Divorce Made My Ex-Husband an Expert Liar

A good ole Catholic schoolboy no more

I met a woman whose husband was a divorce attorney and we began chatting.

“How did this happen to you?” she asked. “You seem like a smart woman.”

“You mean the part about him robbing me blind?” I say. “And taking absolutely everything dollar we had. I trusted him. I know it sounds naive but it’s true. He was my college sweetheart. In a million years, no one could have ever convinced me he was capable of what he ultimately did.

“Women!” she says while shaking her head. “They never believe men are hiding money or having affairs and they’re usually doing both in divorce.”

Her words are confidently laced with years of a bird’s eye view of ugly relationship demise. She commanded a presence. I found her point of view captivating if not disturbing. But I admired the realist in her.

Quite the eye-opener for this former Pollyanna with a capital P. I wanted to be more like her. A pragmatic sensible woman but I was years too late.

A deer in the headlights, nineteen-year-old college girl divorced my husband.

Because those were the eyes I still viewed him through.

Even if nothing was left of him.

I believed every lie he told me, let’s just say Pinocchio’s nose is shorter. I should preface this by saying I bought all of his financial deceit. Because I don’t believe he had an affair.

Although that might be a bit of my Polly peeking back through.

Looking back, I’m inclined to replace my aforementioned graciously oblivious naivete with pure stupidity. Because I did encounter two immediate clues when I left my husband.

“Whatever you do, don’t trust him,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

I had called someone close to my husband to let them know I was leaving. Did I hear their words? Yes, but I was at the end of emotional exhaustion from trying to save my marriage. And honestly, I felt happy and relieved to be embracing a new beginning.

I dismissed the warning as a generalized plea to self-protect.

I didn’t understand they were trying to convey a fact.

When I tell you this second clue, you may shake your head along with the lawyer’s wife. I was riding in the car with my three boys and told them we might need to cut back because of the divorce.

“What do you mean?” asks my son. “We have plenty of money.”

“How on earth would you know how much money we have?” I say.

“I was in the grocery store with dad,” he says. “He handed me his phone after he transferred money so he could finish checking out.”

My son proceeded to tell me how much money was in the account.

“You must be mistaken,” I say. “You’ve got a few too many zeros in there.”

“No,” he protested. “That’s how much money I saw.”

Honestly, I dismissed this as well. I’m thinking he was a teenager, somehow he read the balance wrong in the bank account. It’s not that we didn’t have a lot of money because we did. I managed the finances for our business, home, and investment properties for years. We had built significant wealth.

But during our marital problems, my husband told me it was gone.

One day I said, “Take money out of savings and pay that off.”

“I can’t,” he said. “It’s all gone.”

“What do you mean it’s all gone?” I ask. “How could you spend all of our money without my knowledge?”

“That’s my money,” he said angrily.

I guess you could call his anger Pinocchio's third clue. But honestly, he was so believable. And he was acting out in other ways, so I thought he was experiencing some type of mid-life crisis and sudden dysfunction.

It just never occurred to me that I was sleeping next to a calculated thief. Devoid of any type of ethical let alone loving perspective on our relationship. Divorce or no divorce.

He wasn’t pilfering a few dollars for an emergency runaway husband act.

He was hiding absolutely every dime.

Leaving his wife, best friend, mother of his children, and business partner with no savings or retirement. I’m sorry, but divorce is not an excuse for criminal and immoral behavior.

Doing the right thing is a constant.

It’s not a variable based on circumstances.

Here’s Pinnochio’s fourth clue. My husband wanted the bills back. He said we were spending too much money and living beyond our means. It compelled me to figure out our net worth before I handed him the bills. Because we were debt-free and owned three homes.

What he was saying didn’t make sense.

The only thing on our credit cards was furniture for two rental properties. I had planned on looping that amount into a home equity loan once we settled on the second investment. And then accelerating the mortgage payments as I had done with our first rental property.

For years my husband continued to lie to me.

And I continued to believe him. Until we were going through our divorce. It’s still hard to believe on any emotionally comprehensible level that a man I called the love of my life looked at me day in and day out, as he drained any security I would ever know.

But he had become an expert liar.

Honestly, if I didn’t ultimately find proof, hard fast undeniable facts. I would still believe him. I would think he suffered a terrible mid-life crisis that forced him to make horrible financial decisions.

But now I know, even Pinocchio’s nose is shorter.

Then a good ole Catholic schoolboy’s.

If you would like to read more of my stories and support me as a writer, consider signing up to become a Medium member. For just $5 a month you will get unlimited access to Medium.