It was a problem to be solved.

And a few weeks later, they came to solve it.

They did not send a lawyer, or call a meeting, or make a counter-argument, because arguing would have meant treating me as a person whose reasoning mattered, and they had stopped doing that years before.

They came to the house, with a folder, and made their demand, and when I refused it they reached for the oldest and crudest tool there is.

It told me everything about how they saw me.

You do not try to break a partner.