He used to tell people he loved that I was independent.
“You don’t need a man to save you,” he’d say, raising his glass at dinner parties. “That’s what I love about you.”
Back then, I thought he meant it as a compliment.
Somewhere along the way, independence had become an inconvenience to him.
He wanted access to my investments. He wanted his name associated with my property. He wanted to introduce himself as the man who had helped build my success.
When I refused to combine certain accounts, he accused me of treating our marriage like a business transaction.
I had eventually agreed to a joint household account. We both deposited money into it for groceries, utilities, vacations, and other shared expenses.
I never imagined he would use that account to finance a secret life.
Six weeks earlier, I had received an alert about a transfer of $24,000 to an unfamiliar business account.
