I stood in the center of our gleaming Chicago apartment, the heavy box of client files in my arms feeling like an anchor threatening to pull me straight through the hardwood floor. I was thirty-three, operating on three hours of sleep, and my entire existence had been whittled down to a singular, exhausting purpose: funding the boundless ambition of my husband, Gavin.
For five grueling years, I had bankrolled our lives. As a crisis public relations strategist, I spent my days—and most of my nights—extinguishing reputational infernos for Fortune 500 companies. While I salvaged corporate empires from the brink of media annihilation, Gavin was busy bouncing between unpaid internships and entry-level assistant roles, convinced he was destined for the upper echelons of management consulting. Because I loved him, I had eagerly strapped his dreams to my back. I covered the exorbitant downtown rent, the utility bills, his mounting student loans, and the bespoke, tailored suits he deemed absolutely essential for his corporate masquerade.
But as the success I had financed finally began to materialize, the man I married vanished.
