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Money Kept MeTrapped in a Marriage
How financial abuse stole my freedom
My husband doesn’t believe I will ever leave him.
“Why would you leave the Golden Goose?” he asks. A self-inflated nod to ‘his’ financial success.
But I do leave — believing this will free my children from a bad situation.
Or perhaps I should say ‘I try to leave.’
I retain an attorney to file for divorce. Unwittingly beginning a terrifying five-year journey.
The starting point of the divorce avalanche.
Grocery and school supply money is immediately withheld.
My ten-year-old Volvo is left at the service station for weeks at a time. I am at his mercy for getting my kids where they need to go and forced to borrow my neighbor’s car.
My husband says, “Get a job.”
I say, “I need a car to get to work.”
He says, “You wanted to leave me, you get yourself a car.”
I say, “I need a car to get a job and I need a job to buy a car.”
He refuses to send our oldest son back to college. Shortly after, I begin to receive foreclosure notices. Our pediatrician’s…