Matthew divorces Anne when she couldn’t give him a son, but he still lived in her house. Years later, they met again by chance.
When Anna married Matthew, who was madly in love with her, she expected a long and happy marriage. But things didn’t go the way she hoped. Matthew wanted a son, and they tried, but ended up having two beautiful daughters instead. They kept trying for a boy, but after the birth of their fifth daughter, Matthew became a different man.
Matthew was furious and immediately filed for divorce. Still, he continued to live in the same house as Anna. He paid no attention to the children and acted like a single man living alone. The last straw for Anna was when Matthew brought another woman into their home.
She packed her things and left.
Years later, Anna accidentally ran into Matthew and barely recognized him.
“Oh my God! Harry! So good to see you!” Anna exclaimed when she bumped into her old school friend on the street. She had left her five daughters with her mother for a rare break and wanted to grab a coffee while walking around Seattle.
“Anna, it’s great to see you too! Hey, want to grab a coffee and catch up?” Harry replied, and she immediately nodded. They went into a café and chatted until Harry asked about her family.
“Well… it’s a tough subject,” she began.
“Raising five kids isn’t easy for anyone,” Harry commented, knowing a bit about her from social media and such.
“Matthew? What are you doing here?” she asked, looking at his uniform and the tray of pretzels.
“Yes, sure. That’s hard. But it’s more than that,” Anna continued. “Matthew changed after our twins were born. They’re 9 now and barely talk to him. I think they’re afraid of him.”
“I don’t understand,” Harry said.
“Matthew wanted a son, and we hoped for that too, but we had two beautiful girls instead. That’s why we kept trying, but each time we had girls. After the birth of our fifth daughter, Matthew became someone else. He filed for divorce, and I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Anna explained, wiping sweat from her forehead.
“Wow. That’s rough. But think about this—you’re better off without him, right? I mean, if he didn’t even speak to your older daughters, then he couldn’t have been a great father to the others either. You’ve been raising them on your own,” Harry encouraged her. “And now that I’m living in Seattle permanently, I could help. You could move in with me.”
Anna’s jaw dropped. She didn’t expect such an offer from Harry, especially since they had just reconnected after so many years. But she knew he had always had a big crush on her back in school. Still, the offer was too generous and kind. She couldn’t accept. She changed the subject and they talked about his successful life.
Meanwhile, things at home got even worse in the following weeks. They were divorcing, but Matthew still lived with her, acting like he was single, partying, making noise at all hours, waking up the girls, and becoming a threat to them.
Anna talked to Harry all the time, and his offer remained. But when Matthew brought a girl into their marital home, Anna couldn’t take it anymore. She called Harry, packed up, and left the house with all five girls.
Their divorce became complicated when she took Matthew to court to get back their large house. Even though she was living at Harry’s, her soon-to-be ex-husband didn’t deserve to keep their big home. The judge granted her every request based on Matthew’s terrible lifestyle and gave her full custody without question.
Eventually, she and Harry fell in love, and he bought an even bigger home for their family. When she and the girls moved in with him, she put her house up for rent and stopped thinking about Matthew for many years.
A year after marrying Harry, Anna had a son, Alan, the most beautiful little boy in the world, adored constantly by his five older sisters. Anna couldn’t have been happier.
More time passed, and one day she picked up Alan from preschool and decided to stop by the mall to buy him new shoes. The girls were busy with extracurriculars, so it was just mother and son.
Anna never imagined she would run into Matthew there. He worked at the pretzel shop, handing out free samples at the mall, and Alan ran up to him asking for one.
“Alan, don’t run off like that,” she said before noticing Matthew’s surprised eyes.
“Matthew? What are you doing here?” she asked, looking at his uniform and tray of pretzels. It didn’t make sense. Matthew used to work in an office as an executive. He had a good salary. He had child support payments, though he never paid them, and Anna didn’t care. She had more than enough for her daughters. But there was no way he could meet those payments with a minimum wage mall job.
“I work here,” he said, looking at the boy holding her hand and biting into a pretzel. “Is he your son?”
“Yes, this is Alan,” Anna replied, feeling immense pride in having a son who wasn’t Matthew’s. “He’s Harry’s son.”
“Ah, nice to meet you, Alan,” Matthew said, glancing down at the boy with a strange look. Of course, it wasn’t Anna’s fault that she had given birth to girls. Everyone knows sperm determines gender. But Matthew had blamed her for years and disconnected from their marriage because he wanted a boy, as if gender actually mattered.
Thankfully, the girls now had a real father figure, thanks to Harry, who had loved them deeply from the moment he met them. They didn’t need Matthew, and Anna never had to see him again.
“Listen, Anna. I didn’t want to bring this up now. I wanted to invite you for coffee or something. But I’m desperate. I lost everything because of my lifestyle, and I was wondering if we could sell our old house,” Matthew asked, lowering his head in shame.
“Well, it’s currently rented out. But I’ll think about it,” Anna said. “We have to go now. I’ll call you about the house.”
She took Alan’s hand firmly and walked away from the man who never realized what he had lost. But she would be the bigger person. She sold the house and gave him half its value, even though legally she could have kept it all. Something in her gut told her to do the right thing.
Eventually, Matthew asked to see the girls, but none of them wanted that. The twins were teenagers by then and had grown to hate him, and the others followed their older sisters’ lead. Matthew stopped asking about them and stopped calling after a while. They never saw him again. He was no longer family.
What can we learn from this story? Family is more than just DNA. Matthew didn’t want to be a father to his children, and Harry stepped into that role for the girls.
You might regret your actions. Matthew lost everything, including his well-paying job, and it was clear he regretted what he had done, but he couldn’t undo the past.