My Husband Called Me A “Money-printing Machine” While Dining With His Mistress. I Canceled His Credit Cards And His Mother’s Life-saving Surgery In One Hour. Was I Too Cruel?

Hitting Rock Bottom

With the copy of the divorce agreement in hand, Ethan left the coffee shop feeling empty. It started to drizzle. With no car to pick him up he and Laura had to take shelter under an awning waiting for a taxi.

“Ethan, where do we go now?” Laura asked in a low voice.

“First to pick up my mother and Jessica, and then to find a room to rent.”

“A room to rent?” Laura wrinkled her nose. “Why don’t we rent an apartment? For now I’m not used to living in such small places.”

Ethan turned to his mistress and for the first time her demands seemed like a nuisance. “With what money are we going to rent an apartment right now? I only have $100 in cash. Do you think they don’t ask for a deposit to rent an apartment?”

Laura fell silent not daring to say anything more. Ethan called a taxi and they went back to pick up his mother and sister. The four of them with all their luggage squeezed into the small car. The mix of smells of sweat, Jessica’s cheap perfume, and the dampness of their dew-soaked clothes created a suffocating atmosphere.

They found a room of about 200 square ft in a lost alley in a rough part of town. It was a damp place with peeling walls and a bathroom that stank. Eleanor as soon as she entered covered her nose.

“My God, what is this pigsty? Son, how can you bring me to this place? I can’t even breathe.”

Jessica also stomped her feet. “I’m not staying here. This is disgusting. Ethan, do something. You’re a doctor and you let your family live in this hole?”

Ethan threw the suitcases on the floor and shouted in desperation, “Shut up both of you! Having a roof over our heads is a blessing. We have no money, we have no house. What more do you want? If you want luxury go back and beg Elizabeth.”

Hearing my name the three women fell silent. They knew that door was closed forever.

That night in the cramped room the four of them slept squeezed together on an old mattress on the floor. Eleanor complained of back pain, Jessica cried for her comfortable bed, and Laura turned to the wall sobbing. Ethan with his eyes open stared at the stained ceiling. He touched the copy of the divorce agreement in his shirt pocket. His signature was still there, the black ink like a scar. He had signed it with the pride of a man whose ego was wounded, believing he would rise again stronger.

But now faced with the harsh reality of day-to-day life that pride was useless for putting food on the table. His stomach rumbled with hunger. He hadn’t eaten all day. He remembered the sumptuous meals prepared by the private chef at the house, the vintage wine, the soft bed with clean smelling sheets. It had all vanished like a soap bubble. And what was worse, he began to realize that tomorrow when the sun rose the real struggle for survival would begin. How was he going to face his colleagues at the university when the news spread? Where was he going to get the money to feed three more mouths when this month’s salary was already almost gone on advances?

My revenge was not to hit them or insult them. My revenge was to let them taste the poverty they had so despised, to let them devour each other in the quagmire they had created for themselves. I, sitting in my luxurious penthouse sipping a hot chamomile tea, smiled as I watched the drizzle fall outside the window. I had won a victory without weapons but devastating.

The next morning I received a call from the police station. Ethan had gone to report me for embezzlement and for illegally kicking them out of the house. I smiled; I had expected that move. I went to the station with all the documentation: the property deed in my name, the notarized prenuptial agreement, the documents proving my separate property, and the security camera recording from the previous night which showed them disturbing the peace.

In front of the officers, Ethan maintained his false appearance of dignity, talking non-stop.

“Officers, look at how my own wife treats me. She threw my 70-year-old mother out on the street in the middle of the night in the cold and damp. This behavior is a serious ethical breach.”

The officer looked at Ethan and then at the file I had given him and said coldly, “Mr. Grant, legally the house is the exclusive property of Mrs. Grant. She has every right to decide who lives in it and who does not. As for your marital relationship, you are in the process of divorce and you have already signed the mutual consent agreement. The fact that you brought your mother and sister to cause a disturbance in front of someone else’s property is what constitutes a disturbance of the peace.”

