My new husband compared me to his dead wife every day. When I collapsed making dinner, he told th…

“But don’t you think it’s a bit negative spending time with people who are always dwelling on their problems? We’ve moved on from grief group. We should move on from those relationships too.”

“She’s my friend, Robert.”

His expression hardened.

“I just think you should be more careful about who you associate with. At our age, we should surround ourselves with positive influences. But do what you want. You always do anyway.”

That last line stung. I didn’t always do what I wanted.

I’d given up painting classes. I barely saw my children.

I’d stopped going to book club. I was home every single day, cooking meals that were never quite right.

I was wearing clothes that were never quite appropriate, trying to be a woman I didn’t know how to be. But I canceled lunch with Barbara.

When she called again a few weeks later, I didn’t answer. Eventually, she stopped calling.

My daughter Jennifer noticed I was different. She’d call and I’d keep the conversation short, aware of Robert in the next room.

She invited me to go shopping one weekend, just the two of us.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,”

I said.

“Robert and I have plans.”

“What plans, mom? We haven’t spent time alone together in over a year.”

“I know, honey. It’s just… he likes when I’m here.”

There was a pause.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just seem… I don’t know, smaller somehow.”

I laughed it off, but her words haunted me. Smaller—is that what I’d become?

The real trouble started on a Wednesday afternoon. I’d been cleaning out the spare bedroom and found some old photos of Tom and me with the kids when they were young.

I stood there holding a picture of our vacation to Cape Cod, crying for the first time in months. Not sad crying exactly, just missing that version of myself who smiled so easily.

Robert came home and found me like that. I quickly wiped my eyes, but he’d seen.

“Still crying over him?”

his voice was cold.

“It’s been how many years now? Four?”

“I just found some old photos. It caught me off guard.”

“I put Susan’s pictures away after she died. It’s not healthy to keep dwelling on the past. Maybe you should do the same.”

“They’re pictures of my children,”

I said quietly.

“And him. I see him in every photo. Do you know how that makes me feel, Margaret, coming home to find my wife crying over another man?”

“He wasn’t just another man. He was my husband for 35 years. The father of my children.”

Robert’s face flushed.

“And I’m your husband now. Or doesn’t that matter to you? Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you never really wanted to be married to me at all. Maybe I’m just a placeholder until you can join him.”

The cruelty in his voice shocked me. This wasn’t the gentle man from grief group.

This wasn’t the person who’d brought me flowers every Friday. I apologized.

I put the photos in a box in the garage. I never looked at them again.

After that, Robert’s moods became more unpredictable. I learned to watch for signs—the way he’d press his lips together when annoyed, how he’d go very still before he was about to say something cruel.

There was a particular silence that meant I’d done something wrong but wouldn’t find out what until he was ready to tell me. I stopped calling my children unless Robert was out of the house.

Even then, I’d keep it short, always listening for his car in the driveway. When they’d ask to visit, I’d make excuses: too busy, not feeling well, maybe next month.

Jennifer started getting suspicious. She’d show up unannounced and I’d scramble to clean up any evidence that things weren’t perfect.

Robert would be charming when she was there, solicitous, the model husband. But I could feel his anger afterward like static electricity in the air.

One Saturday morning I was making breakfast when I dropped an egg. It splattered on the floor, yolk spreading across the tile.

Such a small thing, but I froze, heart beating, waiting for his reaction. Robert looked at the mess then at me.

“Really, Margaret? Can’t you even make breakfast without creating chaos?”

“It was an accident.”

“It’s always an accident with you. Breaking dishes, burning food, forgetting things. Susan ran this household like clockwork, but you… you make everything so difficult.”

He shook his head. Something in me cracked.

I’d been making his breakfast every morning for two years. I’d given up my friends, my hobbies, and time with my children.

I’d erased Tom from our home. I’d tried on dozens of outfits before church.

I’d cooked a hundred meals that were never good enough.

“Then maybe you should have stayed married to Susan,”

I said.

The words were out before I could stop them. For a moment, we both just stared at each other.

Then Robert picked up his plate and threw it against the wall. I jumped back as ceramic shattered, scrambled eggs sliding down the wallpaper.

He’d never done anything like that before, never raised his voice, never broken anything.

“Clean it up,”

he said, his voice eerily calm.

Then he walked out of the kitchen. I stood there shaking, looking at the broken plate, the ruined breakfast, and the mess I’d have to clean up.

I thought:

“How did I get here? When did this become my life?”

But I cleaned it up. I always cleaned things up.

That’s when I started to understand this wasn’t about dropped eggs or overcooked chicken or what dress I wore to church. This was about control.

It was about making me small enough to fit into the space he designated for me. It was about replacing who I was with who he wanted me to be.

Still, I stayed because where would I go? Would I crawl back to my children and admit I’d made a mistake?

Would I move into some apartment alone at 60 and start over again for the third time in my life? And part of me, despite everything, still remembered the man who’d brought me flowers.

I remembered the man who’d held my hand at grief group, who’d promised we’d grow old together. I kept thinking that man would come back.

If I just tried harder, was more careful, and did things right, he’d be the Robert I fell in love with again. I didn’t know it was about to get so much worse.

The Simple Question That Saved My Life

It was a Thursday evening, almost three years into our marriage. I’d made pot roast, carefully following Susan’s recipe that I’d found in a box in the attic.

I’d set the table with the good china. I’d even worn the blouse Robert had complimented once months ago.

He came home late without calling. The pot roast had dried out from sitting too long in the oven.

When he walked in, I was close to tears from stress and frustration.