Marriage of Deceit: A Father's Return

Marriage of Deceit: A Father's Return

Yi Yanni

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The smoky air of the private club was my weekly escape, a poker game with the only family I had left after my life fell apart. Then a sharp knock on the door, uncharacteristic and unwelcome, shattered the peace. It was my daughter, Emily, standing there, dressed in expensive clothes that screamed wealth but fit her poorly, her face a mask of impatient demand. "Are you Liam?" she asked, her tone sharp. The name "Emily" hit me like a physical blow. Not the sweet girl with pigtails I remembered, but a cold stranger who now sneered with her mother' s malicious confidence. She was getting married, she announced, but her intent wasn't sharing joy. It was a thinly veiled directive, a command for me to be present for the "family's image." The look of disgust in her eyes, a mirror of my ex-wife Sarah' s, confirmed it. She saw me as a pathetic relic, just as Sarah had poisoned her mind into believing I was an unfit father, a failed businessman, the reason for all their problems. My heart, long numbed, flickered with a bitter anger. The sheer audacity, the entitlement-it was all Sarah, channeled through the daughter I no longer knew. "I don't," I told my friends, eyes hard. "Not anymore." But as I said it, a new thought began to form. A wedding was a public affair, a stage. Maybe it was time to collect a debt.

Introduction

The smoky air of the private club was my weekly escape, a poker game with the only family I had left after my life fell apart.

Then a sharp knock on the door, uncharacteristic and unwelcome, shattered the peace.

It was my daughter, Emily, standing there, dressed in expensive clothes that screamed wealth but fit her poorly, her face a mask of impatient demand. "Are you Liam?" she asked, her tone sharp.

The name "Emily" hit me like a physical blow. Not the sweet girl with pigtails I remembered, but a cold stranger who now sneered with her mother' s malicious confidence.

She was getting married, she announced, but her intent wasn't sharing joy. It was a thinly veiled directive, a command for me to be present for the "family's image."

The look of disgust in her eyes, a mirror of my ex-wife Sarah' s, confirmed it. She saw me as a pathetic relic, just as Sarah had poisoned her mind into believing I was an unfit father, a failed businessman, the reason for all their problems.

My heart, long numbed, flickered with a bitter anger. The sheer audacity, the entitlement-it was all Sarah, channeled through the daughter I no longer knew.

"I don't," I told my friends, eyes hard. "Not anymore." But as I said it, a new thought began to form. A wedding was a public affair, a stage. Maybe it was time to collect a debt.

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My Wife, My Best Friend, Their Deceit

My Wife, My Best Friend, Their Deceit

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My best friend Kevin invited me to his dad' s 60th birthday, a big celebration because his dad had terminal cancer. My wife, Olivia, couldn't make it; she was on a two-week work trip in Europe, a crucial conference for her career. But when I arrived at the party, I saw Olivia, kneeling before Mr. and Mrs. Miller, performing a "daughter-in-law tea" ceremony, dressed in a way I' d never seen. Then I heard Kevin' s relative say, "Kevin is so lucky. His fiancée is just wonderful." Fiancée. The word crushed me. Olivia' s practiced smile froze when she saw me. She pulled me aside, whispering, "Ethan, what are you doing here? It's not what you think." Kevin then appeared, claiming it was a "little white lie" for his dying father, wanting to see him settled. Olivia eagerly agreed, pleading with me to keep quiet, "just for today." They stood there, my wife and my best friend, united in their deceit, asking me to participate in my own humiliation. A cold clarity washed over me. "For your dad's dying wish? Does his dying wish also include a grandchild to complete the 'four-generation' picture? Are you pregnant, too?" The air turned to ice. Olivia recoiled, then feigned outrage, calling me "cruel." Her gaslighting was instant. Later that night, I went home to retrieve belongings and found them passionately kissing on my couch. "It's... it's not what it looks like!" she gasped, but I pulled out my phone, recording, "Save it for the judge. I want a divorce. And I'm keeping the dog."

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