My husband slapped me in front of eighteen relatives and shouted,
“Get out of this house!”
My mother-in-law smiled and demanded that I leave the jewelry, the credit cards, and the keys behind.
I simply picked up my purse, called my lawyer, and stayed silent.
Because the mansion they were standing in belonged to me.
And the $180,000 Margaret Patterson received every month?
That came from me too.
The sound of Theodore’s hand striking my face cut through the dining room sharper than the clink of crystal.
Warm chandelier light reflected off the marble floor.
The birthday candles still smelled like vanilla frosting and smoke.
And for one long second, all I could taste was copper.
Theodore stood in front of me breathing hard, jaw clenched, his mother’s entire family gathered behind him like a jury that had already voted.
Nobody moved.
Not his sister, who still had her fork in her hand.
Not his uncles, who had been laughing over lunch ten minutes earlier.
Not the cousins holding champagne glasses beside the staircase.
Even the waiter froze near the kitchen doorway, one hand wrapped around a folded white napkin.
Margaret smiled first.
“At last,” she said, touching the pearl necklace I had bought her. “You finally put things in order, son.”
The argument had started during her sixty-second birthday lunch at the Willow Creek estate.
A huge house with an elevator, landscaped gardens, oak stairs, six bedrooms, a heated pool, and a kitchen Margaret loved showing off as though she had scrubbed floors her whole life to afford it.
She had hired a chef.
Three waiters.
A live jazz trio.
There were flowers on every sideboard, wrapped gifts beside the fireplace, and a small American flag tucked near the mailbox because Margaret liked the house to look respectable from the road.
I had paid for all of it.
No one at that table knew.
Halfway through dessert, Margaret lifted her glass.
“To my son,” she said, “who still manages to support this entire family despite marrying such a cold woman.”
A few people laughed.
Theodore lowered his eyes and cut another piece of cake.
Then Margaret looked directly at me.
“Maybe that empty nursery upstairs was God’s way of reminding some women that careers are not the same as family.”
The room went quiet.
We had lost a baby eight months earlier.
The hospital bracelet was still in a small velvet box in my nightstand.
The discharge papers were in a folder dated February 14.
Theodore had watched me sign them with shaking hands.
Then he held me in the hospital parking lot while I cried into his coat.
That was the man I thought I had married.
The man sitting at Margaret’s birthday table said nothing.
I put down my fork.
“Do not use the death of my baby to humiliate me again.”
Margaret set her spoon down with the softest little click.
“Did everyone hear that? Did you hear how she speaks to me in my own house?”
Theodore stood.
For one foolish second, I thought he was finally going to defend me.
Instead, he walked around the table.
And slapped me.
My hip struck the entryway console.
A wineglass tipped, rolled, and shattered across the marble.
The room held its breath while red wine crept slowly toward my shoe.
Violence is not always a loss of control.
Sometimes it is a performance.
Sometimes a man raises his hand because he knows everyone in the room has already agreed not to stop him.
“Go upstairs and pack your clothes,” Theodore said. “The jewelry stays. So does the SUV. So do the credit cards. You’re not taking anything I paid for.”
Margaret folded her arms.
“And hand over the keys. This house is Patterson family legacy, not a shelter for ungrateful women.”
I looked around.
At the staircase.
The chandeliers.
The polished floors.
The birthday flowers.
The framed family photographs I had arranged because Theodore once told me his mother needed to feel “included” after his father died.
I had approved every invoice.
Six months before marrying Theodore, I had purchased Willow Creek through a private family holding company.
The transfer deed was signed at 9:18 on a Tuesday morning.
The county clerk receipt still sat in my attorney’s file.
Theodore had never asked why the mortgage disappeared.
He had never asked who paid the property taxes.
He had never asked who covered the $180,000 Margaret received every month for her driver, medications, club dues, vacations, household staff, and “personal expenses.”
He had never asked who rescued his construction company after two contracts collapsed and payroll came due on a Friday.
Men like Theodore loved being called providers as long as nobody checked the ledger.
I had kept quiet because he said his mother was fragile.
That Margaret would become ill if she knew the Patterson trust was nearly empty.
That the family name meant everything to her.
So I let them call me cold.
