My mother is a trophy wife. The one that actually owned the 'collector', instead of the one being discarded by him when she is old.

She never worked a day in her life. Dad is wealthy, I grew up with maids, cook, gardener and chauffeurs. The only lesson my mother ever taught me was to marry a sucessful man early (right after highschool or eraly 20s) and be the best housewife and make your husband be dependent on you for socializations. Have kids early and make sure that he is the type of a man that cannot live without seeing his children everyday. Let him think he is in control, that he is the captain, but control him instead.

Keep up a sexy and youthful appearance, cheerful (no crying in front of him, except happy cry), using coercion instead of openly pouting to get what you want if he says no, at the earlier chances, make his friends and family love you, so that they will believe you more than him if they have to take sides.

And the most fucked up one is that be prepared for his cheating and use that to your advantage (more leverage). For my mom, marriage is a battlefield where you have to strategize and always try to get ahead, else you will lose domination.

My dad did cheat several times and everytime it was payday for my mom.

I was taught that mutual love is a concept, but not reality. The reality is a mutually beneficial arrangement. That's marriage or co-habitation and raising kids together.

So I did marry a wealthy man when I was 20. He was 28, came from a rich family and was already established himself. I met him at a private party my dad's country club. My mom personally screened him and his family history. No divorces in his family, my mother in law was SAHM too, family was tight knit.

8 years after the wedding, my ex-husband was diagnosed with BPD, comorbid with several other problems, one of those schizoaffective disorder. He is in and out of inpatient programs, even to this day. We got divorced because he cheated with fellow patient, which was a scandal. My mom found out that there was no leverage that one could get from my ex-husband cheating, so she asked me to divorce him, and I did. We never had kids together despite trying two years after the marriage. I thank my lucky star every single day for this.

She was ready with another 'suitable rich man' for me to marry, not even two years after my divorce. I just could not do it anymore, so I decided to move with my aunt who lives in another country.

It is a tiring way of life. You have to act and pretend. If you were helming a ship, it will be like a constant struggle for the steering wheel. I never had the normal experience of just getting to know someone and see what develops after.

Sex was more of a sport performance to show that you are still the best athlete and still worth of medals and sponsors, rather than seeing sex as something intimate to be shared.

Nowadays I try to undo her teaching. I live anonymously and in solitude. I still write back and forth several emails to my ex, hence from where I know about his conditions. We are sort of old friends who lives two continents apart to each other now and I am fine with that.

What about relationship? I think I will never be ready again for that.

I did try to get into relationship about four or five years after my divorce, but I ended up acting up my role again. You see that in their eyes. When they say that they are the luckiest man in the world, to have a girlfriend so kind, understanding, patient, smart, supportive. Of course you'd think that, this is what I've been taught and what I've been training for. I could not live like that and broke up the relationship.