You built a fake invalid.
Congratulations. She’s gone.
The real one is filing for divorce, reporting your fraud, and keeping every single thing that was always, legally, hers.
Look in the mirror, Alan.
That’s the last time I’ll ever have to say it to you.”
PART 5 — FINAL
The divorce was clean, because Ruth is very good and because a man facing a fraud investigation has almost no leverage. Alan left with what he brought to the marriage, which was little. The condo stayed mine. My accounts stayed mine. The life he’d tried to declare me too incompetent to run stayed entirely in my own competent hands.
His firm terminated him after the review. Attempting to defraud your own spouse by weaponizing a company benefits structure is, it turns out, frowned upon. The promotion he’d hidden me in a bedroom to protect evaporated, along with the career he’d built on the story of his noble sacrifice.
