My wealthy in-laws were notoriously stingy — always “forgetting” their wallets at dinners. It started as a joke. A funny quirk of the super-rich, I thought. They owned a sprawling estate, drove cars I couldn’t even name, and summered on yachts in the Mediterranean. Yet, dinner with us? Somehow, the bill always landed in my partner’s lap. Or mine. And they’d smile, “Oh, silly us! Next time, our treat!” It was never their treat. The stinginess wasn’t just about dinners. It was holidays. Birthdays. Baby showers for friends. Their gifts were always grand in presentation, never in substance. A beautiful card, perhaps, but never the generous gesture I’d seen them make for random charities. It stung. My partner would just shrug, “That’s just how they are.” It became a quiet friction in our marriage. I loved him, but his blind loyalty to their frugal grandiosity gnawed at me.
We weren’t struggling, not really, but we weren’t rolling in money either. We had dreams. A little cottage. Maybe kids. We worked hard. But then the storm hit. My partner lost his job. Suddenly, rent was a mountain. Food felt like a luxury. We swallowed our pride, went to them. Their mansion felt colder than ever. They listened, nodding solemnly, then offered a platitude about “character building” and “standing on your own two feet.” Not a dime. They left for their ski trip the next morning. My partner was devastated, but still, he defended them. They just believe in self-reliance, he said.
Desperation makes you do terrible things. One afternoon, when they were away, I found myself in their study. I saw a small, locked safe behind a painting. I know, I know. The key was in an old book. My hands trembled as I opened it. Inside, nestled among old photographs and important-looking documents, was a bank statement. A massive sum, as expected. But then, my eyes caught something else: a long list of recurring transfers. To a private clinic. A psychiatric facility. A very specific kind.
My heart pounded. Who? Was one of them secretly ill? I googled the clinic. Its specialty sent a shiver down my spine: rehabilitation for severe, long-term psychiatric care. I cross-referenced the name with old bills I’d vaguely seen when my partner had a “rough patch” in college. But this wasn’t a rough patch. This was continuous, intensive care.
I dug deeper. Old files. Cryptic notes. The truth unspooled, a knot of barbed wire around my throat. My partner… he hadn’t just been “depressed.” He’d had a catastrophic breakdown in college, so violent he’d nearly ended another student’s life. His parents had paid off everyone involved. The victim. The university. The clinic. Spent millions ensuring it never saw the light of day. Their stinginess with us, with everyone, wasn’t a quirk. It was a calculated, ruthless facade. Every penny not spent on keeping up appearances was funneled into burying that horrifying secret, and maintaining their perfect son’s perfect image.
Then I understood their refusal to help us, especially with our biggest dream: starting a family. The IVF. The heartbreak.
They never wanted us to have children.
They never wanted my partner to have children, ever again.
Not after what he did.
And he knew. HE KNEW. The stinginess. The excuses. The shrug that was never just a shrug.
He just let me believe his parents were cheap. He let me believe we were struggling because of our finances.
He was a monster, and his parents were guarding his secret, ensuring it died with them… or with our dreams of a family.
I was married to him. Married to it.
OH MY GOD.
