He maps every financial detail, spends recklessly on lavishness, dresses the house in extravagance like a stage set for outsiders to applaud. I've tried - God knows I've tried - to explain the difference between want and need, to tell him that minimalism is not mediocrity, that simplicity is not failure.
But my words fall into the abyss of his arrogance. He spends to be seen, while I save to survive. He thrives on the applause of strangers, while I crave the quiet dignity of enough.
And yet, every argument leaves me crushed beneath the same unspoken verdict: my work, my effort, my joy, my identity - all of it is invisible to him. All of it is mocked because it does not gleam like gold, because it does not roar like his empire.
He does not see that my job is not about the size of the paycheck - it is about the fragments of dignity I salvage in a life that otherwise feels borrowed, belittled, and broken.
In his eyes, I am nothing more than a shadow living under the roof he built, a silent witness to his empire of excess. But in my heart, I know I am more. And yet, the cruel irony remains: every time I try to prove it, every time I dare to rise, he drags me back down, reminding me of my place - not as an equal, not as a partner, but as an accessory to his performance of grandeur.