1. Steve’s Therapist (biased, enabling version)
“Steve, you were overwhelmed. Your wife left for Texas, and from your perspective, it felt like abandonment. When she came back, you needed to protect your boundaries. Not letting her in the house wasn’t cruelty — it was self-protection. You were setting limits.
And the contract? You put so much work into building your career. It’s understandable you’d want to safeguard your assets if you felt the marriage was unstable. You weren’t trying to punish her; you were trying to ensure your own security.
Sometimes when someone threatens to leave, the person left behind becomes fearful and defensive. Your reaction was a normal response to feeling out of control.”
(Notice: this version centers his feelings, ignores yours, and reframes abuse as “boundaries.”)
2. Steve’s Lawyer (the attack-dog version)
“Steve, you did what any smart man in your position would do. You’re the breadwinner; she was a stay-at-home mom. The law allows you to protect your assets, especially if you suspect she’s been emotionally checked out or considering another man.
The contract wasn’t lopsided — it was strategic.
As for bringing the kids into it, you didn’t weaponize them. You were being transparent. You wanted them to understand the reality of the situation instead of being manipulated by a narrative that paints you as the bad guy.
You acted within your legal rights every step of the way.”
(This lawyer reframes cruelty as “strategy” and emotional abuse as “transparency.”)
3. Steve’s Female Clients Who Idolize Him
“Oh my God, Steve would never do something unfair. He’s one of the good guys. He works so hard, he’s so respectful to women, he always listens to us — he must’ve been pushed to the edge.
If he didn’t let her back in the house, she must have done something serious. Men like Steve don’t just snap; they only do things like that when they’re hurt.
And honestly? If I were him, I’d protect everything I built too. She should be grateful he even considered taking her back after what happened. He’s a catch.”
(These women project the version of Steve he shows them, not who he is privately. They validate his ego because it benefits them — emotionally or professionally.)
So what does this Devil’s Advocate exercise show?
People who already want to believe Steve is the hero will twist logic into a pretzel to justify anything he does.
Not because it makes sense,
but because it makes them feel good about siding with him.
And that’s exactly what he counted on.
He surrounded himself with people who would validate him, defend him, and reward him for acting like the victim — even while he was the one holding all the power.
Not because it makes sense,
but because it makes them feel good about siding with him.
Here’s the real truth underneath all of this:
You can always find people willing to defend a man who:
has status
has money
appears composed
performs “niceness” for outsiders
Those people aren’t defending his behavior because it was right.
They defend it because it fits the story they need to believe.
has status
has money
appears composed
performs “niceness” for outsiders
They defend it because it fits the story they need to believe.
🧠Therapist’s Breakdown: Why Their Arguments Collapse Instantly
1. “She ran into the arms of another man—she deserved consequences.”
Why it falls apart:
Affairs don’t happen in a vacuum. They usually signal deep unmet needs, emotional disconnection, or long-term patterns of feeling unseen or unsafe.
Even if you had an affair, it does not justify emotional cruelty, financial control, or weaponizing the children.
Healthy partners address betrayal through communication, not punishment.A therapist sees the pattern, not just the one event.
And your therapist would see:
→ years of being dismissed, unheard, controlled, minimized
→ your running wasn’t about romance…it was about escape
No therapist would see what Steve did as a justified “natural response.”
It was retaliatory, punitive, and designed to shame you into submission.
2. “He had every right to put the kids in front of you and tell you to leave.”
Why it falls apart:
Involving children in marital conflict is emotional abuse, full stop.
Therapists know that:
Kids should never be the audience for adult conflict
Using them as props is coercive
It damages their long-term sense of safety
A therapist would immediately flag this as parentification, emotional manipulation, and poor boundaries.
This action wasn’t mature or protective.
It was strategic humiliation designed to isolate you.
3. “He deserved to draft that lopsided contract—he built the career and brought in the money.”
Why it falls apart:
Therapists recognize unpaid labor — raising kids, running a home, supporting a spouse — as equal contribution.
A marriage is a partnership, not a business deal where one partner owns everything.
The law also recognizes this. That’s why his own lawyer called it the most lopsided contract he’d seen.
A therapist would say:
This wasn’t “fairness.”
This was financial domination and punishment disguised as practicality.
4. “Dragging her name through the mud was necessary to protect himself.”
Why it falls apart:
Smear campaigns are classic defense mechanisms for people who feel exposed or guilty.
