“This isn’t a family, it’s a shared house!” my mother snapped, surveying our lives with disapproval.
She’d come to visit us in the little town of Oakworth, and within minutes, she was sighing dramatically. “Good grief, Emily, this isn’t a home—it’s a student flat! You’re run ragged with the kids all day while your husband floats about like a ghost! Everyone’s off doing their own thing. Where’s the togetherness? Where’s the warmth a family’s supposed to have?”
Her words cut like a knife. At 32, I was used to Mum’s critiques—too much mascara, the wrong shoes, the unforgivable crime of tinned soup in the cupboard—but this one stung. She’d always had a knack for spotting flaws, and I’d learned to let most of it roll off my back. But now, standing in my own kitchen, I wondered: was she right? What did she know about marriage, anyway, when she’d divorced Dad before I’d even lost my milk teeth? Still, her sharp, outsider’s gaze made me question everything I’d accepted as normal.
Mum lived miles away in York and rarely visited. But when she did, it was like an Ofsted inspection. She noticed everything—the layer of dust on the bookshelves, the way my husband, James, and I exchanged fewer words than the weather app on my phone. She meant well, of course. Worried about me. Worried about the grandkids—two little terrors not yet in primary school. But her declaration that we weren’t a proper family? That one lodged under my ribs.
James and I had been married nine years. The fireworks of our early days had long fizzled out, replaced by the quiet hum of routine. I was knee-deep in nappies, packed lunches, and football practice shuttles, while James vanished into his office before dawn and reappeared long after bedtime. Traffic, deadlines, exhaustion—I got it. But sometimes, his absence felt less like circumstance and more like a choice.
“You’re *sure* he’s working that late?” Mum arched a sceptical brow. “Who stays at the office till midnight these days? Maybe he’s not where you think he is.”
I waved her off. James wasn’t the type to stray. Sure, he’d go biking with his mates on Saturdays or sink a pint at the local now and then. But an affair? No chance. Though, if I was honest, I barely knew what filled his days beyond the front door.
“He doesn’t even *talk* to the children!” Mum’s voice trembled with outrage. “He’s not a father—he’s a lodger who happens to pay the rent!”
That, I couldn’t argue with. James was a stranger to his own kids. He had no idea our youngest, Alfie, needed physio for his tight tendons, or that our eldest, Oliver, was seeing a speech therapist. I ferried them to appointments, clubs, school prep—while James believed his sole job was to keep us in Wi-Fi and Waitrose deliveries. And he did, bless him. But was that *enough*?
At home, he was a guest. DIY? Forget it. The hammer lived in a drawer somewhere, untouched. Every request was met with the same trio: “Too tired,” “No time,” “I’d only bodge it.” If he *was* home early, he’d zone out at his PC, lost in spreadsheets or some war game. The boys? A sharp “Keep it down!” if they got rowdy, or a pointed nudge toward their room. I was always jumping in—“They’re *children*, James, not housemates!”—but deep down, I knew the truth: he didn’t really know them at all.
Mum fixed me with a look. “This isn’t a family, love. You’re just sharing a postcode.”
I scrambled for excuses. We were normal, weren’t we? James was lazy, sure, but he didn’t shout, didn’t cheat, didn’t demand I iron his socks. Paid the bills, tolerated my mother (a feat, given most men would’ve barred the door)—wasn’t that something? Online, women complained of husbands who gambled, lied, worse. Us? Quiet as a library.
But her words gnawed at me. What if we *were* just playing house? The boys were growing up without a father who knew their favourite colour, let alone their worries. I poured everything into them—love, attention, endless bloody PE kits—but doing it alone was exhausting. Sometimes I’d dream of James taking them to the park, asking about their day. Instead, the silence between them stretched wider, and so did the hollowness in my chest.
Divorce? The thought terrified me. How would I manage alone? And who was to say the next man wouldn’t be worse? Maybe we needed counselling. Maybe we could fix this. Or maybe I’d just keep paddling along, hoping the tide would steer us somewhere kinder.
Mum left, but her verdict lingered. I watched the boys squabble over Lego, James staring blankly at his laptop, and wondered: *Is this my family? Or am I just too scared to admit it’s not?*