I let them call me lucky.
I let them believe I had married into wealth.
My cheek burned.
My fingers closed around the strap of my purse until the leather cut into my palm.
For one ugly heartbeat, I wanted to throw the broken glass at Theodore’s feet and tell every person in that room exactly how much they owed me.
I did not.
I picked up my purse.
“Is that it?” Theodore asked. “You’re not even going to apologize?”
I stopped at the front door and turned.
“I want to remember your faces.”
Margaret laughed.
“What for? To tell your therapist?”
I took out my phone and snapped one picture of the entryway.
Then I tilted the camera just enough to capture the security camera above the staircase.
“No,” I said. “So my lawyer knows where to start.”
Theodore’s hand rose again.
This time one of his uncles caught his wrist.
Maybe not because he suddenly grew a conscience.
Maybe because eighteen witnesses were already enough.
Outside, the air felt cold against my face.
My car service was still twelve minutes away.
The driveway lights had just come on.
Then my phone buzzed.
A bank notification.
Margaret Patterson — $74,000 — Bellamy Fine Jewelry.
Supplementary card.
My account.
For the first time all afternoon, I smiled.
At 6:12 p.m., while they were still inside that house laughing about what they thought I had lost, I opened my contacts and called my attorney.
She answered on the second ring.
“Vivian?”
“Claire.”
My voice was completely calm.
“I want everything shut down.”
Silence.
Then:
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“The allowances?”
“Yes.”
“The cards?”
“Yes.”
“Vehicles?”
“Yes.”
“The house staff?”
“Yes.”
“Theodore’s corporate credit line?”
I looked back at the mansion glowing behind me.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
Then Claire asked:
“Are you safe?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did he touch you?”
I touched my burning cheek.
“Yes.”
Her voice changed.
That was when I knew Theodore had made the biggest mistake of his life.
“Do not go back inside,” she said. “Take photographs of your face. Save every message. I’m calling security counsel now.”
I almost laughed.
“Security counsel?”
“Claire, you own a forty-eight-million-dollar holding company, three commercial properties, and half of Theodore’s business debt. I’m not sending an Uber driver to handle this.”
I closed my eyes.
For four years, Theodore had treated my money like background noise.
Now it had found a voice.
My car arrived at 6:24.
I got into the back seat and told the driver to take me to the Langham.
My phone rang before we reached the gate.
Theodore.
I let it ring.
Again.
Again.
Then Margaret.
Then Theodore.
Then his sister Amelia.
Then Margaret again.
At 6:31, the supplementary card network froze.
At 6:33, Theodore’s SUV fuel card declined.
At 6:36, the corporate emergency line attached to my private credit facility was suspended pending review.
At 6:41, Margaret tried to charge $11,800 at the same jewelry store.
Declined.
My phone exploded.
MARGARET:
What did you do?
THEODORE:
Call me right now.
AMELIA:
Mom’s card isn’t working. Is this some kind of joke?
I looked out at the city lights.
No.
Not a joke.
An audit.
There is a difference.
At the hotel, Claire was waiting in the lobby.
She was fifty-eight, silver-haired, and had the particular calm of a woman who had spent three decades telling wealthy men that contracts did not care about their feelings.
She took one look at my face.
Her eyes hardened.
“Photographs first.”
We went upstairs.
She photographed the swelling.
The red mark.
The bruise developing along my jaw.
Then she photographed the torn seam in my dress from when I hit the console.
“Did anyone record the slap?”
“There are internal cameras.”
“Who controls them?”
“I do.”
Claire looked at me.
“Of course you do.”
I opened the property-management app.
The camera feed was still there.
Dining room.
Entry hall.
Staircase.
Kitchen.
Every angle.
Theodore striking me was clear.
So was Margaret smiling afterward.
So was Theodore telling me to leave.
So was Margaret demanding the keys.
Claire watched the clip once.
Then again.
“Good.”
I stared at her.
“You sound pleased.”
“I am not pleased that he hit you.”
She closed the laptop.
“I am pleased that an arrogant man committed domestic battery under four cameras he forgot his wife owned.”
That was Claire.
The next morning, Theodore arrived at the hotel at 7:18.
He did not make it past the lobby.
