Chap­ter 20 reflects a peri­od of ten­sion and emo­tion­al upheaval in my life, as Kevin pur­sued his own music career while I nav­i­gat­ed moth­er­hood and my chang­ing fam­i­ly dynam­ic. He began work­ing tire­less­ly to build his iden­ti­ty, which was some­thing I encour­aged, know­ing how impor­tant it was for him to estab­lish his name out­side of our rela­tion­ship. How­ev­er, it was­n’t long before his pur­suit of fame and suc­cess start­ed to cre­ate a divide between us. I would some­times vis­it the stu­dio where he was record­ing, and the atmos­phere always felt for­eign to me. The scent of mar­i­jua­na would greet me before I even entered the door, and the stu­dio buzzed with ener­gy that made me feel dis­con­nect­ed, as if I was­n’t part of the world he was cre­at­ing. I couldn’t stand the smoke and found myself dis­tanced from his envi­ron­ment, espe­cial­ly since I was preg­nant and had a young child at home. The more I stayed away, the more iso­lat­ed I became.

While Kevin was div­ing deep­er into his music, I tried to hold things togeth­er at home. I spent my time in our beau­ti­ful house, a dream home that I had always longed for, where every room was designed to be a sanc­tu­ary for our fam­i­ly. It was here that I found some solace, and the pres­ence of a pri­vate chef added an extra lay­er of com­fort, though I could only afford his ser­vices occa­sion­al­ly. I remem­ber one par­tic­u­lar meal, so exquis­ite that I jok­ing­ly asked if he could live with us, my words a mix of appre­ci­a­tion and the need for help in this over­whelm­ing time. It felt as if I was bal­anc­ing a life of lux­u­ry and joy with an under­cur­rent of ten­sion and lone­li­ness. Kevin and I grew more dis­tant, and I tried to con­vince myself that it was nor­mal. It was his turn to expe­ri­ence the free­dom of fame, and I had to accept that. I even gave myself pep talks, remind­ing myself of the com­mit­ment we shared and the impor­tance of accept­ing him for who he was becom­ing. But deep down, I knew things weren’t the same.

In my heart, I hoped our mar­riage was still sal­vage­able, despite the signs point­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion. I flew to New York to recon­nect, but it soon became clear that Kevin was no longer as invest­ed in our rela­tion­ship. He refused to meet with me, and his manager—once a part of my team—was now firm­ly aligned with Kevin, leav­ing me feel­ing aban­doned. I couldn’t help but won­der where things had gone wrong. I want­ed to ask Kevin direct­ly, to con­front him about the dis­tance that had grown between us. But as I spent more time reflect­ing on our sit­u­a­tion, I real­ized that his immer­sion into the celebri­ty world was tak­ing a toll on him. Fame and its allure had begun to change him in ways I couldn’t com­pre­hend. He became more enthralled by the spot­light, and I watched as it slow­ly con­sumed him. The fame, the pow­er, the attention—it all seemed to be too much for him to han­dle, and I feared it would tear us apart.

This trans­for­ma­tion wasn’t unique to Kevin; I had seen it hap­pen to many peo­ple, espe­cial­ly men, in the enter­tain­ment indus­try. Fame has a way of dis­tort­ing peo­ple, of shift­ing their pri­or­i­ties. While some celebri­ties man­age fame with grace and bal­ance, others—like Kevin—let it take over their lives. I had always admired those who could nav­i­gate fame with­out los­ing them­selves, peo­ple like Jen­nifer Lopez, who han­dled the public’s fas­ci­na­tion with dig­ni­ty and self-aware­ness. Kevin, on the oth­er hand, was caught up in the fan­ta­sy of it all, believ­ing that his new­found iden­ti­ty as a rap­per was the key to his suc­cess. His focus shift­ed entire­ly to his career, leav­ing me feel­ing unsup­port­ed and dis­con­nect­ed.

Despite these chal­lenges, I tried to empathize with Kevin. I under­stood the pres­sures of try­ing to prove one­self, of fight­ing against doubt and uncer­tain­ty. But at the same time, I couldn’t ignore the real­i­ty of our sit­u­a­tion. I had sac­ri­ficed so much for our fam­i­ly, step­ping away from my career to raise our chil­dren. I had giv­en every­thing to make our life togeth­er work, and now I felt as though I was being left behind. I wasn’t ask­ing for much—just for him to be present, to spend time with our grow­ing fam­i­ly, and to rec­og­nize the sac­ri­fices I had made. In the end, I real­ized that while I sup­port­ed Kev­in’s ambi­tions, our mar­riage couldn’t sur­vive the emo­tion­al dis­tance that had crept in between us. The love and com­mit­ment that once unit­ed us seemed to be slip­ping away, and I had no choice but to face the painful truth that our paths were no longer aligned.