Choosing to Be the Villain

Thanks to Eric Fulton for this writing prompt. For those of you who don’t know, he is the geo- tracking, pizza-making mastermind of Eric Fulton’s blog. If you haven’t had a look yet, check it out!

What’s a decision you stand by even though it confused everyone else?

For me, that decision happened in October 2014. The Old Man had just been admitted to the hospital—a stay that would unfortunately last until he passed away in February 2015. Aside from coming home for the final weeks of his life, he never left the hospital once he went in.

Just two days before he was admitted, my partner and I found out we were expecting our second child. I was 40, and while she was 35—not necessarily “high risk”—it was not an easy pregnancy.

The Vacuum of the Waiting Room

A few days into my father’s hospitalization, while I was at the hospital with my mother and siblings, I got the call. X2 was back home, 90 minutes away, having a scare. She was terrified she had already miscarried.

My family knew we were expecting, but in that moment, the hospital room was a vacuum. Emotions were high, and logic was low. I had to make a choice: Should I sit helplessly where I couldn’t do anything for my father, or should I go home to my fiancée?

I decided to leave. I chose to make that 90-minute drive to be with the mother of my child rather than sit in a waiting room for another hour. I knew my family wasn’t happy. I could feel the judgment radiating off them. It was an impossible time, and I tried to chronicle those raw emotions as they were happening back in 2014 here.

The Ghost in the Hospital Room

But there was a ghost in the room that I don’t think they were considering. Years prior, Phred had suffered a miscarriage. On the night it happened, her the -husband actually left her at the hospital to go to their weekly bowling night. It was the other couple at the lanes who had to tell him, “Get your ass back to the hospital and be with your wife.”

He went back, but the damage was done. The marriage essentially ended the moment he chose a bowling alley over his grieving wife.

That story weighed heavily on my mind in the hospital room. It wasn’t that I was afraid of how my partner would react; it was that I knew if the worst happened and she lost the baby, I would never forgive myself for not being by her side. I refused to be that man.

The Aftermath and the Schism

Months after my father passed, my mother told me directly that she didn’t understand why I left that night. I looked her dead in the eye and said: “If Dad were awake and I told him what was going on, he would have said, ‘Go be with the mother of your child. Be a man. Take care of your responsibilities.’”

I believed it then, and I believe it now. However, that night created a schism—a rift between my partner and my immediate family that never truly healed. When the “emotional anchor” of a family passes, the skeletons come out of the closet. You learn how your relatives truly feel about you. Today, my relationship with my brother has never been the same, and I rarely speak to my sister-in-law.

Integrity Over Expectation

They say time heals all wounds, but the deepest wounds leave scars. My father’s death and X2’s pregnancy were an emotional grinder—I was over the moon to be a father again while simultaneously distraught that my own father was fading.

I can forgive my family for how they handled that time because I know they weren’t in their right minds. But I will never forget that I stood my ground. My partner’s pregnancy was the only thing that kept me level-headed during those four months, and I will always stand by the decision to choose my child’s future over the helplessness of the waiting room.

Sometimes, being a man—or just a decent human—means making the choice that makes you the villain in someone else’s story so you can be the hero in your own home. It’s that old line: you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. In that hospital room, I chose to be the villain in their eyes so I could be the partner I needed to be.

Have you ever had to make a decision that you knew was right, even though the people closest to you disagreed?

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The article “Choosing to Be the Villain” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.

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