Security called upstairs.
“Mrs. Patterson, your husband is requesting to see you.”
“No.”
“He says it is urgent.”
“So was my face yesterday.”
A pause.
“I’ll tell him.”
Five minutes later, Theodore called.
I answered.
“What?”
“Claire, stop this.”
“No.”
“My accounts are frozen.”
“Your personal accounts are untouched.”
“My company line is frozen.”
“My line.”
Silence.
He hated that answer.
“You’re trying to destroy me.”
“No. I stopped subsidizing you.”
“This is my business.”
“Then finance it.”
His voice dropped.
“Come home.”
I looked at the bruise in the mirror.
“I was told to get out.”
“I was angry.”
“You were clear.”
“My mother pushed me.”
“You are forty-one.”
“Claire—”
“You hit me.”
Silence.
Then, incredibly:
“You embarrassed me in front of my family.”
I laughed.
A real laugh.
“You struck your wife in front of eighteen people, and your concern is embarrassment?”
“You know how you speak to Mom.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The excuse.”
“I’m not excusing it.”
“You are doing it right now.”
He exhaled hard.
“Come downstairs.”
“No.”
“I love you.”
That almost hurt.
Almost.
“Yesterday you told me I owned nothing.”
“I was angry.”
“So was I.”
“What are you going to do?”
I looked at Claire, who was reading documents across the room.
“Find out what’s mine.”
Then I hung up.
The answer was almost everything.
Willow Creek was mine.
The Manhattan apartment Theodore used for business meetings was held by my company.
Three vehicles were leased through a subsidiary I owned.
Margaret’s monthly allowance came from a private support trust I had created after Theodore’s father died.
Theodore’s construction company was technically his.
But I held the secured note on the rescue capital I had provided eighteen months earlier.
He owed my holding company $12.4 million.
He had forgotten that too.
Or maybe he had decided marriage made contracts sentimental.
Contracts do not become sentimental.
By noon, Claire had prepared notices.
Margaret’s allowance would stop at the end of the current month.
The household staff at Willow Creek would be paid through Friday and then reassigned or released.
The property itself would be recovered.
The supplementary cards were permanently canceled.
The vehicle titles would be reviewed.
And Theodore’s business loan?
Claire smiled.
“We don’t have to call it.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want revenge.”
She studied me.
“What do you want?”
“Truth.”
“That usually costs more.”
“I can afford it.”
She smiled.
“There you are.”
Margaret called at 1:07.
I answered.
“You humiliated me at Bellamy.”
No hello.
No concern.
No apology.
Just jewelry.
“They declined my card in front of everyone.”
“My card.”
Silence.
“What?”
“The card you use is mine.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“No.”
“Theodore pays my expenses.”
“No.”
“My husband left us money.”
“Almost none.”
She went quiet.
Good.
I continued.
“The Patterson family trust had less than two million dollars when your husband died.”
“That’s a lie.”
“The statements are available.”
“You are lying.”
“Your house costs over forty thousand dollars a month to maintain.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you never asked who paid it.”
Her breathing changed.
“Theodore—”
“No.”
That one word cut through forty years of family mythology.
“No, Margaret. Theodore did not buy Willow Creek.”
Silence.
“He did not pay off the mortgage.”
Silence.
“He did not fund your allowance.”
More silence.
“I did.”
She finally spoke.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
“I have documents.”
“You married into this family with nothing.”
That was almost funny.
I had entered the marriage with a private-equity stake from my grandfather’s firm, real estate investments, and a trust from my late mother.
Theodore knew.
Margaret never bothered to learn.
“I had more money the day I married Theodore than your entire family had in liquid assets.”
She stopped breathing for half a second.
Then:
“You manipulative little—”
I hung up.
Some conversations stop being useful.
By dinner, the truth had reached the family group chat.
Not from me.
From Amelia.
Apparently Margaret had started calling relatives.
Within two hours, I had seventeen messages.
Some apologizing.
Some asking questions.
Some pretending they had never laughed.
One cousin, Bryce, wrote:
For the record, I thought what Theodore did was wrong.
Interesting.
He had been three feet away.
His fork never left his plate.
I replied:
Then next time, say it while it’s happening.
