When my father sat us down at the table and told us he was leaving my mother, I thought I had misheard him. My parents had been married for 26 years. They weren’t perfect, but they weren’t bad enough to get divorced. At least, that’s what I thought.
‘I’ve met someone,’ he said, rubbing his hands together as if trying to warm them. ‘I didn’t plan for this to happen, but… I can’t ignore it. This person is my other half.’
I glanced at Mum, expecting her to explode. But she just sat there silently. Her hands were folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on the table.
‘Who is it?’ I asked, my voice trembling.
He hesitated. ‘I… I don’t think it matters.’
‘Of course it matters!’ I snapped. ‘You blew up our whole family for someone, but we don’t know who?’
He didn’t answer.
Over the next few weeks, he moved out, rented a flat on the other side of town, and refused to say a word about the mysterious person. No photos. No introductions. Nothing. My mother never asked, and if she did, she didn’t tell me.
At first, I decided it was an affair. Some woman he met at work, or maybe someone from his past. But the more time passed, the stranger it all seemed. He didn’t remarry. He didn’t bring anyone to family events. He seemed to have dissolved into his own world.
And then one evening I ran into him at a café. I almost didn’t recognise him — he looked… lighter. Happier. And he wasn’t alone.
He was sitting with someone. Their conversation was quiet, intimate. But it wasn’t like a man sitting with his mistress. It was something else. Something I hadn’t even thought about.
And at that moment, I finally understood why he never told us who he was going to see.
The person sitting across from my father wasn’t a woman. It wasn’t even a romantic partner. It was his best friend from childhood, Robert.
Robert was always around when I was a child. I remember him coming to barbecues, watching football with my father, making jokes that made my mother roll her eyes, but never really upset her. He was part of the periphery of the family, always there, but never the centre of attention.
Until that moment.
My father looked up and saw me. For a split second, his face froze, then he relaxed and smiled. A real smile. Not the forced, apologetic one I had grown accustomed to over the past year.
‘Hi, kid,’ he said, as if we had bumped into each other at the grocery store.
I didn’t sit down, but I didn’t leave either. I just stood there and looked at them. My father and Robert. Robert and my father.
I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t even sad. I was just… confused. And for the first time since he left, I wanted an honest answer.
‘So… you left Mum for Robert?’ I asked.
Robert shifted uncomfortably, but my father just sighed. ‘No. I left because I wasn’t happy. Because I spent years trying to be who I thought I should be. And when I finally admitted that to myself, I knew I couldn’t stay.’
Robert shifted uncomfortably, but my father just sighed. ‘No. I left because I wasn’t happy. Because I spent years trying to be who I thought I should be. And when I finally admitted that to myself, I realised I couldn’t stay.’
I frowned. ‘But you and Robert…?’
‘We’re not together,’ my father said softly. ‘He’s my best friend. He always has been. He was the first person I told when I realised I needed to leave. He helps me understand who I really am.’
‘Then who is your other half?’ I asked, disappointment creeping into my voice again.
My father smiled sadly. ‘Me.’
I didn’t understand right away. Not completely. But later that night, as I lay awake replaying our conversation, it dawned on me.
He didn’t leave my mother for someone else. He left to find himself.
For so long, I had imagined a dramatic betrayal — some secret lover who flew in and took my father away. But the reality was much simpler and, in a way, much sadder. He had spent most of his life living for other people. First for his parents, then for my mother, then for me and my brothers and sisters. And somewhere along the way, he had completely lost himself.
When he finally looked in the mirror and saw a stranger staring back at him, he realised he couldn’t pretend anymore. And he left.
Not for Robert’s sake. Not for Robert’s sake, not for anyone else’s sake.
For his own sake.
It took me a long time to accept this. It was easier to be angry, to blame him for breaking up our family. But as I grew older, I began to understand. My mother moved on with her life. She built a life that made her happy. And my father? He found peace. He travelled, found new hobbies, made friends who knew him for who he had become, not who he used to be.
Years later, he told me something I will never forget.
‘I know I hurt you,’ he said. ‘And I know you’ll never be able to fully forgive me for leaving. But I hope that if you ever find yourself in a life that isn’t right for you, you’ll have the courage to walk away. Even if it’s hard. Even if people don’t understand.’
That was the last real conversation we had before he died. And I think about it all the time.
Sometimes loving yourself is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But it’s also the most important.
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