My Husband Filed for Divorce Right After I Inherited My Mom’s Fortune – He Thought He Hit the Jac…

The Day the World Collapsed

My name is Chenise Williams, and I’m about to tell you how my mama protected me from beyond the grave and how the man I loved for 15 years showed me exactly who he really was on the worst day of my life. It started two days after we buried my mama.

Two days. I was still wearing black, still crying myself to sleep every night, still finding her reading glasses in random places around my house and breaking down all over again.

My mama, Gloria Patterson, had been my everything. She raised me by herself after my daddy passed when I was seven.

She worked two jobs, sometimes three, to make sure I had everything I needed. She put me through college.

She was at my wedding holding my hand and smiling, even though something in her eyes told me she had doubts about Marcus. I should have listened to that look, but I was young and in love.

Marcus was charming and handsome and said all the right things. We got married when I was 23, and for the first few years, things were good, or at least I thought they were good.

Marcus worked in sales, and I was a teacher at the local elementary school. We had a nice little house, a decent car, and we were building a life together.

My mama never said anything negative about Marcus directly. She was too classy for that, but there were little moments—times when she’d look at him with this expression I couldn’t quite read.

She’d pull me aside and ask: “Baby, are you happy? Really happy?” And I’d always say: “Yes,” because I thought I was.

Looking back now, I realized my mama saw things I was too blind to see. Marcus had started changing about five years into our marriage.

He became obsessed with money, with status, with what other people had. He’d drive through the rich neighborhoods and talk about when we make it big and when we get our piece of the pie.

He started making comments about how teaching didn’t pay enough, about how my mama should have invested better, about how we deserved more than what we had.

I ignored the red flags because I loved him, because I thought marriage meant working through the rough patches, because my mama raised me to be loyal and committed.

The Long Goodbye

Three months before my mama passed, she was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. It came out of nowhere and moved fast—too fast.

One day she was healthy and strong, cooking Sunday dinner and singing in the church choir. The next day she was in the hospital being told she had maybe six months to live.

She made it four. Those four months were the hardest of my life, but they were also precious.

I took a leave of absence from work to take care of her. I moved into her house so I could be there around the clock.

Marcus complained about it. He said I was neglecting our marriage, said he needed me at home.

But my mama needed me more, and for once in my life, I put my foot down. During those four months, my mama and I talked about everything: our memories, our regrets, our hopes.

She told me stories about my daddy that she’d never shared before. She told me about her own dreams and disappointments.

She told me over and over again that she loved me and wanted me to be happy.

“Baby,” she said to me one night about two weeks before she passed. “I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything, Mama,” I said, holding her frail hand.

“Promise me you’ll be strong. Promise me you’ll stand up for yourself no matter what. Promise me you won’t let anybody make you feel small or unworthy.”

I didn’t understand why she was being so intense about it, but I promised anyway.

“And baby,” she continued, her voice barely a whisper. “Promise me you’ll trust Attorney Bernard Jackson. He’s been my lawyer for 20 years, and he’s a good man. When the time comes, you listen to him. You hear me?”

“I hear you, Mama.”

She squeezed my hand. “Some people show you who they really are when they think they have something to gain. Watch for that, baby. Watch for it.”

At the time, I thought she was just being protective, maybe a little paranoid because of the medication. I had no idea she was trying to warn me.

A Cold Betrayal

My mama passed on a Tuesday morning in October. I was holding her hand.

Marcus was at work. He said he couldn’t take any more time off, that he’d already missed too much.

My best friend Kesha was there, though, and so was Pastor Williams from our church. Mama went peacefully with me whispering, “I love you,” over and over until she took her last breath.

The funeral was beautiful. The whole church came out because Mama had touched so many lives and helped so many people.

The choir sang her favorite hymns. People stood up and shared stories about how Gloria Patterson had made a difference in their lives.

I cried through the whole service, and Marcus sat next to me holding my hand, acting like the supportive husband.

