I remember the day I walked down the aisle like yesterday. I knew I wasn’t marrying for love. I cared for Andrew*, but it was his money was what I was loved. Seven years on, I’m now a 41-year-old divorcee, having learned the painful way that a happy relationship can never be built on wealth.
Watching The Perfect Couple on Netflix, and the toxicity that is brewed when money is the motivating factor in a marriage, I could see how it mirrored my own – and I was honestly relieved to no longer be mired in a dynamic like that. I grew up the only child of a single mother, and although we weren’t ‘poor’, my mum worked incredibly hard just so we could get by. I suppose that’s where my craving to be well off came from. When you grow up without money, it’s easy to believe it’s the key to a happier life.
I met Andrew in 2015. I was working as an executive assistant at a bank and he was a client of my boss. He was ten years older than me and balding with a bit of a belly, so I wasn’t physically attracted to him - but he was charming, funny and when I looked at his files, I was stunned at how well off he was despite only being in his early forties. He’d taken over his family’s property development business, as well as investing in a portfolio of rental flats.
He’d come in for meetings, his Porsche parked outside, wearing a well-cut suit and a designer watch - and we’d flirt, until one day he asked me out. On our second date, he presented me with a Chloe handbag and on our month anniversary he arranged a surprise weekend away to New York. I’d never experienced a lifestyle like this, and although he liked to talk about himself a lot, and our sex life wasn’t that satisfying, I told myself I didn’t care, he was rich, generous and wanted to be with me. Within six months I’d moved into his luxury apartment, and on holiday in Dubai for our one-year anniversary, he proposed with an enormous diamond ring.
For the first few years, things were good. I gave up work within a year and threw myself into supervising the renovations of our second home in the countryside. I suppose I was a ‘trad wife’ long before it was a Tik Tok trend. Expensive jewellery, holidays and designer clothes became my norm. Friends would joke I’d become like one of Bravo’s Real Housewives, but I told myself they were just jealous. There were days I felt aimless and a bit embarrassed about being a ‘kept woman’ in my thirties, but I pushed those feelings aside.
Then, the pandemic hit – and the shaky foundations my marriage was built on started to show. Both stuck at home all day, with no lux holidays, shopping trips or spa breaks to enjoy, we only had each other’s company, and I began to realise that without all the distractions and excitement of his wealth, a lot of the time Andrew bored and irritated me.
Also, with his business interests under pressure because of the impact of lockdown, for the first time ever, he began to question items on the credit card bill or the cost of things I had delivered to the house. I felt humiliated when he told me my spending was out of control, and that I needed to rein it in and run big purchases past him. During one row, he said it was his money and I should be more grateful to him than I was.
It hit me he didn’t see me as his equal, because I contributed nothing. He had the money, and so he had the power in our relationship, and that was never going to change. Even when life began to return to normal, and he whisked us away to Portugal and insisted everything was fine now financially, I should just carry on as normal, the voice in my head kept growing louder that I’d made a mistake.
I’d married for the wrong reasons, I didn’t love this man and it was never going to be a marriage of equals. Even if I went back to work, financially there would always be a huge imbalance and having experienced that being used against me emotionally in the pandemic, I knew it would happen again.
In late 2021, I told Andrew I was leaving him. I admitted I’d fallen for his wealth, and the fault lay with me for letting him believe I loved him. He was shocked, devastated, angry and begged me to reconsider, but I told him it was the best thing for both of us. We divorced in 2022 and all I asked for was the house in the countryside in the divorce settlement, so I had somewhere to live, although I would’ve been entitled to more. I wanted to start afresh, away from his money.
I went back to work as an EA and it felt good to be financially independent again, and today I live a very ordinary life, without all the expensive trappings I had during my marriage. Do I miss them? Sometimes. But am I happier? Definitely.
*names have been changed
AS TOLD TO EIMEAR O'HAGAN