But something began to change. At first, it was small things — he started coming home later from work, grew irritable, gave short answers. Every evening, as soon as Artyom fell asleep, he asked for “an hour to himself.” He’d shut himself in his study or leave without explaining where he was going.

It hurt. I thought maybe he was just tired, or maybe he had postpartum depression — fathers go through a lot too. I gave him space. But everything changed yesterday.

Our son woke up crying in the middle of the night. I was about to go into the room when I instinctively glanced at the baby monitor. The camera showed that he had simply dropped his pacifier and was already calming down