No response.
The police report came the next day.
I had debated whether to file one.
Then I watched the video again.
Theodore’s hand.
Margaret’s smile.
The room doing nothing.
And I understood something.
If I treated it like a private mistake, so would everyone else.
So I filed.
Theodore was not dragged away in handcuffs.
Life is rarely that theatrical.
He gave a statement.
The prosecutor reviewed the footage.
A protective order was issued temporarily.
That was enough.
For the first time in our marriage, Theodore had to ask permission before coming near me.
He hated it.
I slept better.
Three days later, Margaret received formal notice that she had thirty days to vacate Willow Creek.
She called Claire instead of me.
Smart.
Claire called afterward.
“She says the house is hers.”
“It isn’t.”
“She says you gifted it to her.”
“I didn’t.”
“She says she has witnesses.”
“To what?”
Claire laughed.
“Christmas dinners, apparently.”
“Strong evidence.”
“She also says moving would be medically dangerous.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
“Then proceed.”
There was a long pause.
Then Claire said:
“You sound different.”
“I feel different.”
“Good?”
“No.”
I looked around my hotel suite.
“At least real.”
That was enough.
Theodore came to Claire’s office a week later with his own lawyer.
For the first time since I met him, he looked older.
No expensive coat.
No confident smile.
No mother beside him.
Just Theodore.
He sat across from me at a long walnut table.
His attorney began.
“My client wishes to discuss reconciliation before financial matters escalate.”
I looked at Theodore.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His lawyer looked uncomfortable.
Theodore said:
“Because I love you.”
I waited.
“And?”
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“If I owned nothing, would you still be sitting here?”
His face changed.
That was answer enough.
He leaned forward.
“I didn’t know you owned Willow Creek.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know you funded Mom.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know about the construction loan.”
“You signed it.”
“I thought it came from your family office.”
“It did.”
He stared.
Then understanding arrived.
“Your family office.”
“Yes.”
Not some mysterious institution.
Mine.
His attorney looked down at the table.
Theodore rubbed his hands together.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I almost admired him.
That was the direction he chose.
“Why didn’t I tell you?”
“Yes.”
“I did.”
His eyes lifted.
“Before the wedding. Again when we refinanced the company debt. Again when I purchased Willow Creek.”
“You never said you were paying for all of it.”
“I gave you statements.”
“I don’t read those things.”
There.
That was Theodore.
He enjoyed wealth as atmosphere.
As identity.
As proof of importance.
But he had never wanted to know where it came from.
He only wanted to stand inside it and be praised.
I leaned back.
“That is not my deception, Theodore. That is your laziness.”
His face reddened.
His lawyer spoke quickly.
“Perhaps we should focus on resolution.”
“Agreed.”
Claire slid papers across the table.
Petition for divorce.
Financial disclosures.
Property schedule.
Loan documentation.
Theodore stared at them.
“You already filed?”
“This morning.”
His eyes moved to mine.
“You’re ending our marriage over one slap?”
“No.”
My voice was calm.
“I’m ending it over the man who believed he had the right to deliver it.”
He flinched.
Good.
Truth should reach somewhere.
The divorce became ugly.
Not because I wanted it to.
Because Theodore’s identity depended on believing he had been the provider.
Once the financial records became part of discovery, that illusion died publicly.
His company had survived because of my money.
His mother’s lifestyle existed because of my money.
Willow Creek existed because of my money.
Even the country-club dues he bragged about paying for Margaret had been auto-drafted from an account controlled by my office.
Theodore accused me of emasculating him.
I told Claire that was the first honest thing he had said.
She told me not to put that in an email.
Margaret refused to leave Willow Creek.
So eviction proceedings began.
Then she changed tactics.
Apologies.
Flowers.
Handwritten notes.
One said:
I always thought of you as a daughter.
I laughed so hard I cried.
The next line said:
Surely a daughter would not put her mother out of her home.
There it was.
Not apology.
Negotiation.
I did not answer.
Eventually, Margaret moved into a luxury condominium Theodore leased for her.
Smaller than Willow Creek.
Still larger than most people’s homes.
She called it “humiliating.”
I called it housing.
Then something happened I did not expect.
