Every time my brother-in-law drove me home, I would lose consciousness and wake up with unexplained aches and pains. My husband would only laugh and say, “You’re just out of shape, that’s all.” After the fourth ride, I secretly slipped a voice recorder into my purse and said nothing. That night, I listened to a phone conversation between the two of them that revealed my blackouts had never been accidental.

Julian hated being refused.

I had mistaken his sulking for disappointment.

The emails suggested he had begun planning another route.

Under his preferred version of events, I would be a wife whose health was deteriorating, unable to manage complex finances and increasingly dependent on his guidance.

Medical notes, even unreliable ones, could create confusion when combined with his statements about exhaustion, forgetfulness, and marital strain.

A court would not automatically hand him control of my property, but he seemed to believe that enough apparently official records could put him in a position to ask.