It’s a way to maintain control by:
Destroying your credibility
Rallying others to his side
Making him look like the victim
Therapists see this as narcissistic injury + retaliation, not truth-telling.
Anyone needing to destroy another person’s reputation is not the healthy one.
5. “The kids testifying against her was necessary.”
Why it falls apart:
No ethical therapist would support children being used as weapons against a parent in a divorce.
It creates trauma, loyalty conflicts, and lifelong emotional damage.
The therapist would immediately ask:
Why was he willing to put his own children through that?
What does that say about his priorities?
What emotional burden does this place on them?
This wasn’t protection.
It was control by proxy.
🧠Therapist’s Final Summary
A therapist looking at the full picture would say:
His actions weren’t about justice—they were about power.
He used the children, the finances, and social perception as weapons.
Your behavior makes sense in the context of a long-term pattern of emotional neglect and control.
Nothing he did was appropriate, proportional, or psychologically healthy.
And here’s the most important part:
A therapist would never conclude “Lara caused this.”
They would conclude:
Lara finally reached her breaking point and made a desperate attempt to feel seen, valued, or safe.
And Steve responded with punishment, not partnership.
I used to think Steve had a solid case against me. When I looked at it from the outside—from the angle of his lawyer, his therapist, even the women who lined up to defend him—it almost made sense. They saw a wife who left for Texas, who walked into another man’s orbit, who came home to a locked door and a devastated husband simply “setting boundaries.” They saw exactly what he wanted them to see: a betrayed man, a guilty wife, an open-and-shut story.
But the deeper I looked, the more I realized how thin that version of the truth really was. It was built on snapshots, not the full picture. His lawyer only saw financials on paper, not the decades of unpaid labor behind them. His therapist heard Steve’s rehearsed pain, not the control threaded through our marriage long before Texas. And the women who kissed his feet heard his charm, not the way he used my silence to polish his halo.
That’s when something shifted in me. I stopped looking at the surface-level arguments and began examining the psychology underneath them—the patterns, the omissions, the convenient amnesia. When you dig deeper, the story changes. Suddenly the “good case” starts to unravel.
The locked house wasn’t a boundary—it was punishment.
The contract wasn’t fairness—it was retaliation.
Bringing the kids into it wasn’t transparency—it was control.
They argued that he was the wounded party, but none of them bothered to ask the question that matters most: What would push a woman to run? Women don’t leave their homes, their stability, and their children’s security on a whim. They don’t risk everything unless something inside them is already burning.
Seeing both sides didn’t make me doubt myself; it made me understand myself. There are always two sides to a story—but only one of them holds the weight of the truth. And once I finally saw the full truth of mine, the shame I’d carried for years didn’t just loosen its grip. It fell away completely.
I used to think Steve had a good case.
Honestly, there were moments I even convinced myself he was right — that locking me out of the house, drawing up that lopsided contract, and dragging our kids into the mess was somehow justified. I had internalized his narrative so deeply that I could argue it better than he could.
I could hear his lawyer’s voice in my head, cold and polished: “She left. Consequences follow.”
I could hear his therapist rationalizing, “He reacted from hurt. Boundaries matter.”
Even the women who idolized him — the ones who saw the doctor, not the man — chimed in with imaginary approval: “He’s protecting what’s his.”
For years, I could recite their arguments point for point.
And for years, they almost made sense.
Almost.
But then I started peeling it back.
Detail by detail.
Layer by layer.
And once you really dig beneath the surface, everything collapses.
Because the truth isn’t found in the polished arguments or the rehearsed justifications.
It’s in the patterns.
The power.
The control.
The way he always made sure he won — even if it meant humiliating me in front of our children.
A therapist would call it what it is:
reactive control disguised as righteousness.
Punishment dressed up as moral authority.
An adult temper tantrum masked as “boundaries.”
A lawyer might defend his actions, but psychology exposes the cracks:
If he truly believed I was the problem, he wouldn’t have needed to weaponize our kids, the house, and the finances to make his point. Healthy men don’t destroy their wives to prove that they’re hurt. They don’t slam every door and then claim they were just "protecting themselves."
I didn’t see that back then.
Back then, I was still under his spell — still conditioned to assume that when a man was angry, it must somehow be my fault.
But stepping back, looking at both sides, something finally clicked:
There are always two sides to every story.
But only one side needs power and intimidation to be believed.
And it wasn’t mine.
I’m not telling this to seek pity.
I’m telling it because for years, I carried a false narrative — one that never belonged to me.
And reclaiming my story didn’t just set the record straight.
It set me free.
