What hurt me most was that he had deliberately hidden this arrangement because he knew I would question it.
“I’m not asking you to abandon your mother,” I told him. “But I can’t build a marriage around secrets.”
We called Patricia again and asked about her finances. She became defensive when Arthur questioned why she had requested an additional $600 for a washing machine she had never purchased.
Eventually, she admitted that she had been saving part of the money he sent her. She refused to reveal the total, insisting that she needed financial security and feared being abandoned.
Then she said something that explained years of Arthur’s guilt.
When his father died, she had repeatedly called Arthur the man of the house. Whenever he wanted to spend time with friends or become more independent, she reminded him that she was alone and needed him. He had grown up believing that her happiness and security were his responsibility.