I should have known something was wrong when he kept asking about the will.

“Did your mama leave any paperwork?” he asked the night before the funeral.

“Marcus, I just lost my mama. Can we not talk about this right now?”

“I’m just trying to help, baby. We need to know what we’re dealing with. Did she have any assets? Property? Savings?”

I knew my mama owned her house outright; she’d paid it off years ago. I knew she had some savings because she’d always been careful with money.

But I didn’t know the details, and honestly, I didn’t care. I just wanted my mama back.

The day after the funeral, I was at home in my pajamas, surrounded by sympathy cards and casserole dishes, when Marcus came into the bedroom.

“Chenise,” he said, “we need to talk.”

I looked up at him with swollen eyes. I’d been crying all morning. “What is it?”

He took a deep breath, and for a split second, I saw something in his face that scared me—something cold and calculated.

“I think we need to separate,” he said.

The words didn’t make sense at first. I just stared at him. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. We’ve grown apart. You’ve been distant. I think we need some time apart to figure out if this marriage is really working.”

My whole body went numb. “Marcus, my mama just died. She died yesterday. We buried her today, and you want to talk about separating?”

“I know the timing isn’t great, but I’ve been holding this in for months. I can’t do it anymore.”

“You’ve been holding it in?” My voice was rising now. “While I was taking care of my dying mother, you were planning to leave me?”

“Don’t make this dramatic, Chenise. We both know this marriage has been dead for years.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This man I’d loved for 15 years was sitting in our bedroom the day after my mama’s funeral, telling me he wanted out.

“Get out!” I whispered.

“What?”

“Get out!” I screamed this time. “Get out of this room and get out of my sight!”

He stood up slowly, and that’s when I saw it again—that cold look. “Fine. But we’re going to have to deal with this eventually. And Chenise, you should probably talk to a lawyer, too.”

He walked out, and I collapsed on the bed, sobbing so hard I thought I might die from the pain of it all.

The Jackpot Mentality

Kesha came over an hour later. She’d been checking on me every day since Mama passed.

When she walked in and saw me on the floor, still in my funeral dress, crying hysterically, she knew something bad had happened.

“Chenise, what’s wrong? What happened?”

I could barely get the words out. “He wants to leave me. Marcus wants to leave me. My mama is gone, and now he’s leaving me, too.”

Kesha held me while I cried. “That man is a fool,” she kept saying. “A damn fool.”

That night, I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my mama’s face and heard her voice telling me to be strong.

The next morning, Marcus came back. I heard him moving around in the living room, and when I came out, he was sitting at the kitchen table with a folder.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Divorce papers,” he said calmly, like he was discussing the weather. “I already filed. You just need to sign them.”

I felt like I’d been slapped. “You already filed, Marcus? Mama died two days ago. Two days!”

“I know you’re emotional right now, but this is for the best. Trust me.”

He slid the papers across the table. “My lawyer says if we do this amicably, it’ll be quick and clean. We can split everything 50/50, sell the house, and move on with our lives.”

“50/50?” I was trying to process what was happening. “This is about money. This is about my mama’s inheritance, isn’t it?”

He had the audacity to look offended. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you’re talking about splitting everything! Because you waited until right after she died to do this!”

“Chenise, community property law is clear. Whatever assets come into the marriage get split equally. I’m just trying to be fair.”

“Fair?” He thought he was being fair by ambushing me with divorce papers while I was grieving my mama.

“I need you to leave,” I said quietly.

“We live here together.”

“Leave, Marcus! Go stay with your brother. Go to a hotel. I don’t care, but I can’t look at you right now.”

He stood up, but before he left, he said something that made my blood run cold.

“You should know that I talked to a lawyer about your mama’s estate. If she left you anything, it’s technically marital property since we’re still married. So you might want to think about signing those papers sooner rather than later. The longer you drag this out, the messier it gets.”