell out of me.

I didn’t follow her into the car right away. I just stood there, staring at the red Target sign like maybe it would give me an answer. My heart was racing but my body felt numb. I knew I’d just said something that couldn’t be unsaid.

When I finally got in, she was facing the window, arms crossed tight across her chest. She didn’t look at me. Didn’t say a word.

The whole drive home was silent. No music. No sighs. Just the sound of tires on pavement and the occasional sniffle I pretended not to hear.

When we got home, she went straight upstairs. I sat in the garage for twenty minutes, staring at the cluttered shelves. A deflated basketball. A broken rake. Three mismatched roller skates.

All the pieces of a life I helped build and suddenly couldn’t recognize.

That night, she didn’t speak to me. I made pasta, left some on a plate for her, and ate mine in front of the TV. The kids were both out—Arman at his girlfriend’s, and Lila at a study group. It felt like the house itself was holding its breath.

I didn’t sleep much.

The next morning, she got up early. Earlier than usual. I heard her making coffee and packing her work bag. She didn’t say goodbye.

Two days went by like that. Cold silences, quiet movements, polite nods in front of the kids. Arman came home for dinner that Friday. I watched her flip a switch, smile like nothing was wrong, laugh at his dumb jokes about his dorm.

She was still playing mom. I guess I was too.

That night, after the kids had gone to bed, I sat on the edge of our bed and said, “We need to talk.”
She didn’t look up from her book. “Now you want to talk?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She snapped the book shut. “But you did. You said you regret having them. Our children. How do you come back from that?”

I didn’t have an answer. I just stared at my hands. They looked like my father’s now.

“I meant I regret what I became,” I finally said. “I regret how much of myself I gave up. I didn’t think it would feel like this.”

Her face softened. Just a little. But her voice stayed sharp. “You think I don’t feel that too?”

And there it was.

We talked for three hours. About all of it.
How she used to write poetry. How she wanted to teach full-time but stayed home because Arman had colic and we couldn’t afford daycare.
How I took a promotion I didn’t want because it meant better insurance.

We’d both been sacrificing pieces of ourselves, silently resenting the other for not noticing.

And neither of us had admitted it until I said the one thing you’re never supposed to say out loud.

But here’s where it got weird.
That conversation broke something open, not apart.
She started talking more. I started listening.
Not just nodding. Really listening.

A week later, she said, “Maybe we both lost ourselves. Maybe that’s the problem.”

We started going on walks after dinner.
At first it was awkward, like strangers learning each other’s steps. But soon we were laughing again. Remembering stupid stuff.
That camping trip where the tent blew away. How Lila used to name every worm in the garden.

One night, she said, “I think I might take that poetry workshop downtown.”
I said, “I was thinking about buying some new paints.”

It felt like tiny doors were opening again.

Then something unexpected happened.

Arman came home early one weekend. He’d been quiet at dinner, pushing rice around with his fork. When Lila went upstairs, he looked at us and said, “Can I tell you guys something?”

He came out as bisexual.

My wife reached over and grabbed his hand immediately. I didn’t say anything at first—not because I was upset, but because I was overwhelmed with guilt.

Here was our son, being brave, trying to show us who he really was.
And I’d spent the last month thinking about how I regretted being his dad.

My eyes welled up, and I said the only honest thing I could:
“I’m so proud of you. And I’m sorry if I haven’t always been the dad you needed.”

He looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

My wife gave him a tiny smile and said, “We’re figuring things out. But we love you. No matter what.”

That night, I cried for the first time in years. Not out of sadness, but release.
I realized something.

It wasn’t that I regretted my kids.
It was that I’d never let myself change with them.

I’d clung so hard to the idea of who I used to be—artist, dreamer, independent—that I’d never made room for the man I could become.
One who could be both.

A few months passed. My wife’s poetry workshop turned into a monthly reading group. I cleared out the basement and turned it into a studio.
Not a fancy one—just a corner with good light and enough space to breathe.

Sometimes, Lila sits with me and sketches while I paint.
Sometimes we don’t even talk. Just share the quiet.

Last week, I showed one of my pieces at a local art fair.
Nothing big. It didn’t sell.
But when I saw my wife and kids standing in front of it, beaming like it was the Mona Lisa, I felt something I hadn’t in a long time.

Pride.

Not the kind that puffs you up. The kind that settles in your bones.

It’s funny. Saying that awful thing in the Target parking lot? It almost broke us.
But it also woke us.

We’d been asleep at the wheel of our own lives.
Loving our kids, sure. But forgetting to love ourselves.

Now we talk. We check in.
We say things like “I’m tired” and “I need help” without shame.
It’s messy sometimes. But it’s real.

So no, I don’t regret my kids.
I regret letting life shrink me.
But even that regret cracked something open.

And from that crack, something better grew.

If you’re a parent who feels lost or resentful or invisible—say something.
Not to hurt anyone. But to start the conversation.

You’re allowed to want more.
Wanting more doesn’t mean you love your kids less.

It just means you’re human.

If this hit home, share it. Someone else out there probably needs to hear it too. 💬❤️