My name is Ethan Carter, and if you had asked me a year ago if I was a good man, I would have said yes without hesitation.

I had a successful construction company in Dallas, a beautiful house in the suburbs, and a wife who had stood by me since I was broke and renting a tiny apartment above a laundromat. Rachel had been with me through it all. She believed in me before anyone else. But somewhere along the way, success made me arrogant, and the attention made me stupid.

I met Vanessa at a charity gala. She was intelligent, glamorous, and knew exactly how to make a man feel like the most important person in the room. She laughed at just the right moments, touched my arm when she spoke, and looked at me in a way Rachel hadn’t in years. At least, that’s what I told myself. The truth was uglier: Rachel was eight months pregnant, exhausted, swollen, and worried about our future, while I chased the thrill of being admired.

The fights at home worsened. Rachel knew something had changed in me even before she found any proof. She started asking harder questions. I was coming home later. I stopped looking for her. One night, after finding messages on my phone, she sat in the kitchen crying, one hand on her stomach, and asked me, “How could you do this to us?”

I didn’t respond like a husband. I responded like a coward.

“It’s over, Rachel,” I said. “I can’t go on living like this.”