Amelia came to see me.
Theodore’s younger sister.
She had been at the birthday lunch.
She sat in Claire’s conference room with no lawyer.
No makeup.
No family representative.
Just herself.
“I owe you an apology.”
I waited.
“I saw him hit you.”
“Yes.”
“I did nothing.”
“Yes.”
She looked down.
“I was scared of Mom.”
“You’re thirty-eight.”
“I know.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
That answer made me soften by one inch.
She continued.
“Our whole family is like this.”
“Like what?”
“Mom decides who is wrong. Everyone adjusts.”
I thought about the dining room.
The silence.
The performance.
“I used to think Theodore was the only one she couldn’t control,” Amelia said.
I almost laughed.
“She controlled him best.”
Amelia nodded.
Then she pushed a flash drive across the table.
“What is this?”
“Emails.”
“From?”
“Mom and Theodore.”
My stomach tightened.
“About me?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Claire.
She plugged it in.
The first message was nine months old.
Margaret to Theodore:
If Claire keeps controlling the money, you will never be head of this family.
Another.
She should transfer Willow Creek into your name. It is humiliating that people may discover your wife owns your mother’s house.
Another.
Theodore:
I’ll handle it after the baby comes.
I stopped breathing.
After the baby.
Eight months ago.
Our baby.
Claire looked at me.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
The next email was sent three weeks after the miscarriage.
Margaret:
Maybe now she’ll focus on being a wife instead of building her empire.
Theodore replied:
Not now, Mom.
Two words.
That was all.
Not disgust.
Not anger.
Not do not ever speak about my wife like that.
Just not now.
I closed the laptop.
Amelia was crying.
“I’m sorry.”
This time I believed her.
Not because she cried.
Because she had brought evidence that could hurt her own family.
That costs something.
“I should have said something at lunch,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“I can’t change that.”
“No.”
“What can I do?”
“Next time you see someone being humiliated in a room full of people…”
I looked at her.
“Move.”
She nodded.
“I will.”
The emails changed the divorce.
Not legally as much as emotionally.
They showed me the slap had not come from nowhere.
Theodore had been building resentment for years.
Every time my success protected him, part of him hated needing it.
Every time Margaret praised him for money I provided, he accepted it.
Every time I stayed quiet, he mistook discretion for weakness.
He had not married me for money.
That would have been simpler.
He married me because he loved me.
Then slowly began hating the parts of me that made his life possible.
That was harder to forgive.
Four months after the birthday lunch, Theodore asked to meet me alone.
I said no.
We met with lawyers.
He looked exhausted.
“I’m selling the company.”
I blinked.
“Why?”
“I can’t refinance the debt without your support.”
“You have other options.”
“Bad ones.”
I nodded.
He looked at me.
“I spent years telling people I built everything.”
I said nothing.
“I believed it.”
Still nothing.
He laughed bitterly.
“That’s the worst part.”
“What is?”
“I wasn’t consciously lying.”
I understood.
That was the tragedy of privilege.
Use something long enough and eventually you call it yours.
He looked at his hands.
“I thought paying bills meant I was providing. I never asked where the money behind the accounts came from.”
“No.”
“I thought Mom’s allowance came from Dad’s estate.”
“No.”
“I thought Willow Creek was family property.”
“No.”
“I thought…”
He stopped.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“I thought you needed me more than I needed you.”
That was probably the most honest sentence of our marriage.
I nodded.
“You needed to believe that.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then:
“I’m sorry I hit you.”
I waited.
He continued.
“I’m sorry I let Mom humiliate you.”
Better.
“I’m sorry I used our baby’s death as something to stay silent about when she used it against you.”
My throat tightened.
Better.
“And I’m sorry I only understood any of this after you stopped paying for my life.”
There it was.
No demand.
No excuse.
No “but.”
I looked at him for a long time.
“Thank you.”
His eyes filled.
“Does that mean anything?”
“It means I heard you.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“Maybe someday.”
His shoulders dropped.
“And us?”
“No.”
That hurt him.
I saw it.
But the answer was still no.
An apology can be real and still arrive after the door has closed.
The divorce was finalized nine months after the slap.
I kept Willow Creek.
Then I sold it.
