I was halfway to my mother-in-law’s house with freshly baked lasagne when my lawyer’s frantic call changed everything. “Come home. NOW,” she shouted. What I encountered that night exposed the ugly side of two of the closest people in my life.
I used to think that my life was pretty stable. As a finance executive with a well-paid job, I had the kind of independence I had always wanted.
My bills were paid, my fridge was full and I could afford little luxuries here and there. I seemed to have everything under control until the day I discovered the truth about my husband, Matt.
That day, my carefully constructed life fell apart in a way I never saw coming.
Matt and I met eight years ago during an excursion organized by mutual friends. He was the kind of man who could captivate a room without even trying.
I remember how his easy smile made everyone laugh, even as we climbed steep trails. When the weekend was over, I was sure I had just met one of the most intriguing people in my life.
But we didn’t start dating right away.
For two years we remained friends, texting each other, occasionally meeting for coffee and sharing snippets of our lives. Matt was always fun to be with, although I realized he had a stubborn streak.
He had a habit of insisting that things go his way, whether it was the restaurant we chose to eat at or the plans we made for a weekend. I put it down to his confident personality and let it go. After all, nobody’s perfect.
Three years after that trip, Matt and I got married. I thought we were ready to take the next step, even though our friendship turned relationship had its setbacks.
Sure, it could be frustrating at times, especially when it came to money. He would often borrow small amounts from me, promising to pay me back after his next paycheck.
Honestly, I didn’t mind helping him. I told myself it was part of building a future together.
But marriage brought out a different side of Matt, and I wasn’t prepared for it.
Little by little, I realized that his mother, Linda, played a disproportionate role in his life. She was fiercely protective of Matt. I often had the feeling that I was competing with her for his attention.
And Matt? He always sided with his mother when there was a conflict. I hated that he considered my concerns to be exaggerated.
Once, when I asked him why he prioritized her opinions over mine, he said, “She’s my mother, Demi. She’s been there for me my whole life. I can’t just ignore her.”
Honestly, his words hurt. I didn’t expect him to defend what she had done, but somehow I convinced myself it wasn’t that big a deal. After all, family dynamics are always complicated, right?
I always let these things pass and clung to the hope that things would improve. I thought that Matt would lose the habit of putting his mother first and learn to balance his priorities.
But the cracks in our relationship only widened as time went by, and I began to wonder if I had been too naive about what love and being a couple really meant.
But little did I know that the worst was yet to come. Fate had a much bigger revelation in store for me.
Looking back, I should have seen the warning signs with Matt. He liked expensive things, but he never seemed to spend his own money on them.
At the beginning of our relationship, he used to “borrow” from me, telling stories about investments or gifts for his mother.
“We’re building something together,” he’d say with a disarming smile.
Warning: I never saw a penny of those supposed investments.
Meanwhile, Linda, his mother, was a different story.
She had a habit of making me feel like I was never good enough for her precious son. What she hated most was that she always found fault every time we bought him a gift.
A few months ago we bought her a new microwave, thinking she would like it.
“It’s nice, but why isn’t it smart?” she said, rolling her eyes.
The expensive spa day Matt and I invited her to? She thought the masseuse was awful.
No matter how hard I tried, Linda always found a way to criticize me.
Even so, I tried to be the bigger person. I wanted to have a good relationship with her for Matt’s sake and, yes, for mine too.
I thought if I kept being nice to her, she would come around. But kindness doesn’t always win, does it?
Then there was Matt’s behavior with money.
His borrowing habits didn’t stop after we got married. They got worse.
It was no longer just for his “investments”. There were always reasons related to Linda. “Mom needs a new chair,” he would say.
Or, “Mom’s birthday is coming up and I want to get her something special.”
And he always gave in.
I told myself it was only money and that relationships required compromise. I wanted to believe that we were building something together, even if I had the feeling that I was the only one contributing.
The night everything changed started like any other. Linda wasn’t feeling well, or at least that’s what Matt said.
“She hasn’t eaten anything all day,” he said, frowning with concern.
That afternoon we were due to meet with the real estate agent to finalize the purchase of the house we had been renting for five years.
It was going to be a defining moment for us. A dream we had worked towards for so long. I couldn’t wait to sign the papers and officially call the house ours.
But Matt seemed distracted. As we sat down to discuss the paperwork, he sighed dramatically.
“We’re going to have to change the date,” he said. ”Mom’s not feeling well.”
“Change the date?” I asked. ‘Matt, we’ve been waiting for this moment for years. Can’t we see how she is after the meeting?”
