My Husband Drained $18,000 From Our Account While I Was Giving Birth. I Found Out When I Couldn’t Even Afford Baby Formula. What Do I Do Now?

The Truth Exposed

David was crying now, scared by the shouting. I tried to soothe him, but my hands were shaking.

“Where did $18,000 go, Robert?”

His face changed, went very still, very cold.

“What did you say?”

“$18,000 withdrawn from our account in the last 6 weeks. Where did it go?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“How is it not my business? It’s our money. My money.”

He was shouting now.

“I earned it, not you! You’re sitting at home doing nothing while I work 12-hour days.”

“I just had a baby! I’m recovering.”

“Other women go back to work after 2 weeks. You’re milking this for all it’s worth.”

I stared at him. This was not the man I married. Or maybe it was, and I’d just never seen it clearly before.

“I want to know where the money went,” I said as calmly as I could. “I have a right to know.”

He moved faster than I expected, grabbed my arm hard enough to hurt. David was between us in his carrier, and I angled my body to protect him.

“You don’t have any rights,” Robert hissed. “You have what I give you. You are what I made you. Without me, you’re nothing.”

“Let go of me.”

“Or what? You’ll leave?” He laughed. “Where would you go? Your parents? They’re three hours away. Your friends? Oh wait, you don’t have any anymore. Your job? You think they’ll hold it for you when you’ve got an infant to take care of?”

Finding Strength

He was right. I had nothing. No money, no support system, nowhere to go. But I had the papers from the bank in my purse. And I had David.

“Let go of me.”

Something in my voice must have surprised him because he released my arm. I stepped back, putting distance between us.

“I’m going to feed David,” I said. “We’ll talk about this later.”

I walked to the nursery, locked the door, sat in the rocking chair with my baby,. My arm was already bruising where Robert had grabbed me. This was my life. This was what I’d chosen. No, this was what I’d been manipulated into.

I thought about Mrs. Hartley’s scar, about her words: “They always escalate.”

I made a decision in that moment. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it, but I was going to get out for David, for myself.

The next morning, Robert left for work like nothing had happened. I waited until his car was out of sight, then I called the lawyer whose name Mrs. Hartley had given me. Her name was Patricia Summers, and she could see me that afternoon.

I drove to her office with David, my hands still shaking, wondering if I was making a huge mistake. Patricia was in her 50s with sharp eyes and a firm handshake.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

So I did. The isolation, the financial control, the way he drained our account, the bruise on my arm which I showed her. She took notes, asked questions, listened without judgment.

“You have a strong case,” she finally said. “Especially with the bank records. Financial abuse is real abuse, and courts are starting to recognize that.”

“I don’t even know if I want a divorce,” I admitted. “I just want… I want my life back. I want to be able to buy formula for my son without asking permission.”

“Understandable. We can start with a legal separation, get you child support, spousal support while you’re on leave. Get restraining orders if needed. And we can always re-evaluate from there.”

“How much will this cost?”

“I’m going to be honest with you, Margaret. It won’t be cheap. But I work with women in situations like yours all the time. We can work out a payment plan, and once we get spousal support established, that will help.”

I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff. Jump and everything changes. Maybe I crash, maybe I fly.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

Taking a Stand

Patricia drafted the initial paperwork that week. Robert was served with divorce papers at his office on March 15th, 1981. He came home in a rage. I’d expected that. What I hadn’t expected was that I wasn’t afraid anymore,.

I’d moved the important documents to Mrs. Hartley’s office for safekeeping. I’d documented the bruise on my arm with photographs. I’d opened a credit card in my name only. I’d told my parents everything, and my father had driven down that very day.

Robert walked in to find me sitting in the living room with my father, my mother holding David.

“What the hell is this?” Robert demanded, waving the papers.

“This is me protecting my son and myself,” I said.

“You can’t divorce me. You have nothing. No money, no job.”

“I have my job. I’m going back next week. And according to these papers, you owe me spousal support and child support.”

“This is insane. You’re being hysterical.”

My father stood up. He was 6’3, a former Marine.

“I think you should leave now, Robert.”

“This is my house.”

“Actually,” I said, pulling out another set of papers, “according to our mortgage, it’s half mine. And I’m staying. You need to find somewhere else to live until we sort this out.”

Robert looked at me like he’d never seen me before.

“You’re really doing this?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll regret it.”

“Maybe. But I’ll regret staying even more.”

The Aftermath

He left. Came back the next day when I was at work and took some of his things. Patricia got me a restraining order after he showed up at the pharmacy, yelling at me in front of customers about what an ungrateful wife I was.

The divorce took 8 months. It was ugly. Robert fought everything, claimed I was mentally unstable, that postpartum depression made me irrational. His lawyer tried to paint me as an unfit mother.

But I had the bank records. I had the photographs of the bruise. I had Mrs. Hartley, who testified about the financial abuse. I had my parents, my colleagues, my doctor—all of whom testified that I was a good mother, a stable person, someone who’d been systematically controlled and isolated.

In the end, I got full custody of David. Robert got supervised visitation, which he used twice before disappearing entirely. I got child support, though he stopped paying after the first year. I got half the equity in the house, which I used to buy a smaller place of my own,.

And I got my life back.

It wasn’t easy. I was a single mother in 1981, when that still carried a stigma. I had to work full-time while taking care of an infant. My parents helped when they could, but they were 3 hours away. Money was tight. There were nights I cried myself to sleep, wondering if I’d made the right choice.

But then I’d look at David sleeping peacefully in his crib, and I knew I had.

I raised my son alone, worked my way up to chief pharmacist at the hospital, bought a house, paid for David’s college, walked him down the aisle at his wedding. I’m a grandmother now to three beautiful grandchildren.

Robert? I heard he remarried twice more. Both marriages ended in divorce. I heard rumors about drinking, gambling debts, business failures. I felt sorry for him in a distant way, sorry for the life he could have had if he’d chosen differently.