My Husband Told Me His “Work Wife” Was An Upgrade. Then I Found Out He Was Paying Her Rent While Telling Me To Budget. How Should I Handle This Dinner Invite?

The Hypothetical

Craig’s father stopped cutting his steak and stared at me with his mouth slightly open. His mother started shaking her head before I even finished. She waved her hand in the air and said Craig was drunk and people say stupid things when they’re drunk.

I leaned forward and asked her a simple question. Would she stay with Craig’s father if he spent months building an emotional relationship with a younger woman? Told that woman all their private business including medical issues? Helped her financially, drove her to work every day, and then came home drunk one night to say the other woman was an upgrade? Would she forgive that because he was drunk when he finally admitted what he’d been thinking for months?

The table went quiet. Craig’s father cleared his throat and looked at his wife but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Laya squeezed my hand under the table. Craig’s mother’s face turned red and she said I was twisting things to make Craig look worse than he was.

She said, “Every marriage had rough patches and I was being unforgiving.”

I felt something snap inside me. I asked her, “How many rough patches were included your husband violating company policy to financially support another woman? How many were included him sharing details about your miscarriage with his coworker? How many were included him calling you inferior to someone half your age?”

Leaving the Table

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Craig’s father rubbed his face with both hands and said he didn’t know it had gone that far. His mother recovered and said I was being cold and calculating by documenting everything, that I’d set Craig up by inviting Jessica to dinner and trapping them both.

I stood up from the table because I was done. I told her the only reason anyone believed me was because I had documentation. Craig had spent months making me feel crazy for being uncomfortable with Jessica. He’d called me insecure and jealous and told me I was overreacting.

Without proof everyone would have taken his side and said I was imagining things. The documentation wasn’t a trap it was protection.

Laya stood up with me and put money on the table for our meals. Craig’s mother called after us saying we were being dramatic and couldn’t we just sit down and talk like adults. I turned back and told her I’d tried talking to Craig for months and he dismissed me every time. I was done talking.

Laya and I walked out of the restaurant into the cold parking lot. My hands were shaking as I unlocked the car. Laya got in the passenger seat and we sat there for a minute in silence. I felt exhausted but also lighter somehow. I’d stood up for myself with his family and said everything I needed to say. Whether they believed me or not didn’t matter anymore.

Mediation Begins

Two months crawled by with lawyers sending papers back and forth. Ambrosia called one Tuesday morning to say the mediation was scheduled for Thursday at 2:00 in the afternoon. I took a personal day from the school and spent an hour that morning picking out clothes that made me look professional and put together.

The mediation office was in a building downtown with gray carpet and bland artwork on the walls. Ambrosia met me in the lobby wearing a dark suit and carrying a leather briefcase. She squeezed my shoulder and said to let her do most of the talking.

We walked into a conference room with a long table. Craig was already there with his lawyer, a man named something I immediately forgot. Craig looked terrible. He’d lost weight and had dark circles under his eyes. His shirt was wrinkled like he’d pulled it out of the laundry basket. Our eyes met for a second and he looked away.

The mediator introduced herself and explained the process. I only half listened because I was thinking about how Craig and I used to share a bed every night and now we were sitting across a table from each other with lawyers in between.

The mediator asked about our assets and Ambrosia started going through the list: the house, the retirement accounts, the savings, the cars. Craig’s lawyer interrupted to say they wanted to discuss the division percentages. Craig spoke up for the first time and said he should get more than 50% of the retirement accounts because he’d earned them through his job.