That surprised everyone.
Margaret called it spite.
Theodore called it unnecessary.
The truth was simpler.
I did not want the house.
Every hallway contained an argument.
Every room held someone else’s entitlement.
The chandeliers were beautiful.
The floors were perfect.
The garden had won awards.
I hated all of it.
A couple with three children bought the property.
The wife cried during closing because she had grown up nearby and used to drive past Willow Creek as a teenager.
“It always looked like a dream house,” she said.
I smiled.
“Make it one.”
That felt better than keeping it.
I donated part of the proceeds to a foundation supporting women rebuilding financial independence after abusive relationships.
Not because I needed symbolism.
Because money can become more honest after it stops protecting the wrong people.
Margaret’s $180,000 monthly payments ended permanently.
The world did not end.
She kept her condominium.
She sold jewelry.
Dismissed her driver.
Left the country club.
For months she told relatives I had ruined her life.
Then something unexpected happened.
She got quieter.
A year after the divorce, I received a letter.
Not from a lawyer.
From Margaret.
Three pages.
The first page was exactly what I expected.
Excuses.
Grief after her husband died.
Fear.
Pride.
Then halfway through page two:
I allowed myself to believe that money appeared because my son was important. I did not ask because the answer might have embarrassed me.
I kept reading.
I treated your generosity as evidence of Theodore’s success and your boundaries as evidence of selfishness.
Then:
The day he struck you, I smiled. I have replayed that moment more times than I can count. I am ashamed of the woman in that room.
I sat with the letter for a long time.
Then I placed it in a drawer.
I never replied.
Some apologies are valuable even when they do not purchase reconciliation.
Two years later, I saw Theodore again.
A charity dinner.
Of all places.
He looked different.
Less polished.
More human.
He approached carefully.
“Hello, Claire.”
“Hello.”
He nodded toward the bruise-free side of my face as though the memory still existed there.
“How are you?”
“Good.”
He smiled faintly.
“I heard you started a new fund.”
“Yes.”
“For women leaving abusive marriages.”
“Yes.”
He looked down.
“Appropriate.”
I said nothing.
Then he looked back up.
“I’m glad you’re happy.”
“I am.”
And I was.
Not because I had found someone else.
I had not.
Not yet.
I was happy because I could enter a room without measuring everyone’s mood.
Because my money no longer disappeared into people who called it theirs.
Because silence was now a choice instead of a survival strategy.
Because no one in my home could raise a hand to me and still expect breakfast the next morning.
Theodore cleared his throat.
“Do you ever think about that day?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
“I hope you do.”
He nodded.
“I deserved that.”
“Probably.”
For the first time, we both almost smiled.
Then he walked away.
That was enough.
People who heard the story later always focused on the money.
The mansion.
The $180,000 monthly allowance.
The credit cards.
The company loan.
They loved the part where Margaret’s card stopped working.
They loved imagining Theodore discovering that the house he threw me out of had never belonged to him.
I understand why.
Reversals are satisfying.
But that was not the part that changed me.
The important part happened before any account was frozen.
Before the lawyer.
Before the documents.
Before the family learned the truth.
It happened when Theodore slapped me in front of eighteen people.
And everyone stayed seated.
That was the moment I understood the house had never been safe.
Not because Theodore hit me.
Because the room had already decided I was the easiest person to sacrifice.
Money only gave me a way out.
The decision to leave had to come first.
I used to think strength meant enduring humiliation quietly so a family could remain intact.
Now I know better.
Sometimes silence is dignity.
Sometimes silence is strategy.
But silence should never be mistaken for permission.
Theodore told me to get out of his house.
So I did.
I took only my purse.
My phone.
And myself.
The jewelry stayed behind that night.
The keys stayed behind.
The cars stayed.
Even my clothes stayed upstairs.
But none of that mattered.
Because the one thing Theodore thought he was taking away from me—
my life—
had never belonged to him.
And when the books were finally opened, the deeds pulled, the accounts traced, and every comfortable family myth reduced to numbers, they learned something they should have understood from the beginning:
I had never been living off the Patterson family.
The Patterson family had been living off me.
And the day Theodore raised his hand was the day I finally stopped paying for the privilege.