Truth be told, kids were never on my mission board. Mandem Dayv was perfectly fine living the no-offspring lifestyle — travelling easy, smoking cigs carefree, drinking with no bedtime. I was never some Casanova anyway, so deep talks about future families were never popping up.

Then I got married. And to her credit, my ex never stressed the Korean-checklist nonsense too hard… but she did want a kid. And at the time, I figured I’d be selfish to say no. So we tried. We were living in Sri Lanka, my man seed was elite, and boom — pregnant. But the agency rules said births had to be “at home”, so back to Korea we went.

We crashed at my mother-in-law’s place — an Olympic-level drinker who couldn’t care less about the pregnancy, the birth, or the baby. No support. No warmth. Just vibes of disappointment. After the kid was born, I switched from smoking to vaping because, you know, modern dad rules.

At that point, my wife was still grounded, still aware her mom was acting like a clown. So we moved back to Seoul on our own, got a tiny one-bedroom in a building that leaned so hard it looked tired. The neighbourhood was depressing, and the routine hit me like a brick. She worked long hours, and I did what flexible English teaching I could. Then I’d walk 40 minutes to pick up the car, grab my daughter, cook dinner, and basically run the house.

And the hours? The “Korean work ethic”? Bro. My wife coming home at 9 or 10 p.m., waking the kid up because of some guilt-trip about bonding? I’d get her to sleep like a miracle worker, and then boom, chaos. I couldn’t understand how she couldn’t understand.

Then she got offered a posting in Nigeria. And back then I still had the adventurer spirit, so I thought, yeah, let’s try Africa. And honestly? Nigeria wasn’t the problem. Abuja was fine. The problem was the toxic work environment. A young woman in her 30s with power, an armoured car, and a real title? The middle-aged desk-warriors weren’t having it. They couldn’t stand that she outranked them, lived better than them, and had the authority they felt entitled to. So they went petty — gossip, exclusion, back-room sabotage. The usual insecure-penis nonsense.

Through all this, my wife always said, “After I get experience, I’ll apply for a job in Canada.” Cool. Except as our time in Nigeria wound down, that promise started looking like fiction.

And both of us were drinking way too much by then. Her paranoia got sharper. My depression grew heavier. The relationship was buckling.

So I made a call — the executive decision — to take my daughter back to Canada after Nigeria. She could wrap up the so-called loose ends and join later if she meant it.

We went back to Seoul briefly, stayed in some sketchy, illegal Airbnb. She was still doing the long hours, leaving me with a bored, jet-lagged kid losing her mind without her Nigerian friends. I could see the writing on the wall. I got on the plane to Toronto with zero money and a sinking feeling that everything was over.

And I was right.

I didn’t want to be right, but life doesn’t care what you want. Life shows up uninvited, kicks in the door, and drags you outside in your socks. Everything I’d been quietly worrying about — every red flag, every weird vibe, every late-night argument that ended with both of us staring at different corners of the ceiling — all of it came true.

My wife didn’t just “struggle.” She fell off the map. Drifted into a paranoia so thick you could chew it. One day she was a smart, ambitious woman with a career and a future; the next, she was seeing enemies in every shadow and ops in every phone battery. The cracked-glass version of her replaced the real one overnight, and no matter how I talked, begged, explained, rationalized — she wasn’t coming back.

And that’s when the real weight dropped: I wasn’t losing just a partner. I was gaining a whole new identity — single parent, crisis manager, emotional shock absorber, broke expat crawling back home with a kid and a suitcase full of “what the hell just happened.” And I had to wear that identity cold. No prep time. No manual. No teammate.

I was scared. Not poetic scared — like actually terrified. Terrified of fucking up. Terrified of failing my daughter. Terrified of being the only sane adult in a story that suddenly turned into a psychological horror flick. Terrified that people would look at me like I was the crazy one. Terrified that maybe they’d be right.

And the worst part? You can’t even grieve properly when the crisis is still happening. You just swallow it. Bite down. Keep moving. Carry the kid. Carry the baggage. Carry the guilt. Carry the shame you didn’t earn but still feel.

I got on that plane to Toronto broke as hell and bruised in places that don’t show on skin. No money. No stability. No wife. No real plan. Just a kid who trusted me by default and a future I wasn’t sure I could afford or survive.

And that’s when the whole “being a parent” thing stopped being theoretical. Stopped being cute. Stopped being something you joke about at brunch. It became real. Heavy. Non-negotiable. A daily exam you can’t study for. And I’m not gonna lie — I’ve failed a bunch of those exams. Sometimes spectacularly.

But I’ve never left. Never checked out. Never handed the kid off and disappeared. Never ran from the responsibility, even when I wanted to scream loud enough to crack the drywall. And that’s what makes the next part hurt the most:

My kid — the person I’ve fought for, bled for, rearranged my entire life for — hates me.

Not teenage annoyance. Not normal “you’re so embarrassing, Dad.” Actual hatred. A look that says I’m the villain in her story. A coldness I didn’t earn but still get punished with every day.

And the messed-up part?

I get it. I don’t agree with it — but I get it. Kids don’t see the full picture. They only feel the fallout. The relocations. The fights. The tension. The crying behind closed doors. The emotional shrapnel from two adults who should’ve been better but weren’t. She inherited a storm she didn’t cause. And I’m the one standing closest when the lightning hits. But still — it breaks me. Quietly. Routinely.

I never wanted kids. But losing the love of the one I have? That’s a different kind of wound. The kind that doesn’t heal — it just scabs, cracks, and bleeds again whenever she looks at me like I ruined her life.

And maybe one day she’ll see the truth. Or maybe she won’t. Maybe this is just my cross to drag through whatever years I’ve got left. All I know is this: I stayed. I fought. I held the line when everyone else bailed. And even if she hates me forever, I’ll know I didn’t run even when every part of me wanted to.