I sat there staring at the divorce papers while he continued talking about how his new girlfriend, Aurora, actually takes care of herself and has ambition. Apparently, she’s some fitness influencer he met at F45. She has 50k followers on Instagram, and he’s going places. Meanwhile, I’m just the wife who supported him through his early career, handled all our housework, and put my own ambitions on hold because he said his job should come first.
The worst part? He’d been planning this for months. He already had an apartment with her in one of those luxury complexes downtown. The Tiffany receipt? A promise ring. He actually used our joint savings to buy his mistress jewelry.
“Let’s be realistic,” he said. “You can barely work the Netflix app without my help. You’ll be calling me within a week, begging to work things out. I’m actually doing you a favor, teaching you to finally grow up.”
I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just sat there, watching him pack his suitcase with all his expensive new clothes. He took his iPad, his gaming console, and even the good coffee maker, left me with the cheap one. After he left, I opened my laptop and started going through our accounts.
I found out he’d been moving money around since January. I discovered credit card statements for restaurants and hotels I never knew about. I even found a Venmo history that made me sick to my stomach.
I called my sister, Vivian, and she came right over. We stayed up all night, going through papers and making lists. This morning, I called in sick to work and made an appointment with a divorce attorney. I also froze our joint credit cards, something I learned was possible from a random TikTok video, ironically.
It’s been 24 hours. My phone shows 23 missed calls from him. The first voicemail was angry. The second was threatening. By the 10th, he was practically begging me to talk about this rationally.
First update.
Thank you, everyone, for the support on my last post. Still trying to process everything, but some things have happened that I need to get off my chest.
I’ve spent the last week staying at my sister Vivian’s place. I’ve been sleeping on her couch, actually. She has a kid, and the guest room is full of toys. Not complaining, though. It beats being alone in that house right now.
The first reality check hit when I tried to order something on Amazon. My card got declined for a $30 purchase. I called the bank, and that’s when things started unraveling. Turns out James had been moving money around. Not huge amounts that would have caught my attention, but steady transfers of $200, $300 every couple weeks, always labeled things like car maintenance or home repairs, real basic stuff that I wouldn’t question.