Chapter 2 - The Cost of Approval
I was thirty-five years old when I finally admitted that the marriage I had kept desperately trying to save had already been disappearing for years.
Michael and I had met when I was twenty-three in Charlotte, North Carolina. We came from entirely different worlds. My father owned a massively successful commercial flooring company, providing me with a life of comfort and aggressive ambition. Michael came from a working-class family that ran a perpetually struggling small restaurant.
When we met, Michael was finishing an architectural apprenticeship. He was funny, hardworking, ambitious, and completely different from the wealthy, arrogant men my parents expected me to date. I loved that about him.
What I didn’t understand was how deeply, desperately Michael needed his mother and sister’s approval.
Carol was politely distant when we first met. Rebecca wasn’t.
“So you’re the rich girl,” Rebecca had sneered during our very first introduction.
“I’m Laura,” I had replied, extending my hand.
“I know.” She didn't take my hand.
Like a fool, I spent the next decade trying to prove that I didn’t think I was better than them. When their restaurant needed extensive renovations, I redesigned the entire dining room for free using my interior design company. When their commercial freezer failed during their busiest month, I quietly paid for a replacement so they wouldn't lose their inventory. When Carol fell months behind on the commercial mortgage, I covered the balloon payments out of my own savings without even telling Michael, just to save them the embarrassment.
When Rebecca later decided she wanted to expand the restaurant into a high-end catering business, I helped finance that, too.
My mother had warned me weeks before my wedding. “Helping people is one thing, Laura,” she had said, holding my hands. “But be careful when they stop appreciating what you give and start believing they deserve it.”
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I had ignored her. For the first few years, Michael and I were genuinely happy. We lived in a small apartment. We ate takeout sitting on the floor. He worked on building designs at our tiny kitchen table while I struggled to grow my firm. When Sophie was born, he had cried tears of joy while holding her. When I landed my first major corporate contract, he bought cheap champagne and danced with me in our kitchen.
I kept remembering that man every single time the husband he became disappointed me.
