1 The Single Wife
Before we fully begin, I will lay some groundwork. This is how the shift from reality began.
Editor’s Note:
Updated June 2, 2025.
This piece has been revised from its original version. It reflects one person’s lived experience. Names and details have been changed for privacy.
I will also point out that neutrality in the face of abuse isn't neutral. It's complicity.
The Single Wife
Long before the divorce, I was already a single mother and a single wife. The rhythm never changed: meals cooked, dishes stacked, homework checked, bills paid. I kept the machinery of our family running while he floated around the edges. Chronically late, increasingly unkempt, simmering with resentment for the very stability he depended on. His presence was less partnership and more audit: critiquing, hovering, rarely helping.
I did my best to keep the family afloat, but I wasn’t perfect. There were times I was exhausted, frustrated, or simply overwhelmed. I didn’t always know how to respond to his withdrawal or the growing tension.
Patterns emerged:
Passive Sabotage: Tasks he avoided became proof of my inadequacy. "You missed a spot." "Why’s dinner late?" “You’re folding my clothes wrong.”
Selective Fatherhood: He’d show up for the applause. School concerts, open houses, etc., then vanish for the hard parts. Sickness? Driving? Doctor visits? My job.
The Scapegoat Hierarchy: Constant correction disguised as care, praise reserved only for his reflection.
What I experienced wasn’t just frustration or tension. It was a pattern of emotional abuse and gaslighting that eroded my confidence and distorted reality for everyone.
When someone is failing privately, they need a distraction. The easiest one is blame.
If the bills are overdue, say the mother is unstable.
If you lose your job, say she caused too much stress.
If you can’t deliver peace, make it look like she creates chaos.
The Jokes That Weren’t Jokes
He’d make cruel comments, always with a grin. “Don’t tell mom, you know how she gets.” It was a common refrain. “Mom thinks she knows everything.” They weren’t jokes. They were slow poison. The house echoed with criticism and rebuttal.
The truth was brutal: My labor enabled his performance.
“Was he drinking?” His comment when a middle schooler said I was pretty. Smirk, pause, punchline. And when I didn’t laugh? I became the joke too. Too serious. No sense of humor. What began as offhand remarks became a roadmap. The more he mocked me, the he made chaos feel like normal.
Somehow, the dysfunction became the baseline. That’s the move: create the mess, then point at your reaction as the real issue. The more he unraveled, the more he sharpened the lens on me.
And for a while, it worked.
The Logic Collapse
When I say it out loud, it sounds absurd. That’s part of the trap. People like him count on their behavior being so outlandish, so performative, that it slips past scrutiny. No one would really do that, right? But they do. Which is exactly what makes it work for people like him. The sheer absurdity discourages scrutiny.
Of course, no relationship is ever entirely one-sided. We both carried wounds and flaws, and the distance between us grew over time. But the responsibility for the deception and manipulation that followed lies firmly where it belongs.
When I stopped covering for him, things escalated. His embarrassment switched to deception. He wasn’t just avoiding responsibility, he was actively distorting reality. Somehow, him falling in love with a romance scammer and pouring thousands into a crypto scheme became me throwing away our marriage.
Think about that a moment.
It sounds ridiculous, right? That’s exactly why it worked.
The story was so upside-down, so disconnected from logic, that it wrapped around to believability. Because no one expects the script to flip that hard. No one expects the man who's been scammed by a fake lover to come out looking like the victim of his wife. It’s so wildly irrational, the brain short-circuits and defaults to the easier narrative: She must have been impossible. Controlling. Overly emotional. Why else would he fall apart like that?
That’s the danger of absurdity. It creates fog. It overloads the system. It turns facts into opinions and actions into accusations. It’s easier to believe I was difficult than to accept he torched our lives for a fantasy.
And that’s what he counted on.
I was stretched thin, isolated, and constantly undermined. He was performing fatherhood and partnership while sabotaging both behind closed doors. It exposed just how long he had been living in a fantasy of control, deception, and projection.
When the Ground Started to Tilt
By the time the scams came to light, he already had a hold on the narrative I couldn’t name but I could feel.
It showed up in little ways. It leaked out slowly through the side-eyes, the sudden sarcasm, the way others would echo his phrasing without knowing it.
It was a confusing web, and while loyalties often leaned toward the easier story, we were also trying to make sense of conflicting emotions and loyalties. We were navigating a fractured family in real time, sometimes making choices and expressing feelings I couldn’t fully understand or control.
And I didn’t know just how far it had gone.
Not yet.
Author’s Note:
This essay is not a critique anyone in particular, nor is it intended to assign any blame to the innocent. Some were young, impressionable, and navigating a confusing emotional landscape shaped by adult choices beyond their control. The responsibility lies solely with the adult who orchestrated these dynamics. In retrospect, comments that once seemed odd such as his repeated suggestion that “you won’t always get along” take on a different weight. At the time, they felt inappropriate. In hindsight, they appear intentional. This reflection is part of a broader effort to document and understand the dynamics that unfolded, not to condemn, but to clarify what was happening beneath the surface.
We were often devalued. In small ways at first. The dismissive jokes, ignored boundaries, a constant undercurrent of being just a little too much or not quite enough. Over time, that message got louder: our instincts questioned, our reactions labeled overreactions, our safety dismissed as exaggeration.
One story stays with me. It wasn’t the only one, but it stands out because it captured everything in one awful moment.
During a trip, a young person ended up trapped in a vehicle with one of his friends, an adult, who screamed at them repeatedly. They were scared, cornered, and tried to make themself invisible. No one should ever be in that position.
When I learned what happened, I stood up for the young person. I made it clear: no adult should treat anyone that way, ever. Instead of backing them, he got angry. Not at the man who yelled but at them. He was upset and said now that friend wouldn’t be invited back. But that wasn’t about keeping the child safe. It was about keeping them quiet.
Because not long after, that same man was brought back into our home in secret.
That moment haunts me.
The message was clear. Fear would be ignored. Truth would be punished.
And that young person needs to know with no hesitation, no guilt, and no confusion-
They were not the problem.
The adults who failed them were.
This is my personal account and reflection.