Member-only story
I Was a Trophy Wife
That life looked pretty good until I realized what I was giving up
It was a joke. The kind of joke that’s actually true, but you laugh about it in the hopes of deflecting that truth. A thing you bring up first, before anyone else can. “Haha, she’s my trophy wife! Aren’t we funny!”
I was in my early twenties when we met; he was already over 40, 17 years older than me. And 17 gazillion times wealthier. He had a nice house and a lucrative business partnership and a 401(k) and an Audi. I had student loans and a toaster oven and two cats.
Well, I soon had just one cat. It was decided that I would give away one of mine before we married. He already had two, and four cats would be just too many. One of mine had to go. I got to make a “Sophie’s choice” about it, though. I chose Grub even though I’d raised him from a newborn kitten.
(That wasn’t the first time I yielded, though it was an early one. How clear all these signposts are in the rearview mirror.)
“You’re going to miss your thirties if you marry him,” my therapist warned me. “You’re going to start being his age, hanging out with his friends, living his life.”
I protested. Wasn’t it just as likely that I would bring vibrant, young energy into his life? My creative interests and my hip friends? (Well, semi-hip, I guess. I mean, we were all young; that’s hip by definition, right? Right?)
The fact was, his life looked pretty good to me. My own life was a panicked, disorganized mess when I met him. I was in a miserable relationship, had an abusive job, and was broke and freaked out. I had no idea who I was and what I wanted or what to do about any of that. It’s why I was in therapy in the first place. And then, suddenly, here was this man with his life all figured out. He was smart and attractive and stable—such an adult.
I wanted a grown-up. I wanted to be a grown-up.
So I married him.
I’m not gonna lie: Having money makes so many things easier. If I miss anything from my trophy wife years, it’s that. The first time I walked down a grocery aisle and realized I could just put things in my cart without having to keep a running tally in my head—it was amazing.