Ethan was speechless, his face red with shame. “But… but she kept all our things!”

“You’re mistaken Ethan,” I intervened calmly. “I carefully packed your personal belongings and left them outside the gate. It was you who didn’t want to take them and stayed there making a scene. As for the valuables like paintings, antiques, vehicles, do you have any invoice or document in your name?”

Ethan stammered, “That… that was bought during the marriage…”

“And with whose money?” I asked him. “Everything was paid from my bank account with invoices issued in my company’s name for accounting purposes. Do you want me to show you the statements?”

Ethan fell silent. He knew he had no case. In the end, he had to sign a statement promising not to disturb the peace again and left with his tail between his legs.

Upon returning to the miserable rented room Ethan found an even more depressing scene. Eleanor was moaning on the floor in pain and hungry. Jessica was rummaging through some black trash bags containing the clothes I had returned to them.

“Where is my mink coat and my Hermes bag?” Jessica shouted. “Why is there only old clothes?”

I had given instructions to pack only their oldest and cheapest clothes. The luxury items they had bought with my money I had kept them all to donate to charity. It wasn’t about the money but because I didn’t want them to use anything I had given them.

“Enough!” Ethan shouted at his sister. “Stop complaining. I just came from the police station. We lost. The house is hers, the things are hers. We’re not getting anything back.”

Hearing this the three women collapsed. Their last hope of returning to the house to loot it had vanished.

The bad news kept coming. That same afternoon Ethan received a call from the university’s dean’s office asking him to attend a meeting. He hastily put on the only suit he had left, trying to fix his hair to maintain a minimum of dignity.

In the dean’s office the tension was palpable. The dean placed the statement from my company withdrawing funding on the table.

“Mr. Grant, the Anchor Group has officially announced the withdrawal of all funding for your research project. The reason they cite is a lack of ethics during the collaboration. Can you explain this?”

Ethan, sweating profusely, tried to justify himself. “Mr. Dean, this is a personal misunderstanding between my wife and me. She’s angry and just trying to make things difficult for me. I’ll talk to her to convince her.”

“It’s not just that,” the dean interrupted him, pushing a stack of photos towards him. “The university has received an anonymous complaint with this evidence. You are maintaining an inappropriate relationship with the student Laura Pierce and have used project funds for personal expenses. The rumor has already spread among the students, seriously affecting the university’s reputation.”

Ethan looked at the photos of him and Laura embracing in a hotel and turned pale as a ghost. He knew the anonymous complaint was my doing.

“Mr. Grant, according to the regulations the university has decided to suspend you from your teaching duties while an investigation is conducted. Furthermore, as the project has been cancelled you must return the $25,000 advance you were granted. If you do not return it we will refer the case to the competent authorities.”

Ethan left the dean’s office stumbling as if his soul had been ripped out. Suspended from work with a $25,000 debt and without honor.

Arriving at the university courtyard he saw his Mercedes parked. He went to open the door out of habit but a man stopped him.

“Excuse me, you can’t touch this car. It’s my car.”

“Who are you?”

“I am an agent of the Anchor Group. This car is the property of the company and Mr. Grant’s permission to use it has been revoked. Please step aside.”

The man snatched the keys from his hand, started the car and drove away. In front of hundreds of students leaving class, they began to point at him and whisper.

“Look, they’ve taken Professor Grant’s car. They say he was fooling around with that Laura from an upper year. His wife left him and now he’s broke. Wow, and I thought he was rich. Turns out he was a kept man.”

The comments were like thousands of needles stabbing into Ethan’s pride. He stood paralyzed in the middle of the courtyard feeling a humiliation he had never experienced before. The image of a genius and distinguished professor he had worked so hard to build had completely collapsed.

He looked at the message he had just received on his phone: Paycheck deposited: $950. That was the true value of the genius Ethan Grant without my backing. That amount wasn’t even enough to buy a bottle of the wine he used to drink.