“She hasn’t eaten all day, Demi,’ he repeated, this time in a sharper tone. ”I’ll take care of her. Can you bring her some of your lasagna? You know how much she likes it.”
“What about the house?” I asked. ‘We have to finish everything tonight.”
“Don’t worry about it,’ he said, playing it down. ”We can do it another day.”
There was something in his tone that I didn’t like, but I let it go. After all, I was only worried about his mother, wasn’t I?
Despite our differences, Linda loved my lasagne. She was always full of praise for that cheesy, baked masterpiece.
I thought that if making it for her when she was at her lowest could help ease the tension between us, it would be worth the effort. So I sighed, rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
While the lasagne was cooking, I couldn’t help thinking about the sacrifices Matt and I had made to save for the house. We had skipped vacations, turned down fancy dinners, and worked overtime to make this dream come true.
The house was supposed to be a new beginning for us.
Legally, the house would be in Matt’s name due to complicated inheritance issues, but that didn’t worry me. In our state, property acquired during the marriage was divided 50/50 in the event of divorce.
I trusted Matt, even though the arrangement left a small knot of uneasiness in my stomach.
I remember it was around six in the evening when I got into the car with the lasagne still warm. Matt told me he had a work meeting he had to attend, so he couldn’t come with me.
About twenty minutes after leaving the house, my phone buzzed. It was Sarah, my lawyer. She never called outside of working hours unless it was urgent.
“Hello,” I said. ”What’s going on?”
“Come home. NOW,” she shouted into the phone.
“What? Sarah, what’s going on?”
“It’s Matt,“ she said. ‘They’re at your house… with a real estate agent. You have to come back immediately.”
“What do you mean ’they’?” I asked, already turning the car around.
“Matt and Linda,” she said, cutting me off. ‘They’re signing the papers to put the house in Linda’s name.”
“What the hell?”
“Come home right now!’ she said before hanging up.
When I entered the garage, my hands were shaking so much that I could barely unbuckle my seat belt.
Inside, the scene was worse than I had imagined.
Matt was in the living room with the papers he had been hiding from me. Linda was next to him and didn’t look sick at all.
Meanwhile, the real estate agent was shifting uncomfortably. She looked like she regretted getting involved.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
Matt stepped forward. ”Honey, listen…”
“No,” Sarah interrupted, entering the room behind me. She must have followed me just after I told her I was about to get home. ”Let me explain it to her, since you clearly can’t be honest.”
Then she turned to me.
“They were about to transfer the house into Linda’s name,” he said. ‘Your house, Demi. The one you saved up for.”
I stared at Matt, unable to process what I was seeing.
“Why?’ I whispered. ”Why did you do this?”
Linda folded her arms as her lips curved into a condescending smile.
“It’s very simple,” she said. ‘Matt has always been my son first and I need to protect what is his. You can’t trust everyone these days, you know.”
I was speechless.
“But that’s not all,’ Sarah interrupted. ”I did some research after the agent pointed out this deal. Linda has been planning for Matt to marry someone else. His friend’s daughter. They were going to get a divorce, leave you with nothing and move on as if you didn’t exist.
My chest tightened as the room spun.
“You planned it? With her?” I turned to Matt. ”I trusted you, Matt. I gave you everything. Do you even realize what you’ve done?”
“It’s not that,” stammered Matt, still avoiding my gaze. ‘Mom just thought it was for the best…”
“The best?’ I cut him off. ”The best for whom? For you? For her? And for me, Matt? I built this life with you. I sacrificed myself for this house. For us. And you were willing to erase me as if it were nothing.”
“Demi, I…”
“Save it,” I snapped, shaking my head. ‘You don’t deserve my forgiveness and you certainly don’t deserve me.”
Sarah stepped in and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. ’Don’t worry, Demi. The house hasn’t been sold yet and we have all the evidence we need to fight this.”
As I turned to leave, I felt a strange sense of clarity. It wasn’t the end of my life. It was just the end of a bad chapter. And I was ready to write a better one.
The next few months were a whirlwind of paperwork, tears and laughter.
Sarah helped me file for divorce and Matt’s betrayal made it easy for me to win everything I was owed. Since Matt’s financial contributions were ridiculously small, he walked away with things like a lamp and a mixer.
Afterwards, I got closer to Sarah and we became good friends.
The real estate agent who saved the day? She also became our close friend.
Six months later, I worked with the same agent to buy a new house. This time, it was all mine, and I didn’t have to share it with a greedy man like Matt.