When He Stops Protecting Me

I had the fiercest argument of my life with Helena.

In a complete breakdown, I tried to harm myself with a knife.

I even threatened to jump off the building in front of her.

At the last second, she rushed over, trembling as she hugged me and apologized.

Like every unfaithful woman, she cried and said she was wrong.

She claimed it was all a misunderstanding.

She said she still loved me and begged for another chance.

That night, she knelt before me, tears streaming down her face.

“Samuel Young, please forgive me just this once.”

I made the second mistake of my life.

I chose to forgive her.

Because of our child.

Because of a love I couldn’t let go of. Because my mother’s car accident left me with no home to return to.

So, Helena and I reconciled.

Soon after, we had another child, Lily.

Like Emma, she was taken away right after birth.

The excuse was that Helena needed to focus on work and couldn’t stand a baby’s crying.

To see my children even once,

I had to go to the old house before dawn and observe every formality.

Serving tea and water, massaging shoulders, kneeling to wash Eleanor’s feet—

just to earn a glance at my children.

But all my effort earned me nothing but

Helena’s open betrayal

and my children’s deep resentment.

Emma never called me “Dad.”

Whenever she saw me, she frowned and said,

“That stupid country bumpkin is here again. I don’t want to see him.”

Lily couldn’t speak yet—

she only cried and reached for her grandmother.

My mother’s condition worsened.

The children’s coldness and the weight of life left me broken and hollow.

When I needed support most,

Helena started a new family with another man.

That day was our wedding anniversary.

Emma refused my invitation.

Helena hung up on me.

Her lover, instead, sent me a video of them in bed.

Hearing their voices, I completely shattered.

I lost control, grabbed a knife, and slashed my arm.

When Margaret rushed in, I was bleeding out.

She called Helena in panic.

But she didn’t return until dawn.

She knelt beside me, smiling as she stared at my mutilated arm.

“Weren’t you going to die?”

“A whole night has passed—why are you still like a dog, refusing to leave the Rhodes family?”

Those words shattered what was left of my sanity.

Without thinking, I jumped from the balcony.

I didn’t die.

Only broke my leg.

Eleanor dismissed the reporters and dragged me to my mother’s hospital room.

She looked down coldly and said,

“The ICU costs twenty thousand a day.”

“If you disgrace the Rhodes family again, I’ll make sure your mother dies with you.”

That was when I realized—

death was a luxury.

I couldn’t let go of love or blood ties.

I could only endure humiliation in this hollow marriage.

Watching my children drift further away.

Watching Helena flirt with one gigolo after another.

Watching them use my mother to control my life.

Marriage into wealth was both sweet bliss—

and a painful chain.