From Readers Write, my all-time favorite section:

"IN THE EARLY years of my marriage I started a journal. Day after day I would steal a few moments to write: on a bench by the playground swings; in a chair beside my mother at the nursing home; or just before collapsing on my unmade, laundry-covered bed. It was a difficult time. My father had died unexpectedly after what was supposed to have been a routine medical procedure. My mother, always depressive and nervous, was slipping into dementia. I had a rambunctious toddler we suspected was on the autism spectrum and a baby who needed to be strapped to my chest from sunup to sundown. The journal writing was a desperate attempt to carve out some space for myself amid the chaos of caring for others.

And it helped. I filled countless notebooks over the years with my sloppy, sometimes angry handwriting. Eventually a central theme emerged: my empty marriage. I realized I was unsupported by my husband while also being responsible for too many other people. Everyone who needed me, though, genuinely needed me. I didn’t begrudge them. It was my husband I resented: the man who came and went without an inkling about the household, made some money, interacted with us minimally, and fell asleep easily, as only a person who depends on someone else can. Perhaps because this realization was unwelcome, or because my time was stretched too thin, I shelved the journals and stopped writing.

Soon after that, my marriage began to implode. We had fights in which I would ask for respect, emotional support, agency. He would remind me that he had a job that kept him busy. (So did I.) He would point out that he had, in fact, taken out the trash every week and done some grocery shopping. His checklist of what it took to be a good partner and parent was shockingly simple. Coming from a working-class immigrant family, though, I couldn’t fight his logic. Work, trash, and groceries equaled survival.

When we moved to another house, I threw away my dusty journals. I was pregnant with a third baby, and our prospects weren’t good. If my husband was content with this pared-down version of me, I decided, I could be, too.

Years later, when I finally gave him an ultimatum — to be present with me or leave — he asked, “Who will take out the trash?” I was stung by the implication that my worth was paid for in garbage-removal services, and embarrassed that his question also made me nervous: What if I couldn’t survive without his help, minimal as it was?

I now have the answer: my teenage boys and I take out the trash every Wednesday, with lots of laughter and good-natured complaining. It takes all of five minutes. Trash night is a weekly reminder of my independence and capability, of the cohesion of this family with me at the helm. I’ve almost come to enjoy it."