The contrast between my marriage and my family life grew starker with each passing year. Every family gathering was an exercise in enduring subtle digs about our apartment size, Michael’s career trajectory, or why we were not having children yet. Rachel, meanwhile, received nothing but praise for her job at a prestigious law firm, her expanding social circle of influential friends, and her string of wealthy boyfriends. When are you going to give us grandchildren? My mother would ask me during family dinners. 10 minutes later, she would turn to Rachel and say, Take your time finding the right man, sweetheart. Focus on your career. Children can wait. The double standard was blatant, but I had grown accustomed to it. Michael would squeeze my hand under the table, his silent support worth more than my family’s approval.

Jessica witnessed all of this. She had been there throughout my childhood when my accomplishments were overshadowed by Rachel’s. When my parents forgot to attend my high school graduation because it conflicted with Rachel’s dance recital. When I received practical gifts for Christmas while Rachel unwrapped designer clothes and jewelry. Your family is tough, Jessica once admitted after a particularly tense Thanksgiving dinner. But they love you in their way. I nodded, not believing it, but appreciating her attempt at comfort. What I did not realize then was how Jessica had begun to see my family’s treatment of me as justified. How she had absorbed their perspective that I was somehow less deserving of attention and care.