'I tried so hard to be the perfect wife. I was playing right into my narcissistic husband's hands.'

If you want to support independent women's media, become a Mamamia subscriber. Get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts, articles, videos and our exercise app, MOVE.

Every second weekend I watch my children pack their bags, knowing I'm sending them into the arms of someone who will chip away at their sense of self, piece by piece. And legally, I'm powerless to stop it.

The irony is I built this cage myself. Brick by brick, choice by choice, with love and pride. I didn't fall victim to a narcissist. I auditioned for the role of perfect wife and got the part. For years, I played it flawlessly.

Watch: The number one cheating sign that everyone misses. Post continues below.

My relationship with my ex-husband started as picture perfect. We had the white picket fence, his successful career, my devoted domesticity. I was living the Instagram dream before Instagram even existed.

I'd have dinner on the table when he walked through the door, starch and iron his shirts, and care lovingly for our children. If it was in the house, it was my job. I gave up my career without hesitation. Why would I need financial independence when we were a team? Why would I need superannuation when we were building a future together?

I was the perfect tradwife and I wore that title like a crown.

When things went off script.

The first cracks appeared when my mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Suddenly, I needed him to step up, to support me, to be present.

Instead, he retreated further into his phone, his games, his work trips. At this stage, I was still in denial. The niggle of discontent was taking shape. I'd invested years in crafting this perfect marriage, but the truth was, this was a one-woman show. He was the star, and I was the entire production crew.

Somehow, I'd convinced myself this was a partnership.

A performance for one.

I have this vivid memory of Christmas morning. Him holding our child up to place the star on top of the tree, me thinking how blessed we were. What I didn't know was that the day before this picture-perfect moment, he'd been holding another woman's hand as she gave birth to their child.

My traditional role wasn't protecting our family, it was providing the perfect cover for his double life.

While I was home making homemade playdough with our toddler, he was choosing baby names with someone else. While I was proudly posting family photos on social media, he was living an entirely different life just 20 minutes away.

The financial prison I built.

Here's what stings most: every supportive choice I made was a bar in my own cage.

No career? No way to support myself when the truth came out.

No superannuation? No financial future without him.

No separate bank account? No escape route when I needed one.

No professional network? No one to call when my world imploded.

I'd systematically dismantled every piece of independence I had, believing I was building something beautiful. Instead, I was funding his betrayal with my unpaid labour and sacrificed ambitions.

When the mask fell off.

The revelation came through financial documents during our divorce, because money, unlike words, doesn't lie. The business trips away were actually weekends down the road with his other family.

The late-night work emergencies were dinner dates.

Even then, he couldn't tell the truth cleanly. It came out in fragments, little admissions wrapped in bigger lies. Just another unfaithful husband story, except I'd been funding the whole production.

I waited for remorse, for guilt, for some acknowledgement of the devastation he'd caused. It never came. How could it? I'd spent years enabling a man who saw my devotion as weakness to be exploited, not love to be cherished.

The crime no one prosecutes.

Here's what no one tells you about emotional abuse: there's no legal recourse.

No law against systematically destroying someone's confidence.

No punishment for gaslighting.

No consequences for financial coercion disguised as traditional marriage.

He's charismatic, successful, and articulate. To everyone else, he's a businessman who made a 'mistake'.

The calculated manipulation, the engineered dependency, the years of psychological control, none of it leaves visible scars. And scars you can't see don't hold up in any system that matters.

I can document his lies, his double life, his abandonment of our children when it suited him. But I can't make anyone understand what it's like to have your reality systematically dismantled, to question your own sanity, to realise the person you trusted most was your greatest threat.

There's no accountability for that kind of destruction.

Single the entire time.

For me and my rigid thinking, the idea of being a single parent felt overwhelming, impossible even.

That's when my sister said something that stopped me cold: "You've already been a single mum this whole time."

She was right. I'd been solo parenting during his business trips. Making every decision about our children while he played video games.

Managing every crisis, every bedtime, every school event while he was emotionally absent — or physically absent with his other family.

The only difference now was that I could stop pretending we were a team.

Listen to The Quicky where they discuss Mamamia's cheating survey. Post continues below.

How I unlearnt being perfect.

I'm rebuilding, learning skills I should never have abandoned, creating the independence I should never have surrendered. My children are watching me transform from supporting actress to leading lady in my own life.

The woman who once apologised for questioning obvious lies now documents everything. The woman who made excuses for cruel behaviour now sets firm boundaries.

I now know that love doesn't mean endless sacrifice, and that you can be both broken and brave. I discovered that you can lose everything you thought mattered, only to discover what actually does.

I may not be able to stop my children from visiting their father, but I can sure as hell raise children who will never accept that their reality isn't real.

Feature Image: Google Gemini.